B1ad3: "I think for us it is crucial to become more humble"

NAVI are working hard on the mental aspect of their game, according to B1ad3.

Despite a glittering 2024 in which they were named Team of the Year, Natus Vincere have not enjoyed the most fruitful year thus far. They have yet to win a trophy, their individuals are experiencing a dip in performance, and clips of apparent tension within the team have surfaced.

"I think we have a tough period as a team," Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy admits when reflecting on the current state of Natus Vincere. "On some days we can play good CS, some days we can play bad CS."

When it comes to Natus Vincere's recent struggles, a dip in performance is something B1ad3 sees as inevitable. "I think you're constantly growing as a team," he begins. "It's constant evolution and you need to adapt and change. You cannot be the same team with the same issues. In one to three months there will be another issue and so on and so on."

In a mammoth interview with HLTV, B1ad3 goes into more depth regarding Natus Vincere's current state and the reasons for their struggles, their chemistry as a team, and the resurgence of Vitality, before revealing what would have to happen for Natus Vincere to consider player changes.

---

B1ad3, you've always been very good at analysing your own team. How do you look at the team's current situation, the bad loss to Mongolz in EPL, now a bad one against Eternal Fire here. What do you think is going on with the team?

I think we have a tough period as a team, but at the same time, on some days we can play good CS, some days we can play bad CS. A good sign was versus The MongolZ at BLAST, that we were fighting till the end. We had this energy that we rely on a lot in our system, it was a very good sign that we still have this and we can have this NAVI magic, or NAVI resilience.

But we also are in a new development stage because I think you're constantly growing as a team, evolving, players evolving, they change as individuals, as personalities. It's constant evolution and you need to adapt and change. You cannot be the same team with the same issues. In one to three months there will be another issue and so on and so on. Also, egos can grow, with more knowledge you will be more self-confident, and especially with more wins or team of the year trophies.

At this moment we are working a lot on a seven-map pool, I think two more teams are also in this list, Liquid and FaZe. We understood that this is something we can have as a joker in our pocket for this season, because we cannot be equal with the star players' potential compared to Vitality or in some way also Spirit. This is one thing. Another thing is the mental stage, relationships, all this stuff, and to be hungry constantly and to have the same motivation as other teams that have zero trophies, like Eternal Fire, for example.

At the moment, I think for us it is crucial to become more humble and to understand that, if last year we had a strong team and a huge competitor, a trophy contender, everything can change and you can't even notice this. At some point in the previous year FaZe went to six finals in a row, and I had the feeling that they would have this kind of burnout and the scene would change. After that, I think they didn't win any tournaments. I mean, after Chengdu. I'm not sure they were fully conscious about what was happening because they still had this big ego of, 'We can still do this' from their perception. From others' perception, people are trying to grow as much as possible to learn from them and so on.

It's important for us now, and something we are working mentally on, to understand that our perception is not the only one. Maybe we need to have another angle, like we need to start from the beginning or take three steps back to evolve in a different way. We're working a lot now on staying in reality and working on real issues and not having too high expectations, not to be delusional.

Aleksib said during the group stage in an interview on the broadcast that last year there were several matches that the team should have lost but ended up winning because there were individuals who stepped up and delivered a massive performance. He said that that this is not happening this year. Why do you think that, for example, players like b1t or jL are not playing at the level that we saw from them last year? b1t just had his career-worst series against Eternal Fire, jL is not having those clutch moments that he had all the time last year. Is there anything going on in terms of individual level?

In my opinion, if you speak about the previous year, we knew even in the previous year that a lot of our matches were very close and they could have ended in a different way. It was not full domination or that everything was under control the whole game.

The game versus HEROIC in Rio, on the second map we were already close to being eliminated and we made a huge comeback on T side on Dust2. There were maybe two or three more games like this, like the very shaky final versus Eternal Fire in EPL. The other one in Riyadh was very confident and the Major was kind of a miracle, we were there and in control, but because we knew we were an underdog we just didn't expect anything, we played fully at our best without having any expectations.

So EPL was shaky, Rio was shaky, even the grand final against MOUZ was close to the fifth and we made another comeback. I cannot say that our system relied on this aspect. There was a lot of this energy and desire to fight to the end and to be ready to create decisions during the round, which is very, very crucial for tier-one.

Why is it important? Because versus MongolZ, the game we won, we had this, what Aleksib said. For me, this is a good sign, we won a 2v2 at 11-12 and you felt this fire and confidence, which is important. Also versus FURIA when we played Anubis, it was also a close match and we won this map exactly because of this aspect. It's not something you should rely on systematically because it's a factor of two good teams playing on the server, the factor that is usually crucial, 2v2, 2v3, something you cannot script. To be good at this, you need to be united and must have really good synergy, you must prepare your brain well enough to be ready to create good decisions. If you're coming to expect an easy game, it will be very hard to force yourself to change something if the game goes in a difficult way.

