Natus Vincere came into BLAST Premier Spring Finals in the midst of turmoil, having just removed their IGL Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov and arriving on little practice with stand-in Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev.
Their run in Lisbon began with a worrying loss to an OG who were themselves playing with a stand-in, however this seems to have fired up the CIS giants as they have since demolished BIG and the reigning Major champions FaZe, exacting revenge for the final in Antwerp in the process.
B1ad3’s NAVI have recovered magnificently from a slow start in Lisbon
Right after the aforementioned victory over FaZe, B1ad3 gave a quick interview to HLTV to talk about the game plan, Denis “electroNic” Sharipov‘s performance as IGL, and the integration of sdy.
Congratulations, how does it feel to get revenge from the Major over FaZe?
Good, it’s a great feeling.
Obviously you have added sdy and moved electronic to IGL, but what exactly do you attribute the slow start in this event to?
Because everything is new, new IGL, new player as a stand-in who doesn’t know anything so he must adapt, it’s normal.
Talking about the game specifically, you seemed to come into the Dust2 T side with a very slow pace, holding utility for later in the round. What was the gameplan?
Actually, it was more about to start and see what they do, and then make proper decisions considering what is going on on the map, mid-round calls.
We worked a lot on Inferno before this event, we knew it is a very hard map with a very hard position in banana…
Was that based on reviewing demos? You have played them twice already on Dust2 this year.
No, I think we didn’t even review it because teams like for example FaZe, Heroic, Cloud9, we know how they play, we just watch what they update. It’s always in our heads how they play, and of course we have analysts who are gathering information.
electroNic played very well on Dust2 specifically, were there any concerns from you about his individual level dropping as he took on the IGL role?
No, I didn’t have any concerns because we see a lot of examples, they are there, all of you can see them even just viewers, not experts. These players are doing great as IGL, for example gla1ve was doing this in Astralis, apEX was doing this and he was not an IGL before, you can see even sometimes old blameF in Complexity, so there are a lot of examples.
It just depends on what you try to do to adapt, that’s all. You must understand why you are not doing a lot of firepower, and you correct this, you try and get your teammates to help you.
Looking to Inferno, you dominated that map based on a huge CT side, how were you able to put that together?
We worked a lot on Inferno before this event, we knew it is a very hard map with a very hard position in banana, we worked a lot on it. We even played versus each other, like 3vs3, rushing banana (smiles). We played it a lot.
Even if we play with a stand-in and it’s normal that we lose to OG in the first match, still I am really frustrated…
In general, what have you made of sdy and his performances this event?
Good, so far good. He still does a lot of mistakes, but I said this in the beginning that it is normal and we don’t look at it. It’s not something that can characterise him as a player or his potential, because he doesn’t know our system and he must adapt.
He’s a nice guy and is trying to be smart, and I like this, trying to be smart in the game.
What are your goals now for the remainder of the tournament, are you looking at that trophy or just taking it game by game?
So for us, as NAVI, this is the main problem, we always look for the trophy and we are really disappointed in ourselves if we are losing. Even if we play with a stand-in and it’s normal that we lose to OG in the first match, still I am really frustrated about this because we are really ambitious and we have really high standards.
