jL on preparing for his role as a stand-in for Team Vitality: “Ten maps. That’s the most we could play.”
Team Vitality stand-in Justinas “jL” Lekavičius spoke in an interview at BLAST Open Porto 2026 about preparing to play for the team, training with the roster, and his experience watching the game from the sidelines.
On preparing for the stand-in role
To be honest, during the first week we were together, I just watched them play because they were practicing ahead of the tournament in Paris. And I just watched them—it was strange because, as the sixth player—not really a sixth player, but just someone watching everything from the sidelines and hearing the voice chat—it feels like you see the whole picture. I never understood how coaches see the game, and here I am from above, seeing everyone’s POV, and thinking, “Wait a minute. It’s actually pretty easy to move the team around the map.” As a coach, you see more and think, “There’s a gap here” or “You’re not doing this often enough.” So that helped me look at the game differently.
On the number of practices with Team Vitality
Ten maps. That’s the maximum we could play. I’d much rather focus on knowing what to do than just playing together, because we’ve been playing this game for a long time. It doesn’t matter, but you need to know exactly what you’re playing.
On the attitude of Team Vitality’s players
It’s strange because, to me, they’re all top-tier. At a very high level. And they’re such down-to-earth and very humble people—they just accepted me as one of their teammates. So I really enjoy being on this team.
On his experience with MOUZ
First of all, I learned a lesson from my time at MOUZ: I shouldn’t try to copy another player exactly. I need to play my own game. I fulfill my responsibilities and play my own game. And I think that’s my strongest point right now. So we’ll see how things go. We haven’t had any official matches yet, and practice is going well, but practice is just practice. To be honest, I was a little nervous even during practice. Maybe the official matches will be a little different because now we know what we’re doing.
Right now, Justinas “jL” Lekavičius’s team is facing off against Inner Circle in their debut match at BLAST Open Porto 2026. The winning team will advance to the upper bracket semifinals of Group A, while the losing team will drop to the lower bracket.
Photo: PGL.
