Vitality rifler William 'mezii' Merriman delivered a wide-ranging post-match interview after his side dispatched NAVI in the BLAST Rivals Fort Worth 2026 grand final, touching on Counter-Strike's controversial AG2 update, smoke quirks across the map pool, and his team's seemingly insatiable appetite for silverware.
In-game leader apEX bowed out of the press routine after the title-clinching win, with mezii admitting his captain had little patience for what he affectionately called 'an email's worth' of post-match questions. 'I put in an interview for apEX. This could have been an email,' the broadcaster joked, before mezii took up the microphone.
Asked how he was feeling after another trophy lift, mezii deadpanned: 'Good. I mean, doesn't get old lifting trophies. It's a fun thing. I think a lot of people may be getting bored of it, but we definitely don't.'
The interview moved quickly to Counter-Strike's recent AG2 update, which has split player opinion across the top of the scene. Mezii admitted his initial impression was negative.
'I'm not going to lie, at first it felt not great,' he said. 'We didn't practice before this event. apEX doesn't like it. When they first updated, I played some deathmatch and the aim punch felt awful. Even when you've got armor, you still get an aim punch for some reason, so that didn't feel great.'
That criticism extended to a number of map-specific bugs introduced by the patch — most notably with smoke utility on heavily contested executes.
'The movement and stuff feels — I mean, it didn't feel that different,' mezii said. 'But for some reason, somehow they messed up a lot of smokes with the update. Like the Dust2 on top of the door. There's some outside on Nuke as well, like some things that I don't know why. I think it's the height difference or something.'
Despite the gripes, the rifler insisted Vitality had managed the transition well enough on stage. 'No, it feels fine,' he said simply.
The interview took a comic turn when the broadcaster pivoted to British food culture. 'Do you actually eat beans on toast?' he asked. Mezii laughed: 'You're probably not British if you don't like beans on toast. I mean, it's just a classic. A lot of people haven't tried it and they knock it for some reason. These French guys love their food, they love all this stuff, but they don't try beans on toast. They say it's it's …'
When pressed on whether the bread should be toasted, mezii didn't hesitate. 'It's toasted. But you've got to be pretty quick to eat, otherwise it will go pretty soggy fast.'
There was also a brief tactical aside on a moment from the CT side of Nuke earlier in the series, when a back-end teammate appeared to overrule a call from rising star Zyu.
'Apex literally was like, dude, let's just play together. We're not going to do that. Matthew is what he said on our CT side,' mezii recounted. 'I think with Matthew sometimes he's fully locked in. He just kills people, so it doesn't really matter to him.'
With the BLAST Rivals trophy already on the plane home and IEM Rio fresh in the memory, Vitality now turn their attention to Cologne. If mezii's mood is any indication, the rest of CS2 should brace for more.