Aleksib: "My first time in LANXESS, which is a very, very nice feeling"

NAVI have not taken a day off since BLAST Fall groups, and their hard work is paying off in the server.

Natus Vincere and Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen have justified their standing as the number one team in the world with a dominant start to IEM Cologne.

First, paiN were demolished and now Astralis have suffered the same fate at the hands of Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy and Aleksib's well-oiled machine.

NAVI's proud captain has never made it to playoffs in Cologne before, and with Spirit eliminated he will now enter the LANXESS arena as favorite to lift the trophy.

The Finn swung by HLTV's microphone to talk about what this arena means to him, the grind after losing to Liquid at BLAST, and the "fresh motivation and hunger" fuelling NAVI's uptick in form.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2024
13/08/2024	Natus Vincere 16:00 SAW	Match
10/08/2024	Natus Vincere Finished 2:0 paiN	Match
11/08/2024	Astralis Finished 0:2 Natus Vincere	Match

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A 2-0 victory against Astralis, the team that knocked you out last year. It must feel pretty good to get revenge against them and also to secure a spot in the playoffs.

Yeah, it feels super amazing, considering we were playing exactly in the same seats, facing each other. They beat us on the decider that day, and for us, it was a disaster not to make it to the playoffs. And throughout my career, I had actually made the playoffs [in Cologne] only once, and it was during COVID, so I didn't get to play on the stage. So it's going to be my first time, which is a very, very nice feeling.

You were coming off a three-game losing streak on Ancient, but here you just dominated them on the map. What changed?

To be honest, we just played Spirit. I mean, we had another loss there, but the thing is that Spirit was the team that kind of cracked us on this map. And we were doing pretty well on the map, actually, and it's one of our strengths in the map pool, so we didn't mind any opponent picking it. We've been improving on it week by week, and now we finally managed to play a solid CT side. I believe I checked and in the last 10 CT pistols, we only won one time. That didn't help us, those sloppy CT starts. Today was different. We've been improving, and that's the most important thing.

You are one of the best teams on Mirage, if not the best. Are you happy with your performance on this map, even though you lost both pistols?

I am super happy, and that makes me even more confident on the map. We lost both pistols against a solid team and it still felt like we were in control the whole game. We just seem to be feeling the map, every individual feels confident, and It's a strong suit of ours.

During the BLAST Fall Groups, jL said that said that the focus was on Cologne, on fixing your mistakes and getting the team ready for this event. What lessons did you did you learn from your performances there?

Liquid put us to the test, so we got a lot of maps played during the BLAST Groups. And to be honest, we've not taken a day off since and we've just been grinding. Yes, the focus is on Cologne, and we reviewed all the games we played in Copenhagen. To me, it's very important that, once we do the review, we play the next game and I can see that we actually improved. That's a nice feeling. And I think B1ad3 is also proud of us.

I guess one of the biggest questions about NAVI is how reliant you guys are on Mirage and Nuke. Was it important for you to get tested on other maps like Inferno and Anubis in Copenhagen? And what steps are you taking to make sure that you are more consistent on other maps?

As I said, reviewing, coming up with something new and always trying to improve. And the thing for us is we know what we like and what we don't like. Ancient was strong for us until we played Spirit two times, and they managed to beat us both times. Nuke was super weak for us before we finally turned it around, and now it's a strong suit, so for us it's just adapting, doing our thing and believing. And I think that when the group is fired up like this, I don't mind the map because we can play solid CS.

During the Major run, all the praise was going to jL, even though your victory in the final probably wouldn't have happened if b1t didn't have that amazing performance in the final map. But now, since the player break, it seems like b1t has taken his game to a whole new level. He's probably one of the best players in the game. What changed for him?

I don't think too much has changed in terms of how we approach the game. But I just feel that he also relies on how we take map control, how we are giving information, how he is giving information. I've seen his growth this past year and I think he's communicating well in English and in really important moments. Sometimes he might communicate in Ukrainian if he's in a clutch situation or something like that, but to me, it just feels that he has gotten more comfortable with us and also the way I am calling mid-games. Overall, when the actual system was working and we finally started to adapt a lot of these details that B1ad3 has been introducing, b1t started to play a lot better.

B1ad3 said yesterday that he wants w0nderful to learn how to call. How important would it be for you and for the team to have the AWPer being able to call and dictate the pace during rounds?

We can play many different styles and I'm open to anything. I always want Ihor to be super comfortable when it comes down to how he wants to approach. And when he's fired up, he's fully dictating a lot of games for us, and it's also really good that he can play into the system as well. He's a really versatile player, and I'll do anything for him to have a smile next to me.

Before Cologne started, everyone thought that this was the group of death. You had Spirit, you had G2, two teams that are now in the lower bracket and one of them is going home today. How does that make you feel about your chances of finishing at the top of the group and making it to the semi-finals?

Winning this game was super important because of obvious reasons. You're going to face G2 or Spirit [if you lose] and you don't really want to go there because I mean, obviously securing a playoff spot early is important. And we made it happen. Now we're waiting for the winner of that game [SAW vs The MongolZ] and It's just going to be another game. Some people might say we kind of avoided those two strong teams, but at the same time, we beat who was in front of us and we know that we had a lot of focus on this tournament. So just making the quarter-finals isn't a goal of ours. We want to lift another trophy or at least make the finals. We're keeping it serious, one game at a time, and we'll see how it goes.

Some people described your Major win as a fluke, and some said that winning the EWC wasn't worth much because it was the first tournament out of the player break. How important would it be for you guys to win Cologne here? And do you think that would silence all the doubters?

Obviously, our performances after the Major didn't go the way we had hoped. We had a lot of deep discussions afterward. And the way we turned up at the start of this season, with fresh motivation and the overall hunger of the players… After that, we saw that we can't play CS if not everyone is on the same page, basically. Now we've kind of turned the page and we're playing some solid CS. People can have doubts or say whatever they feel like, but at the end of the day, we've been pretty consistent this year, especially during the second season now. As I said, one game at a time now, and anything can happen in the playoffs.

And I guess your goal is to go all the way in Cologne, right?

Yes, of course.