B1ad3: "A BO5 was a little bit too much for us"

The Ukrainian skipper gives his ideas on what went wrong for NAVI in their final bout against Spirit.

Coach Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy gave his thoughts after Natus Vincere fell to Spirit in the best-of-five grand final at the BLAST Premier Spring Final in London.

Lack of experience, not enough time to prepare, and too much information in the map-dense best-of-five final are some of the reasons B1ad3 thinks his Natus Vincere were unable to shine against Spirit.

As the first half of the year comes to a wrap, the Ukrainian skipper sees his team as below the favorites but with the ability to upset. "We are for sure in the top 8," he says, "but on a good day, we can easily be in the top 5."

It was a tough series. What do you think went wrong for you today?

What went wrong was that we were a little bit sloppy in executing our ideas, like reacting. In my opinion, a best-of-five was a little bit too much for us. We didn't have much time to prepare because we only had two hours a day for preparation.

Usually, we have at least four to five hours, discounting the breaks, for best-of-threes, and we finished late yesterday. It affected us a lot, you know, because we didn't have a deep understanding of what they want to do, or what we want to do, on all maps.

Yesterday, for example, we were in full control, 100 percent, because of this — because we had studied our opponent a lot. We had discussed what we wanted to do a lot. This team is for sure inexperienced if you compare it to teams like FaZe, Vitality and so on.

I think it's hard for them to play a best-of-five, to play each map to their full potential, as they do in a best-of-three. But it is what it is. It's not like we lost because of this; it's just something that affected us, in my opinion.

NAVI had really strong T sides throughout this whole tournament. What do you put that down to? Why were your T sides so strong?

We discuss a lot. Everyone knows their role and tries to be an important piece in the round. We work a lot on teamwork, synergy, and cohesion. Like, what happens if you do this? What happens if you do that? And we work a lot on this now.

When you're playing against a team like Spirit, how important is it to try and shut down a player like donk? Or do you not think about a single player? How does it work for you?

Actually, I didn't see a lot of crazy solo openings, from what I remember. We had a chance on Dust2. Even on Ancient's T side, we started to take control. We lost a force. It could have been really close after that round. And on Dust2 we had a chance. I think we didn't implement everything we had prepared because of this best-of-five.

We had too much information, and I saw people not doing what we had said. Three times, there were different ideas. We didn't do what we were supposed to do when we saw the situation in the game. Maybe it was the stage, maybe it was something else. I'm not saying that Mirage was how we must play, but it definitely shows how we can play.

You had some really big highs this season, winning the Major, but also some tough lows at ESL Pro League and IEM Dallas. What do you attribute that inconsistency to? Because here you were back to playing much more like at the Major.

We are a team that depends a lot on bootcamps. If you check it, after each bootcamp we were playing much better. We had one at the beginning of the season, for BLAST [Spring Groups] and the Major qualifiers, and then we had a second one for the Major. I think that to show good results, we need a really good bootcamp again.

The next bootcamp won't be very long, but I think it will still be enough, like six or seven days, because there will be three tournaments in a row: The Esports World Cup, BLAST Fall Groups, and IEM Cologne. But I think we can be much better. We have been with the core of this lineup for almost one year and we must show good results next season.

Where do you see NAVI in the world rankings? When you think of NAVI, where do you put yourselves?

Every tournament, there is a new champion, which shows that the level of competition is very high and it means that any team can win a tournament. The main contenders are always Vitality, FaZe, and MOUZ. Other teams are a little bit of a tier down. It can be us, it can be Spirit. Spirit are always beating us, so they're for sure higher now.

I think we are for sure in the top 8, but on a good day, we can easily be in the top 5. For example, in this tournament, we made it to the grand final. That's what I'm talking about when I mean a good day for us. We're finding a groove, we're playing in a good mood, with a lot of enthusiasm. And when we play like this, we can be a stable top 5 team, in my opinion.

We beat FaZe two times this season. We beat G2 constantly. But yeah, these teams: FaZe, Vitality, MOUZ, and Spirit. The other teams compete for the fifth spot.