flamie: "We still want to play Dust2 because no one is playing it well"

With Natus Vincere's first match at the Major just around the corner, we sat down with Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev to figure out what happened in Stockholm and hear how he feels in the role he has currently.

The CIS team was one of the favorites for the DreamHack Masters Stockholm trophy, but they didn't deliver at the first event after the player break, losing to North convincingly in the quarter-finals. At the Major, Natus Vincere's first opponent will be Astralis.

During media day, we spoke to flamie to hear about Natus Vincere's approach to Dust2, his thoughts on taking on the entry fragger role, and how he has been working on his individual form.

Going back to Stockholm, in the opening game you played Ghost on Dust2 any you lost the game. But it was later said that you were just trying to get better on the map, to long-term be better on it as a team. Was that the general approach for the whole tournament, to DreamHack Masters Stockholm? To get a grasp of how you are playing and then prepare more for the Major?

I think the goal was to play as many games as we could at DreamHack Stockholm, but of course, it is a big tournament and it is a part of the Grand Slam, so we wanted to win it. But, unfortunately, we didn't have good preparation before it and we just said that we would try to play as much as we could in Stockholm to see how we are looking. Dust2 versus Ghost, yes, it was more for just training because we never won on that map in official games so we wanted to win at least one time, but it didn't happen.

Regarding the map, why do you think you have so many issues on Dust2? It seems like a pretty basic, simple map, that is what other teams have been saying. Does it just not align with your game style and with Zeus?

I don't know why, but most of our losses were like 16-14, 16-13, and we were leading, for example, 13-8 versus Liquid. We just can't close it perhaps, we don't feel good on the CT side as well. As you can see, all teams are playing randomly, Astralis is winning 16-3 on CT vs Spirit and they lost 16-1 to North after starting CT, while North lost 16-0 to mousesports... it is a random map, for now. We still want to play it because no one is playing it well, consistently, for example, taking 10 round either on CT or T. Everyone is playing randomly, we are still not far away from other teams at this point.

What do you think about the loss to North in the playoffs, what was the cause of that?

I think it happened because they were prepared for us better [than we were for them]. They did their homework, they read us very well and played very good as a team. And they had more practice than us. They just played better and we were ready to lose, it is ok, you can lose a tournament sometimes. We knew that the Major was in one week and that we need to practice as much as we can.

How comfortable are you personally in this lineup with the role that you have now, since electronic got a bit more freedom and became the second-star of this team?

I'm okay with my role in the team because, of course, someone needs to do some support toles and someone needs to go first, I'm okay with having the role of going in first and dying because I know that I have electronic or s1mple or Edward or Zeus who can trade me, or we can win the round because of me going first and dying. So it's ok.

But I'm not playing that good as I was a year ago because I had some life problems, I think that changed the way I was in-game. I didn't play as much CS as did before, but now I think it is fixed and I can play, I am playing as much as I can. At the bootcamp I had like 130 hours [played in two weeks]. I hope that I can play well again. My role is ok, on every team you have these roles so I am OK with that.

You got the first round draw and you are going to play against Astralis, two of the highest ranked teams right now, both favorites to win the Major... what are your thoughts on that?

This drawing system is not good, but we usually don't play well in the first map of the tournament anyway. Though, mostly it was against teams that weren't the best in the world. For example, we lost to TYLOO at StarLadder, lost to Ghost, to AVANGAR once... Maybe versus Astralis, one of the best teams in the world, we will play better. It is always nice to play versus them, even if it is the first match. If we lose it is nothing bad, if they lose, for them it is the same, we still have more games to play. We will try our best and I hope it will be a good game.

More interviews from the FACEIT Major New Legends stage media day:

SmithZz: "We aren't completely ready at the moment, but we are getting there"
RUSH: "Hopefully, after the Major, our ranking will reflect how we actually are as a team"