This is what we need to remember, that every game should be very, very tough and not easy. In my opinion, it's a very correct angle not to be delusional of what you're capable of. When you're winning a lot, you start thinking that you are capable of... Let's not say that you are winning just by coming to the match and playing, but still in some matches this year, I felt like we were not expecting a difficult match.

Do you think that's what happened with Eternal Fire? You had a very good record against them, you defeated them the last five times, and it was not even an elimination match. Do you think that, mentally, the team was not the way it had been against The MongolZ, for example?

You can say mentally, but at the same time it's understanding of our strengths and a little bit not seeing the reality of the competitive scene. The scene constantly grows, and sometimes you cannot notice this if you're not fully analyzing every team and just focusing on yourself. This is the issue of every team, because everyone is focusing on themselves.

That's why I said we're working a lot on understanding that and not getting into this delusional way where we are thinking of ourselves and seeing ourselves as a top-three team, and at the same time we're playing like a top-ten team. It would be easier to come into the matches with this mentality, that you need to fight a lot and you have nothing granted just because you were the best team last year, let's say.

It can be an issue for Eternal Fire because we won all of them, but at the same time we beat MongolZ very easily in Katowice and then we lost just as easily in EPL, which I think we didn't expect a difficult match, in my opinion. We even said like, 'Guys, forget about that match', but we kind of smashed G2 the game before, and again, this is something you naturally can't do if you're winning very strongly. Then they come with full preparation, full motivation, hungry, and they completely caught us off-guard.

Eternal Fire was a little bit different, but I still think it's a very bad sign to have games like this. I'm fine to lose to Eternal Fire, but we need to fight more, we must resist, it must be a really close match, not like this. Inferno was close, but Dust2, some very weird rounds we lost, like 5v2, 4v2, a lot of sloppy movements, hesitation and so on.

Back in Katowice you said after the match against Spirit that you had a good gameplan against them, but there were some decisions that were not made properly because of the stage. You're now going to face them again, on the stage again. How do you think the team will deal with this this time around?

We played Spirit three times this year and I think they were all close this year, different vetoes in one match, I think. After BLAST Bounty we knew what to do next match and we beat them very close on Nuke, but in the third match I think we lost our Mirage, and this is how it can be every time against a good, strong team that you're playing constantly against. You come with one game plan on one map, and now for sure they remember this and they adapt very fast. They can take something from this game for their game, to use it more like a strength, and you need to create something else and you must think what they will expect from you.

A game of chess.

Chess, yeah, mind games, and that's why it's tough. We were close to winning Dust2, it was 12-10, and we were a bit shaky and not confident. There was a lot of hesitation in our moves, and this is what we need versus them this time to win. We must not hesitate at all, especially in crucial moments. We can say this in every match against a tier-one team, but this is how it is for us now, we sometimes become shaky — we call it shackled —, we become shackled, not doing but waiting. This is what we want to focus on a lot this match, to be more in control.

At BLAST Bounty you said in an interview with us that you didn't remember a tournament where the team was not frustrated or tilted. There have been some episodes in the past couple of weeks that I'd say demonstrate this - the video between iM and Aleksib, you've already talked about this, and there was the first map against The MongolZ where b1t didn't shake iM's hand because he didn't like the way that he died in the last round of Dust2, and now it's jL not shaking hands with XANTARES. On the surface, this might seem like very small things, but if you add them all up, it paints an image of a team where there is a lot of tension. Do you agree with this?

No, I think this is a made-up story, let's say. What the community or journalists are bringing up, they're just trying to find something to have a story. This is how it looks for me, and it's a huge example of how far it can go, I didn't expect it to go to this event. We basically don't even speak about this or remember this, and every time we come to an event somebody is asking about this, maybe because there's nothing else or they want to have this beef or an interesting story about the team.

We had in the previous lineup, and in this lineup, some tough situations and conflicts in the team, and this is not how they look. It's not even close. Like I said one time, for me, even if it was like this, it's something very minor. I don't focus on that as an issue. We have many more issues in our team that we need to focus on.

The game on Mirage, I don't remember who it was, where Aleksi reacted, the whole game and after the game I saw players fully focusing on the game plan and what they want to do in the round, which is important in conflicts, because it can be in your head and you're not doing this. I can notice this from behind, so I'll take a timeout, like, 'Guys, forget about the round, we need to focus on what we want to do.' Not fight ourselves but fight the opponent. After the game, there's communication of what happened, mistakes, meta, details, all this stuff.

