Virtus.pro commented on their crushing defeat to 9Pandas

Artem "Fng" Barshak believes that his squad had prepared enough for the match against 9 Pandas, but the opponent was clearly stronger in the draft and on the battlefield. Nevertheless, the cyber athlete believes that despite the negativity of the defeat, now is not the time to despair, as the roster still has a chance to compete for a slot at The International 2024 in the lower qualification bracket.

The Virtus.pro support shared a statement to that effect in a post-match interview during the Twitch broadcast of the tournament.

"We prepared like we usually do: just a lot of games, a lot of KV, sit, play, discuss. Against 9 Pandas, frankly, we were just outplayed by the draft and the game. 9 Pandas played really, really well against us. They deservedly won.

Naturally, after the defeat we started to rethink a lot of things, because there are reasons why we didn't do well and why our heroes were incoherent. Something changed today, and further, of course, it will change from team to team.

And to say that the mood is bad.... Well, it's always unpleasant to lose - it's a fact. But what does it matter if we still have a chance to reach the final and pass? So we don't have time to be upset. We sit, we play."

The cybersportsman also commented on the result of the match against One Move, saying that his team played terribly on the second map, while the opponent had every chance to win it. However, Artem "Fng" Barshak said that One Move lacked the experience to pull out the victory. Next the team will have to play against L1ga Team in the second match of the lower bracket.

Recall that earlier Yaroslav "NS" Kuznetsov harshly criticized the Virtus.pro squad for the defeat.