Perfecto: "This tournament will decide who the number one team is"

Natus Vincere's rifler commented on the developing rivalry with FaZe in an interview ahead of the semi-finals.

Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy spoke with HLTV.org and answered questions about the upcoming challenges in the playoffs of IEM Cologne. The player said that he doesn't think their current ranking as the No. 1 team is important, as the squad that will be on top going into the player break will be decided this week in Germany.

The 22-year-old also spoke about Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev, saying that his future will be discussed after Cologne, and praised Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov's calling. In the end, Perfecto also shared that ESL One Cologne in 2016 was the first CS:GO tournament that he watched, inspiring him to take on the path that ultimately brought him to Natus Vincere.

I want to start with your team going through the group stage and reaching the playoffs undefeated. What is the vibe in the team and how happy are you with the group stage?

We had more time, we were working with our new player sdy after Lisbon and fixed mistakes from Lisbon, and it just worked. We wanted to go to the playoffs and win this tournament.

Currently you are placed #1 in our rankings, do you feel like the best team in the world right now?

I think right now the rankings don't really matter, two teams are number one right now and this tournament is going to "put the period at the end of the sentence". In the end, this tournament will decide who the number one team is. Even though the ranking got updated, it doesn't really matter.

Read more

NAVI oust FaZe from No. 1 spot in world rankings

The storyline of these playoffs is building towards a FaZe vs. NAVI grand final, are you thinking about that game already?

We focus on every game, we saw how MOUZ can play, how Movistar can play, amazing guys, so we focus on every team. Anyone can be in the final.

Talking about FaZe, how do you see them at the moment? What makes them so dangerous?

We saw their performance in Lisbon was not good, but we know they can play much better. karrigan has great experience and if other teammates are in prime form, they are a dangerous team.

In terms of sdy's position on the team, is it more secure after the Cologne group stage?

This is something we didn't discuss. As you can see, he is still playing with us, this means we are looking for something long-term. This is something the team will have to discuss after the event is done. As soon as we know the result and how the team bonds with each other, we'll see more.

electroNic in-game leading, how has it been for you, have things changed compared to Boombl4?

electroNic probably has one of the best visions of the game, what is new to the game is that his vision of the game is so much wider that he can do calls on the go and the team can just follow them, and they will work. He only says that he needs time, but so far, so good.

Did anything change for you specifically?

No, I just try to help electroNic to get good ideas for rounds and try to help him adapt and make it easier for him right now.

Cologne is a massive tournament obviously, the LANXESS is sold out. You played in arenas before, lifted big trophies, but how are you individually feeling, coming here and playing in this arena?

It is my dream to play in this arena because I see very nice videos from ESL, it is "The Cathedral", it brings amazing emotions. I love playing arenas and I think it is going to be good. Also, the first tournament I followed was Cologne in 2016, before that I didn't know about esports, I just played on public servers, casually.