The scale of what they put out from that match is something very, very strange, and a huge example of how the angle, we can call it propaganda if you want because I know how it looks in my country from a Russian perspective. For me it looks exactly like this, a change of reality. The next one, where b1t didn't shake hands with iM, this I didn't see, but there for sure was an argument, and they were angry. b1t and Mihai were angry, but this is I think more, let's say, b1t's personality. He's more of a rough guy, Mihai more of a soft guy. b1t grew up in a different lineup with electroNic — we saw recently his clip — and with s1mple, so when he's communicating, his voice can be like this. He's not trying to be emotionally connected, he's more like, 'Why are you doing this, why are you doing that? You should be doing this,' and it can feel for Mihai very offending.

We spoke about this that it's different personalities from different backgrounds and culture, different countries. This is normal, in my opinion, because it has been the same with this lineup from the beginning, we were trying to find common ground. After this round, we went out and instantly spoke with them about this that there can be three different visions and we can't always think that our vision is right and we can always come to a common conclusion on the review when we hear comms. Then we'll have common knowledge of how to play the situation better. They both wanted to win the round, they both wanted to create something good in the round, and they just didn't agree.

I don't know how it looks in other teams, but I think it's a crucial part of development of any team and of existence of any team if you want to be tier-one, how you can find this balance of voices. This is what we're working on now with this balance of voices. Also, what is happening in the game is completely different from what is happening in life. They understand that it was a micro-conflict in the game, but outside of the game they aren't usually conflicting with each other, which is an important aspect, because it means it unites them to do something in the game when they have different opinions.

jL doesn't connect to our conflict, I think, it's for sure something separate. We can also bring up that we don't shake hands with Russian players, but it's different. It was his own decision, he thought he doesn't want to shake hands. This is actually a completely different part of the community nowadays, and I don't see anything bad in this. I think anyone can avoid shaking hands with whoever they want, it's his own relationship with somebody, unless he's creating some chaos, standing up, screaming some insults, it will obviously not affect our energy or atmosphere.

Recently, if you notice that people are screaming some insult, very low-level insults, like 3DMAX for example, and I think for this you can already avoid shaking hands. People must not shake hands with them at all, in my opinion, and it will be normal. If you have this example ready, then there will be more teams doing this. It's evolving in an interesting direction this year, somehow it started to happen more and more, maybe somehow kassad affected this, you know? People are doing more trash talk, I don't know, maybe somebody approached them and say 'Guys, we need to trash talk' and giving phrases. You really see that people are starting to do this more and more, from people who we didn't see before.

Do you think they're crossing the line?

Maybe this aspect affects jL, in my opinion. You're living in this atmosphere, he's actually a very emotional person, and then he sees a guy spamming his body, and he thinks, like, 'He's not respecting me.' He sees the situation that the guy shows no respect to him. And then he thinks, 'If he doesn't respect me, I won't respect him.' Something like this.

I wanted to ask about your map pool. You said you are one of the teams who are trying to have a seven-map pool. How does that affect some of your supposedly stronger maps? Even for example Mirage is not as strong as it used to be, and now you can play Anubis, even Train. It's hard to find your home map, so how does this fact affect your picks regularly?

This is a must-do thing if your lineup has been playing together for more than one year. You go through every map and you're building knowledge for your team on these maps, and there are usually not many updates and the meta is not changing significantly. You can add some utility, but overall the approaches to the map will be the same. We built a lot of protocols, a lot of knowledge for every map, so we know how to play them.

I don't think you should start playing a seventh map if it has been constantly in the pool, but when a map has been changed and there's a new map, and it was your permaban, I think it's a huge mistake for anyone who isn't mastering this map. A huge mistake, a loss of opportunity, let's say. It was a no-brainer for us to do. We would not start playing Vertigo if it was still there, we would for sure just stick to six maps. But if it's a new map and everyone is learning it, and originally we were good on Train, I have knowledge of this map, it was our best map at some point for NAVI in the previous lineup, and that's why we started playing it.

How it can affect our other maps, I think it's a little bit of a different, interesting topic, that any map you can be good but you cannot play well for too long. Nowadays there's a huge game-changer like Skybox EDGE, where you can very quickly analyze a lot of things that teams did against you, and I think this for sure should be blocked by Valve, that when you upload a demo it shows every model, even of your opponent. Even in practice you can check what the opponent was doing, not just in an official.

