For one of the last pieces of our protection from DreamHack Open Winter we naturally talked to the tournament's Most Valuable Player, Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev.
Natus Vincere grabbed their first title along with Denis "electronic"Sharipov following a turbulent tournament, even though grand final was obviously a fairly one-sided affair, with the Russian-Ukrainian team grabbing Cobblestone 16-4 before locking down Inferno 16-11 following a great Terrorist side.
We talked in order to Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev after the grand last to get his thoughts on his team's win, his amazing performance throughout the event, along with plans for the next month, which the team will spend preparing for the ELEAGUE Major's Main Qualifier:
Let's enter into the semi-final first, talk to me regarding Nuke against EnVyUs, which was a close affair and it took you a while to get into this and eventually close this out.
We didn't start well, but we knew that people would win the overall game, I don't know, everyone had a lot of confidence after the first chart. We lost such as five forces on the T side, so we were a bit frustrated on the T half. After we lost the pistol, then we forced two times and we lost this, but everyone knew we could come back because it's a CT-sided chart.
Going into the final, Cobblestone was such a one-sided map, but Inferno was rough for you on the CT side, similarly to the Gambit match in the group stage. What do you think went wrong at the beginning?
First of all, we didn't expect them to choose Cobble. We anticipated them to pick Nuke because it's one of their strongest roadmaps, but I think these people decided to pick Cobble and maybe they saw we were playing bad on this map. We didn't really have time for you to prepare six or seven maps, but we managed to win this game.
The actual Inferno match was similar to EnVyUs on Nuke, because we lost a lot of causes as well. They were much more lucky in this regard than us, for instance when I was on long I was not watching my keep track of and chrisJ wandered into the smoke and killed me. A few of these situations. But we told ourselves that people need to take like 5 to six units and after that we may come back, because we knew that our T side on Inferno is good, everyone saw that towards Gambit and other games that we lost, for example G2 at ELEAGUE, we were winning 10-1, so...
Obviously you had such a massive performance throughout the entire competition, is this something we can look forward to in the future?
Yeah, I hope so. I'm not going to change the resolution or crosshair and I'll sleep better, because I know if I rest better I play better.
You have in regards to a month and a half prior to the Major Buy CSGO Skins qualifier, what will be Na`Vi's plan for those several weeks?
We discussed having a break for a week or perhaps a week and a half. After that we are going to prepare prior to the New Year, we expect a lot of teams to prepare for the Major and the Major qualifier before the New Year. After the New Year, we will have such as three to four days and we'll practice before the Major qualifier. It's going to be an essential tournament for our business and team, so we hope we will qualify for the Major and show a great result at the Major as well, because each and every team is going to get ready for these two tournaments.
What is going to be the focus in practice? Have you noticed anything that you specifically have to work on in your first weeks with electronic?
We just need to work on our map pool, I guess. Of course , individual skill and every thing, but our chart pool and strats on some roadmaps, we need to upgrade this.
Natus Vincere grabbed their first title along with Denis "electronic"Sharipov following a turbulent tournament, even though grand final was obviously a fairly one-sided affair, with the Russian-Ukrainian team grabbing Cobblestone 16-4 before locking down Inferno 16-11 following a great Terrorist side.
We talked in order to Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev after the grand last to get his thoughts on his team's win, his amazing performance throughout the event, along with plans for the next month, which the team will spend preparing for the ELEAGUE Major's Main Qualifier:
Let's enter into the semi-final first, talk to me regarding Nuke against EnVyUs, which was a close affair and it took you a while to get into this and eventually close this out.
We didn't start well, but we knew that people would win the overall game, I don't know, everyone had a lot of confidence after the first chart. We lost such as five forces on the T side, so we were a bit frustrated on the T half. After we lost the pistol, then we forced two times and we lost this, but everyone knew we could come back because it's a CT-sided chart.
Going into the final, Cobblestone was such a one-sided map, but Inferno was rough for you on the CT side, similarly to the Gambit match in the group stage. What do you think went wrong at the beginning?
First of all, we didn't expect them to choose Cobble. We anticipated them to pick Nuke because it's one of their strongest roadmaps, but I think these people decided to pick Cobble and maybe they saw we were playing bad on this map. We didn't really have time for you to prepare six or seven maps, but we managed to win this game.
The actual Inferno match was similar to EnVyUs on Nuke, because we lost a lot of causes as well. They were much more lucky in this regard than us, for instance when I was on long I was not watching my keep track of and chrisJ wandered into the smoke and killed me. A few of these situations. But we told ourselves that people need to take like 5 to six units and after that we may come back, because we knew that our T side on Inferno is good, everyone saw that towards Gambit and other games that we lost, for example G2 at ELEAGUE, we were winning 10-1, so...
Obviously you had such a massive performance throughout the entire competition, is this something we can look forward to in the future?
Yeah, I hope so. I'm not going to change the resolution or crosshair and I'll sleep better, because I know if I rest better I play better.
You have in regards to a month and a half prior to the Major Buy CSGO Skins qualifier, what will be Na`Vi's plan for those several weeks?
We discussed having a break for a week or perhaps a week and a half. After that we are going to prepare prior to the New Year, we expect a lot of teams to prepare for the Major and the Major qualifier before the New Year. After the New Year, we will have such as three to four days and we'll practice before the Major qualifier. It's going to be an essential tournament for our business and team, so we hope we will qualify for the Major and show a great result at the Major as well, because each and every team is going to get ready for these two tournaments.
What is going to be the focus in practice? Have you noticed anything that you specifically have to work on in your first weeks with electronic?
We just need to work on our map pool, I guess. Of course , individual skill and every thing, but our chart pool and strats on some roadmaps, we need to upgrade this.
