B1ad3: "insani outplayed us fully on Banana"

The Ukrainian skipper believes the comeback attempt was a good sign despite faltering in the end.

Natus Vincere lost a nailbiter against MIBR in the second round of the Perfect World Shanghai Major's opening day, although it started as a one-sided affair for the Brazilians, whose Felipe "⁠insani⁠" Yuji carried hard his team to a 9-0 lead in the first half with 19 kills.

After stringing the last three in the first half, Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan kickstarted the comeback in earnest with a pistol ace after the switch. Everything was in play after that, all the way to the last round, when insani appeared once again to win a 1vs2 clutch and sealed the deal for his team, 13-11.

---

I'm sure it's a disappointing loss, can you tell me about what happened there? It took such a long time for you to get into the match and you almost make it work, and then the 1v2 takes it away.

I think we gave them momentum on Inferno, a lot of momentum on T side. They were in good control of what they wanted to do. I think we weren't understanding well enough what to do to counter them because we didn't have enough time to prep, kinda.

We prepped two maps, we spoke more about another one, and this one we spoke a little. I think we didn't have this quality of moving around the map, countering by knowing what they are doing. This clutch at the end, I don't know, it's just maybe nerves, pressure. But it's always like this in best-of-one.

You struggled dealing with insani in particular, he was getting entries left and right and rounds were over before they even started. What was the issue with dealing with that aggression at the beginning?

I think he was playing well, aggressively, constantly stressing us out on Banana. The first three or four buy rounds, he outplayed us fully on Banana. On Inferno it's usually always like this, it's all about Banana.

If you're not having good enough control, good timings of aggression, calculating stuff how to be a step ahead, then you can counter and to slow them down. We made a couple of mistakes, and this is how Banana looks; it's kinda fragile, you make one mistake and he can instantly find an entry. Entries on Inferno are crucial.

What are you going to talk about after this? Does this change in any way the way you approach this stage?

This game showed us that we must for sure play much better, to be more confident, to do aggressive moves where it should be, and be more passive where it should be. It was a good game, for me, the comeback is a good sign for us.

The way the game kept us constantly under pressure, and we were fighting, fighting and fighting and trying to still win this match, and we were really close. I think it's a good experience for us at this tournament, what we're capable of during this moment. It's a best-of-one, we know that as soon as we get to best-of-threes it should be better.