chopper on w0nderful: "He can play as aggressively as degster"

In a press conference for the IEM Cologne 2022 Play-In stage participants, Team Spirit's in-game leader Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov compared the new AWPer of his team Igor "w0nderful" Zhdanov to his predecessor in this role Abdul "degster" Gasanov. The IGL believes that the rookie can act no less aggressively than the departed player, but at the same time, he is more willing to listen to the team's requirements.

At the tryouts, we tested different players, of which Igor stood out a lot. And so it happened. We chose him after the first day of testing. As for the difference with degster, I know that Igor is younger and ready to do what we need. Yet, he can play as aggressively as Abdul. Time will tell.

According to Vishnyakov, Team Spirit come to the upcoming tournament in a good form.

We spent the last month looking for an AWPer and once we found him, we immediately began to build our game, train and play maps. I think the team is in good condition. <...> Our goal is to play everywhere, give 100% and go further and further, regardless of whether we play in the Play-In, playoffs or group stage.

The first opponents of Team Spirit at IEM Cologne 2022 will be Complexity. The two teams have been practicing a lot together lately, chopper noted.

I know they practice a lot. They have a good map pool that is comfortable for both teams. Complexity don't pick maps that we play well, just like we don't pick their strong maps. Even before we knew the bracket, we played many praccs with them as a new roster. Everything was fine. We'll see. It will be an interesting game.

The match between Team Spirit and Complexity will take place tomorrow, July 5, at 12:00 MSK. On the same day, the winners will have the opportunity to fight for a spot in the group stage of IEM Cologne 2022 and will face the best team of the 00NATION – Astralis matchup.