Aurora defeated Vitality 2-1 in the StarSeries Fall upper bracket finals, strongly advancing to the Grand Finals. In a post-match interview, Jimpphat expressed that this victory proves they can defeat top teams. Following the team's long talks after the Copenhagen loss and mental synchronization with ash, the roster is transforming with greater confidence and a more aggressive approach. For the finals, he hopes to carry forward the momentum and establish their identity as the "new Aurora."
Reporter: So first of all, when you came here, you defeated NAVI, which was your first victory at a major LAN event, but then we saw NAVI eliminated... Now you've beaten Vitality again—maybe not peak Vitality, but still highly ranked and a very talented strong team. So tell me, what does this huge victory here mean to you?
Jimpphat: Of course, it means a lot. We played a lot of good CS in practice. But in tournaments... we've always fallen short so far, but that makes sense since we're still a very new team, so we wouldn't expect ourselves to beat every top team no matter how well we play in practice, because it's a completely different game. So coming here now, we feel very confident.
Obviously, winning this tournament would be great, for all the VRS points and so on, for the Hong Kong invite, for the Major. So we really put in maximum effort to prepare for this event, and I think we did. Now, beating Vitality is a huge victory—maybe they're not at their peak, but they're still one of the best teams in the world, and no one can really argue against that. So it's a very good win, and we won with quite some confidence. I'd say Inferno was a bit tight, but afterward, I think we played really, really well.
Reporter: Yes, I noticed that Ash said a few words to you after the match, saying, "Oh, you were really on fire today." What exactly was he referring to?
Jimpphat：Basically, he was saying that I play very actively. I lurk very aggressively, getting many opening kills, and whenever we fall into a 4v5 situation, I always try to turn it around and get kills. For example, on Nuke, I always try to get kills from Door, Hut, and Mid, and so on. That's what I like to do. For me, it's important that I play aggressively because that's when I perform my best.
Obviously, you can't always be like this if you don't feel the game, but I've been cockily confident lately. I want to take every duel I can, especially against Vitality—they're such a strong team. They play great team CS, and individually they're strong too, but you have to be fearless against them. You can't think, 'Oh, they're way better individually, they're the better team.' The moment you think that, you've already lost.
So you just need to play fearlessly, not caring who you're up against, and just go straight into gunfights. That's what I've been doing—playing as aggressively as possible, and I feel it's been working really well. It's something I've been practicing for a while now, so I want to keep it up because clearly, the results so far have been good, so it seems to be working. But yes, it's all about playing with a lot of confidence.
Reporter: One thing you've discussed in the past is the team's mentality and how you sometimes lose to yourselves. How would you describe what has changed now, and what happened today?
Jimpphat：I think the whole discussion was more about our entire team. Recently, after we played in Copenhagen at BLAST Porto and lost to G2, we had a very significant team talk because even though we played decently, there were too many mistakes. If we continue doing the same things, we definitely wouldn't be able to beat a team like Vitality today, for example, because that was really bad.
As a team, we've just agreed that, "Okay, we need to get better," because we know the potential of this roster. We know how good we can be. Obviously, it's still early to say, and we're still a pretty new team and all that, but it seems like every player on our team truly has a lot of potential.
Personally, I had a lot of chats with Ash. He really helped me a lot behind the scenes; we worked together, talked a lot about CS, certain plays, and how to mentally engage in the game when needed. Especially during important matches. So I've been working with Ash and also putting in effort to improve on my own, and obviously the results have been great, so I want to keep that going.
But at the same time, I know you can't always be at your best, so there will always be some bad matches. But right now, I just want to use this momentum I have in this tournament, especially. Hopefully, no matter who we face in the final, we can keep it going and not go back to the old patterns we've seen in past tournaments.
I just want to compete as a new Aurora, showcasing how good we can be in truly important matches—obviously the finals. So we’ll give it our all, see how far we can go, and then learn everything we can from this tournament to keep progressing, step by step.
Reporter: Yes, this tournament is a bit special because the last day will actually feature two finals: the loser bracket final and the Grand Final. How important is it for you to not play the first match tomorrow? Is it a BO5 or a BO3?
Jimpphat: That's definitely, definitely a huge impact, because in a sense, after playing two matches you might get hot hands, but at the same time you need to understand that doing that would be mentally exhausting. From BO3 to BO5, it's hard to stay completely focused throughout. Let's say you win 2-1 in a BO3, and then play a BO5, and the match is super close...
I felt we had the advantage in that situation because we should have had more energy, but overall I think it's a good thing. We can prepare more; we have time to relax, see who our opponents might be, and then prepare, hoping to enter the server with full fighting spirit once again. In these past matches, even when we didn't have much time to train, we were really motivated right from the start, which was a key reason we performed so well in this tournament. So hopefully, we can bring that same mentality to the finals.
Journalist: If Vitality can advance through tomorrow's match, how do you think a rematch with them in a BO5 series would play out?
Jimpphat：It'll obviously be harder, and I think they've come from the losers bracket or lower bracket final, so they'll be the favorites facing us in the final. So if we beat them tomorrow, that win won't count for much, because then we'll have to beat them again, and that's the important match—that's the one that'll show who's truly the better team.
Well, I'd say they are the favorites, coming from the losers' bracket, or making it out from the losers' bracket finals. But whoever it might be, I think just today alone has given us a lot of confidence because we showed that we can truly defeat a very strong, top-tier team. So that makes us feel much more confident and really good.