Mezii at IEM Katowice: “The team chemistry and just the atmosphere outside the game is really good”

Team Vitality have earned a place at the Spodek Arena for the IEM Katowice 2025 playoffs. I got to talk with William “mezii” Merriman about playing with ropz, apEX’s role as IGL and bringing Train into the professional map pool.

Sophie: So first off, congratulations for making it to the playoffs.

How does it feel?

mezii: It feels good. First time for me going to be playing in the Spodek and making the playoffs at Kato. So I think overall Vitality didn’t have the best record at making playoffs so it feels nice to get over the line and make it to playoffs and yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

Sophie: Brilliant. Okay, because I guess you’ve recently changed a player, you’ve got ropz playing for you now.

So how is he fitting into the team?

mezii: I think he’s fitting in very well and I think outside the server as well. Even in our first boot camp and first like practice games I think the team chemistry and just the atmosphere outside the game is really good.

I think he’s getting on really well with us and then also in game I think he’s a player that has a lot of experience especially at a lot of these big tournaments and making deep runs. So it’s important for us because I think last year we had a lot of deep runs where we couldn’t close out games. There’s a lot of close games. So I think having a player like ropz is someone that’s going to definitely help us close these games out.

Sophie: Okay, cool. So he gives you a bit of a confidence boost I guess.

mezii: Yeah, for sure. I think the confidence boost and just that presence on the server, keeping calm and you just know for a fact that when it’s a 1v1 or a tense situation he’s going to come up clutch as well.

So how do you go about building that bond with a new player?

Sophie: Because I guess you haven’t had a new player since yourself, right? In 2023?

mezii: Yeah, I mean, I mean sometimes obviously it can be tough when you get someone in. Sometimes it might be you feel a bit forced to try and make team building or team chemistry. But I think with ropz it’s been really natural. I think it’s the best way as well. If someone comes in and just naturally everyone gets on, you can have a laugh and everything. So I think that’s been the best thing with ropz is just that instantly we’ve all got on really. Well it’s not been, it’s not felt forced on the server and off the server. So it’s felt really good to have that in the team.

Sophie: Oh brilliant. That’s really good to hear because I guess that’s always a little bit of a risk when you’re bringing in someone new.

Okay, I did want to ask really quick because we’ve seen a lot of apEX apEX-ing in this group stage.

So how important is it to bring that level of passion to every single game?

mezii: Yeah, I think it’s the most important thing.

I think when you have a captain who’s going to do that, I think it’s, it brings everyone else’s level up.

I think it’s something that, of course we have a lot of calm players, a bit more quiet players, but I think having the captain that’s gonna really, well just be that leader, I think it’s, it’s really important because it gives everyone else the extra push too.

Even if we are a bit quiet, if we hear him, we know that we’re gonna also have to be a bit louder. And yeah, I think everyone’s definitely seen at this tournament that like, like say apEX is going to do his thing, but it also brings stuff out of everyone else as well. So I think it gives that extra push to bring the hype.

Even if we’re rounds down, when you win that first round, he’s going to be there shouting, so we need to be there as well. So I think it’s something that I think is very underrated from an IGL or a captain because yes, they need to do their job in game to be able to make calls strategically or tactically, but you also need that person that’s going to, when things are going wrong, he’s going to hype you up, he’s going to make sure that we’re focused. So I think it’s really important.

Sophie: Absolutely. I mean, you’re never going to get another hype man like apEX, right?

mezii: Exactly.

Sophie: Okay, cool. So, very last question. I just want to touch really quickly on the change from Vertigo to Train. I’ve seen some people like JL really don’t like it.

But how do you feel about that map change?

mezii: I mean, I definitely thought Vertigo had to go, I had to have a change. So any of the maps, like whether it was Cache, Train or whatever comes in, I would have been happy. And I think when Train first come out, I was a bit hesitant.

I wasn’t really sure because I think it definitely didn’t feel like the old Train. It felt like Train, but not Train because it wasn’t exactly the same. It feels really compact and short. But after playing it, I think I’ve been a bit more open to it, a bit more surprised. Because it’s felt good when we’ve been playing it and practicing it, so I can’t really complain.

Of course, when you bring a new map in, there’s always going to have to be changes and so on, but I think at the moment it’s been a nice fresh progress change at least. So I’m looking forward to playing it more in officials.

Sophie: Yeah, brilliant.

If you could pick a different map to bring in from any map that has ever been in any game mode, what would you pick?

mezii: I mean, for me, I never professionally got to play Cache, and I think there’s always been a lot of cool highlights from the past from big tournaments that have been on Cache. And so that will be one map and I think one map that I’ve never seen in CS:GO or CS2 and that I played in CS Source was a map called Contra, which I really enjoyed playing.

But I don’t think they would ever say it competitively. But yeah, I think a map that could be ready or close to being ready is Cache. I think that would be the next map for me to bring in.