Before the start of the playoff stage of IEM Dallas 2024, we managed to interview Team Vitality's sniper, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut. 

In the interview, he shared a lot of interesting insights about the scene in the USA, CS2, and much more.

How was it to play in front of the crowd today?

It was insane, it's been a while since we haven't made it in front of a crowd so for now we just expect to be in those games because that's where we perform the most. 

apEX's pistol rounds were really strong, how were you feeling about it?

They were insane, he told us on Nuke "Guys, I'm ZywOo, I'm just killing everyone." Even he didn't believe that he could shoot like that and it was because of him that we won Nuke for sure.

Let's go back to when you played 9z; what have you fixed from your game against them?

Actually, we didn't fix anything in particular, that game was just our mentality. The two games between 9z and HEROIC were very different, so we just had a talk within the team about what we needed to bring to the server in order to be good. Because of that, even before the game, we were already ready to face HEROIC.

Dust II was a completely dominant showing, does that show your mentality of getting back to your top level?

Yeah, that's our way to come back. We just have to play our own game; we have to play together, play aggressive, our way to play CS. We showed that way today against HEROIC so if we carry on playing like that and playing as a team, we can be unstoppable on the server. 

Looking ahead to your next game against Spirit, you haven't played them yet this year, what do you think of them?

They're really good and have been since the beginning of the year. Honestly, we're not really thinking about the fact we're going o play against Spirit, donk, or whatever, we're just looking at it the same way we would if it was FaZe, G2, or any other big team. We'll just prepare, play our own game, and see what we can do. We don't have any pressure, and we are the underdogs in this game, so we'll just play our game and see what happens.

Who do you think is the most promising star in CS right now?

donk, obviously, he's insane.

Who do you think has been the top five players in 2024 so far?

m0NESY and donk, for sure. Maybe xertioN and frozen, they've both been playing really good. Then sh1ro or zont1x, they've both been playing really good.

Do you believe s1mple is coming back to the professional stage?

Yeah, of course, but I don't know where he is in life right now. Obviously it's hard with things that have happened, so it's going to take time, but if he wants to come back, he'll come back. He just took a break before CS2 and he has other situations so it'll be hard, but he can come back whenever he wants.

What do you think about the recent updates to the game?

I think it's great. Obviously Overpass was always a great map but Dust II is the legendary map that everyone knows, so it's great to see it again.

What is your favourite skin, and what is your most expensive skin?

I have a Dragon Lore and a Karambit Gamma Doppler Emerald, a Butterfly Sapphire Doppler, so it would be one of those... Oh, and I have an AWP Gungnir too.

What do you think about Vertigo and the changes to the economy?

To be honest, I've played Vertigo once since the update, but I think the changes to A are cool because it creates more space for both teams. Other than that, I don't have a real feeling on it yet.

The economy changes are good because you could lose the first round as a T and almost have as much money as a CT if you planted the bomb so it was weird. I think it's the perfect balance.