Boombl4: "NRG is a good opponent for us, we feel confident"

After Na`Vi became the last team to advance to the playoffs, we talked to Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov about their match against CR4ZY and their opponents in the quarter-finals, NRG.

Natus Vincere made it to the playoffs from the fifth round after a shaky New Legends stage, which they completed with a 3-2 record following a closely-contested series against CR4ZY, coming back from a loss on Mirage and a 10-12 deficit on Inferno to win the best-of-three.

Boombl4 spoke to us after the team's qualification for playoffs about the stressful Inferno and commented on being on the same side of the bracket as NRG, who they will face in the quarter-finals, Liquid and Astralis.

At one point in the CR4ZY series it looked quite dangerous for you after you lost Mirage and were down 10-12 on Inferno after CR4ZY mounted a comeback. Can you tell me about how you recovered to win the map after all and closed out the series?

On Inferno we won hard rounds and we had shitty economy, we were leading 8-2 or 7-2 and we had $2,000, so we were leading but our economy was still shit. We lost one or two rounds, our economy crashed, they came back, and took the second pistol round. It was a little bit of a nervous situation for us. It was really stressful when the score was like 12-10, that was a really important round for us. If we lost that we would have lost the game, but Zeus told us to stay in our positions and not rotate so much, we did that and came back. After that we had the confidence to win Nuke easily.

How stressful was the match for you as still the new player on the team, playing your first Major with Na`Vi?

Maybe I was nervous at ESL One Cologne, but now I'm feeling confident, my team trusts me, I'm not new anymore. So I'm not nervous because I'm new, but in some situations in-game people are always nervous, so it's okay.

In an interview after the previous match, flamie was talking about the team not playing up to par with the practice, being more nervous than usual, have you managed to get past that now?

In practice we played very confidently and then we came to the tournament and lost two BO1s, it's a bit tilting. When you play a BO3, it's okay, and after two BO1 losses, the next match is for elimination. That's why we were nervous, but now after our win against MIBR I think we were more confident, it was an elimination match and we felt like we could lose the first map and win the two last ones. It was a little shaky when we lost the first map to CR4ZY, but we know our Mirage is not good right now.

How are you feeling going up against NRG in the quarter-finals and being in the same side of the bracket as Astralis and Liquid?

I think NRG is a good opponent for us, we feel confident because we played eight or nine praccs versus them and always won, maybe we only lost one or two times. It's a tournament, not practice, but I feel confident versus them, Na`Vi was always winning against NRG when they played with Edward. About Liquid and Astralis, when I came into the team I said that we would break Astralis, so I want to face Astralis in the semi-finals. If you want to win the Major, you need to face the hardest team, so you don't need to think about weak teams in the playoffs. If you want to win the Major, you need to beat the best teams.