iM on G2: "We can't disrespect them at all"

iM is taking nothing for granted ahead of NAVI's BLAST Fall Final grand final bout with G2.

Natus Vincere are a team in excellent form, having made back-to-back grand finals in their last five Big Events and accumulated a nine-series win streak in recent weeks. They have also shown impressive fortitude during that time, not least in overcoming a 4-10 deficit on the second map of their BLAST Spring Final semi-final bout with FaZe, where a defeat would have ended their tournament.

Much of Natus Vincere's success has been achieved amidst a hectic schedule, with the team rolling straight from their ESL Pro League victory into their BLAST Spring Final campaign with no rest days. Despite this Natus Vincere have displayed no signs of tiredness in their play, something Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan addresses in this interview.

The Romanian rifler spoke with HLTV after his team's semi-final victory over FaZe to not only discuss their packed schedule, but also the semi-final itself and their upcoming grand final matchup with G2.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, listen to the interview here.

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First of all, congrats on making the final. It was a pretty long and exhausting series. What are your thoughts after the win?

Thank you. It was a pretty rough game, because on both first maps, if I'm not wrong, we started very badly on the T side, which didn't help us at all. But I'm glad that we played the T side on the third map very well, which is the most important.

You came here directly from EPL, but at least watching you play, it doesn't seem like you're tired. How does the team feel right now?

No, trust me, it's like... How can I say this? It's like we are a rolling band [on tour], playing over and over. It's crazy because we didn't have any days off. The only off day we had was after we won against Falcons, because we had a morning game, so we had more than half of the day free.

But other than that, it was not that good. We finished EPL, then the next day we had a travel day, and it was like eight hours in total, maybe more, because we also had a delay, which is bad. Then we went to a media day, which was the worst media day ever. We had something to do, a very small thing, for ten minutes, then a two-hour wait, something small to do for ten minutes, a two-hour wait, and then some photos at the end. It was not good.

I wanted to ask you about this series today. You lost the first map, you were 4-10 down on the second, and then it felt like you just flipped the switch and started winning rounds. Did anything change in the team at that moment?

As I said, we just had a very bad start on the T side, and then we tried to do our best on the CT side to come back in the game. We had a very bad start on T, and then we lost the pistol, because I think it was 8-4. We were talking about winning the pistol and coming back from that, but we also lost the pistol, which didn't help.

We came back slowly, but we lost due to some small mistakes. We didn't understand each other, like for example, 'go A, go B, go A, go B.' It was not us, basically. After that, we came back with a better mentality.

That better mentality then showed on Anubis. It seemed like a pretty straightforward win for you guys, did it feel like that?

It was good on Anubis because we showed the T side that we needed to play on both of the first maps, fully dictating, fully trusting each other, and just doing one thing. Don't do things like, 'Okay, let's go there, no, let's go do that, let's do that.' It was straightforward and calculated, so it was good.

Next up tomorrow is a best-of-five final, but now that you've broken the curse at EPL, there's nothing to be worried about, right?

It's going to be a very tough game because it's a best-of-five against G2. We're probably going to go with the mentality that we don't care about the stakes or whatever, we're just going to play like another game. They are a very good team, and we can't disrespect them at all. We just need to do what we do best, play our game, do our thing in the practice room, and hope for a good game tomorrow.