s1mple: "We'll try to get a new system with B1ad3 and get a dietologist and a psychologist"

To close out our coverage of StarSeries i-League Season 7, we spoke to the tournament's Most Valuable Player, Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev.

Na`Vi became StarSeries i-League Season 7 champions following a 3-0 win against fnatic in the grand final, with the team grabbing their first title of 2019 and s1mple receiving the MVP award.

After the final, we interviewed the 21-year-old to get his reaction on the win and to find out what the future holds for Na`Vi with Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy as their new esports director:

Shortly, I'd like to go back to yesterday, you had to play two series and decided it was better to play them in a row rather than with a break in between, why?

We remembered the time at DreamHack Masters Marseille when Astralis played straight after and they were more powerful, they were already warmed up, they were already prepared. Our coach decided to play straight after, some players said that maybe we should wait for three more hours, but in the end, we decided to play straight after.

Tell me about this grand final - three quite close maps, but you never really looked in doubt in any of them...

I actually felt more power against fnatic than against ENCE, for example. We were more confident, I knew that we shouldn't lose any map. We just have more experience as a team on this stage than them and we felt it, it was more simple, easier to play against them. Everything worked out, every round they won it was our fault, I guess, it didn't feel like it was a really strong match like against ENCE, for example.

There was some doubt around the team after GG.BET, around the Major. Where does your first win in 2019 place Na`Vi?

After the Major we discussed what we're going to do next and we told ourselves that we can still play better because we saw our result at the Major. We didn't practice a lot before the Major, but we saw that we're capable of going to the finals. We want to try to stick together more and practice more. Now we're trying to get a new system with B1ad3 and we'll try to get new people into our team, a dietologist and a psychologist as well. We just want to see what's going to happen when we are at 100% preparation and work that we're going to put in in the next month.

That sounds like a response to what Astralis is doing, is that the case?

Yeah. We want to fix everything and we want to go to the Major knowing that we fully prepared outside and inside the game to see what happens.

You mentioned B1ad3, can you elaborate on that? What is the plan with him?

He wants to help us to make the training process much better. He just wants to help us fix mistakes outside, as I said, and inside the game. We'll have more bootcamps, more locations of bootcamps, and we're just going to do everything we can.

You don't seem to be slowing down in 2019, three tournaments in and you've got an MVP to your name and you have looked as good as ever. Will you be the player of the year again?

I just want my team to win and to become the best in the world for this year and finally win the Major for the old boys. I don't care if I get MVPs or electronic gets them - I want electronic to get some MVP already (laughs). But yeah, when the team plays better I play better and I feel the game much better.