electronic on his top-20 placing: "I hope I will be in the top five"

We briefly spoke to Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov at BLAST Pro Series Lisbon and asked him about Na`Vi's first three matches at the event, as well as about how 2018 has gone for him and the team.

Natus Vincere are currently 2-1 in the round robin after they beat Ninjas in Pyjamas and lost to Astralis on the first day, while the first round of day two saw them edge out Cloud9 on Overpass.

After the match, we caught up with electroNic and Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev, who helped translate the interview, and asked him about their journey so far in Lisbon, as well as about 2018 from his and the team's point of view.

Let's start with yesterday - you beat NiP before losing to Astralis quite convincingly, how did the two matches go?

The game versus NiP went well for us, we were leading like 15-8, so it was comfortable, but they took some rounds and we didn't have good economy, but we just won, in the end. It wasn't a super tough game, but they made a good comeback attempt.

Against Astralis, the game wasn't like the score, it was a bit closer, we lost some crucial rounds, didn't have good economy. We weren't prepared very well for them, but I hope today we'll play better and if we manage to get to the final against them, we hope we'll win.

Talking about today, did you expect Cloud9 to put up such a good fight against you? What do you make of their upsets here?

We knew that Overpass was a good map for us against them, we did some homework, so we were ready against them. In the beginning, we were leading 6-1, but after we lost some stupid rounds they took seven in a row. We didn't feel we were going to lose this game, sometimes when you play you know you are playing better, you just need to focus more and play better together.

No matter what happens at this tournament, how would you rate Na`Vi's 2018?

Individually, the year went really well, it was my first year on the big stage. As a team, we had our best year, it was a really good year, but we have bigger goals for the next year. The biggest goal is to challenge Astralis.

You mentioned this being your first year at the top individually and, as you know, the top20 ranking is coming up at the start of the year, how important is that for you and where do you think you will place?

It's always good to be in the top 20, it shows that hard work pays off, so it's really nice. I hope I will be in the top five, but I think I'll be seventh or sixth. Top ten for sure.