starix: "No time for a vacation"

Ischuk's Na`Vi finally made their big breakthrough in CS:GO under two months ago, winning SLTV StarSeries IX Finals with best-of-three series wins over Titan and NiP.

They confirmed their status as one of the game's giants with a second place at DreamHack Summer, and now travel to Dallas as one of the favorites to win the title.

starix's Na`Vi hope to overcome NiP again in Dallas 

You’re fresh off attending DreamHack Summer 2014. How would you analyze your performance in Jönköping? If you go through it one series at a time, how do you think you did?

starix: I think that we could have shown a better result. In the group stages we lost our first game on de_dust2 [versus Flipsid3 Tactics] with the score 14-16. It was like a cold shower for us and we were reminded of DreamHack Winter and EMS One Katowice, when we didn't make it through the group stages.

Playing with Virtus.pro in the quarter-finals we knew that it's almost the finals already, because the next opponent would be weaker than Virtus. We knew if we overcame them, we could overcome the next team in the semifinals too. So we just fought our way to the finals. The score was 16-9, I think that winning by seven rounds is a weighing argument, though the match was hard and much efforts were put in every round.

After the fight with the Poles, the semifinals match [versus Epsilon] appeared to be pretty effortless and we confidently marched into the finals.

Our inferno against NiP was completely disastrous and we had to win on train to try ourselves out on dust2. After a five minute team talk between the maps, we gathered somehow and showed decent play. We lacked just a bit to win this map. We hope for a revenge in the USA :P.

After ESEA Finals there will be a break in the calendar with the next international event, Gfinity, schedule for early August, two weeks before ESL One. How will you spend this time before the next major?

starix: To get to ESL One, we have to go through two qualifiers, one for CIS and one for Europe. So we will get ourselves busy preparing for those.

How have you prepared for ESEA Invite Season 16 Global Finals after DreamHack, and do you feel ready for the event? How do you plan on spending the remaining time before the event kicks off?

starix: As a matter of fact we don't have enough time to prepare well. We will probably be in similar shape as for DreamHack Summer, plus we need to go over our de_cache and de_season tactics. It will be a hard flight because of the big time difference, so we will need some time to recover and feel ourselves at home in the USA. As you can see, no real time for resting.

Player	Age	Rating
Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács	22	1.18
Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev	26	1.11
Denis "seized" Kostin	19	1.08
Danilo "Zeus" Teslenko	26	1.02
Sergey "starix" Ischuk	26	1.00

Will the North Americans be a factor with some of the world’s best European teams present? Are you at all worried about iBUYPOWER, who beat Titan last time but never do well in Europe, or compLexity, who have been very underwhelming since losing swag?

starix: Firstly, we are playing in their home arena and it is always a serious factor. Secondly, American teams have shown pretty good results at all major events, so they can't be forgotten about. However, I'm not worried - let the best beat the rest :D.

What do you make of your chances at ESEA? With the bracket published, we know you will play OpenEqualFree in the first round, followed up by NiP or compLexity. How do you expect to do in those match-ups?

starix: The tournament has no warm-ups, so no chances for the sleepyheads. Our team is known to be one of those, we always have tough times in the group stages and after that all we start to wake up :P. This is gonna be harsh for us. Every team can surprise the organisers and the viewers - everybody.

You knocked out Virtus.pro from DreamHack and lost to NiP in overtime on the second map. Have you made adjustments to your strategy when facing NiP since? Do you believe you will beat them this time around if you face them in Dallas?

starix: We didnt make any adjustments, as we are pretty confident in our game. We wouldn't go to the tournament thinking that we will definitely lose to a team :). What would be the point?

You are one of the few European top teams without an invitation to ESL One Cologne. Will that force you to be more active during the summer to make sure you’re in top shape during the online qualifiers?

starix: Surely this point forces us to "keep fit". It's very important not to get tired of this game, to play with desire and motivation. This summer is really busy with the tournaments :D. No time for a vacation.

Ischuk will attempt to win his second title in Dallas after winning Arbalet Cup Dallas in July 2010. Na`Vi's campaign there will begin on Friday, when ESEA Finals will kick off.