These things are a game-changer, they changed everything. People started to copy you too fast. You cannot have any surprises, jokers, it's a one-time thing. You did one round one time, and then it's hard to use it again because they already checked it. Everyone has an analyst, they know everything, and now it's much harder to evolve in that case. If you play one map constantly and you play it well. First of all, you are teaching others how to play this map because they will learn from their failure, they will try to think what we were doing well maybe just to counter it next time. And also, this Skybox EDGE thing helping have every detail. Of scrims also, not only officials.

How does it affect your scrims? Do you find yourself not using everything that you prepared privately because of this, because other teams will have access to what you're preparing?

Yes, for this you just need to save something like pistols or some interesting rounds, not to expose to tier-one opponents, but sometimes also to other opponents if there's a big gap between a scrim and an official match, because it can spread very fast. If you give it to some tier-three team, they will copy it and use it in two days. For this aspect, I think we have our vision of how scriims will look in the future, but I can't share this at the moment, but it can be a solution.

Because of this, it's an illusion that you can have a home map, in my opinion. You can have a home map for one or two months. In the previous season we also stopped playing it well, we worked through it again to rework some stuff, and then we started to play Mirage better again. Now we're still playing Mirage well, we smashed FURIA and MongolZ on T sides, 10-2 and 11-1, I think. Also I think we played G2 on Mirage, but I'm not sure, and it was also a good score for us. After these games we will for sure not going to be able to do the same, because they can see what we were doing. That's why it is very good for us to have seven maps, because we can always switch. But we still have some jokers on Mirage.

I wanted to get your thoughts on Vitality. You haven't played them since Cologne, but you will face them in the semi-finals should you beat Spirit. What do you think about them right now? What do you think makes them so good at the moment?

Let's say first of all, they're in a bit of a honeymoon, which is not their only strength and the reason why they're winning, obviously. But still, at this moment it is very hard to beat them because they have too much confidence, they have wings that are very hard to cut.

It reminds me of the same story that happened when ropz joined FaZe, with the NAVI 2021 lineup. As soon as ropz joined them, we felt a threat to ourselves that it's a new lineup that can take our place if we don't work hard. Tragically, the war started and it affected us a lot, everything, but they started winning a lot of stuff. This ropz effect happened with Vitality, it's two times in a row.

If you analyze any lineup, I think it's important to focus on their evolutional process. You can take from the beginning, like, they played with Magisk and dupreeh, and then flameZ. They had different changes, and when they change the lineup, you can see more because you can feel the difference. It's important for them to understand what roles, what mistakes, what knowledge they're lacking for their system, for their core, also for ZywOo. As soon as they got this perfect lineup, they were ready for this because, before that, they were in a building process and they were missing the last piece, like we were before we added b1t.

The previous year I was also very surprised why they were not in grand finals constantly, they still had a very strong lineup, and only they know what the issue was, but they for sure saw it clearly. And when they changed a player, for them it was a clear vision of what should happen or shouldn't happen, that's why I think it was the perfect situation for them. They had these ups and downs and more knowledge they built because of this.

Overall, when a core has been playing for a long time, it's always strong. Teams who have been playing together for more than six, eight months, one year, it's a huge advantage because you are constantly building new knowledge and a better bond between players in terms of understanding of the game or reactions in the game. This wave of wins, they're on this wave of hype or momentum or honeymoon, it affects them also a lot. There are a lot of factors here. We know that every lineup at some point will get where they're not playing so perfect. For me, I really want to meet them just to check how they play, to create a gameplan versus them and to see what will happen. For me it's a must-do, I'm excited to have this experience.

You and NAVI don't normally make panic decisions, but last year, for example, after the Spring Final you said that if things don't improve, something will have to change. You went on to win a lot of tournaments. Considering the current situation the team is in, do you still fully trust this roster as it is right now, or are you thinking that, if things don't improve by the Major for example, something will have to change? What's your mindset right now?

Let's say if we don't get to the quarter-finals of the Major, we will start thinking about some changes. We will start understanding and thinking that we're not on the right path and that something must be changed. It can be roles, it can be players, but I can say this only after we will get there. We have two tournaments before that, Melbourne and Astana, we will have a much better seven-map pool and the shape of these maps, we will have a bootcamp, we will have Austin, and then we will see how everything evolves. You must see it in the dynamic from a distance, always, and I cannot say how it will be after the Major now. Maybe it will be good, but if results are bad, obviously for every team it's like this, you always must feel like we need to change something.

And the bootcamp is before the Major, right?

Yeah, we'll bootcamp, but we're still waiting for invites, which stage we will play. I hope we'll play the last stage. The next bootcamp will be before the Austin Major. The previous was before Bounty and Katowice.