X10 CRIT is heading back to Thailand. At VALORANT Champions Tour Champions, the squad impressively made it to the quarterfinals, but bit the dust there against Masters 3 champions Gambit Esports. While the loss stings, in-game leader Itthirit “foxz” Ngamsaard had reason to smile after the series.
Having fun was of the utmost importance to foxz and his teammates. (Image courtesy of Lance Skundrich for Riot Games)
foxz joined for an interview and reflected on the series against Gambit. He discussed first-picking the new map Fracture, and why the fringe agent KAY/O fits his team’s playstyle perfectly. foxz also looked back at his first full year competing in VALORANT.
Hotspawn: Welcome, foxz. You’re unfortunately eliminated from VCT Champions after losing to Gambit, but it was an entertaining series. What are your thoughts?
foxz: I feel sad because we lost, but I will go back and improve to make sure that the next time is better for us.
Hotspawn: You’re standing here with a smile on your face—are you just happy about your team’s overall run in the tournament?
foxz: I’m disappointed, but we did our best. So, we are not sad about the result. So I just smile and accept the result as it is.
Hotspawn: Talking about the match against Gambit: Fracture was locked in first, which was a big surprise. Can you tell me more about this?
foxz: We picked Fracture because we played it versus [Gambit] in scrims before, and we were able to win on this map. But they obviously went back to fix their mistakes and were able to read a lot of our plays. That’s why we lost.
Hotspawn: What made you perform well, albeit in scrims, on this very new map?
foxz: We have to be thankful for our neighboring teams, such as Korean teams and Chinese teams, that helped us scrim. They helped us become pretty good on the map.
Hotspawn: Then, once on Fracture, you chose KAY/O as your agent. That is also a strategy we haven’t seen often and your team kept picking him after as well. Can you tell me more about picking him?
foxz: The reason I picked KAY/O was that I was going to utilize the flash he has, and also the ultimate, for going onto the bomb site. Sometimes, I think that KAY/O is a pretty stupid champion. It’s just flashing and then walking out to shoot. I think it matches our style well because we play like a bunch of idiots. [Laughs]
Hotspawn: [Laughs] In what way?
foxz: We pretty much just flash and then go in to shoot without thinking much.
Hotspawn: Alright, well, your team recovered well from the first map loss. Was it difficult to stay focused after that tense map?
foxz: We just don’t pay attention to the loss and we just try to have fun with it.
Hotspawn: X10 has seemed like a positive team overall. Has that been a strength for you during VCT Champions?
foxz: This is a secret, but actually we came here thinking that we would win it all. But after a lot of scrims, we had a lot of arguments. We were about to punch each other. So, we said we should stop, just say ‘fuck it’, and then enjoy the tournament.
Hotspawn: When did you realize that winning the tournament wasn’t as guaranteed as you thought initially?
foxz: I think it was during our scrims. We hoped too much for the win. The other teams played super well, so we just started to focus less on the win, and more on having fun.
Hotspawn: Now that the VCT year is over for you, how do you look back on the year you’ve had?
foxz: I think it’s fantastic that we were able to come this far because we really didn’t think that we were able to get here. When we started to form a team, we did say that we wanted to come. But after playing a while, we saw that the chance was really slim. We just tried our best.
Hotspawn: To round up, foxz, do you want to say anything to your supporters?
foxz: I want to thank all the fans, both new fans and old fans that have always been supporting us. I personally use all your cheering as my power source to look forward and continue playing.
VCT Champions continues on Saturday, December 13th, at 6 PM CET. You can watch it live on the VALORANT Twitch channel.
