B1ad3 interview: Calling up makazze, role changes and s1mple's shock transfer

Taking into account makazze's inexperience, B1ad3 says the youngster is "showing really good potential."

Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy, despite injuring his arm, stopped by HLTV's microphone at the IEM Cologne mixed zone to give his thoughts on Natus Vincere's Stage 2 run at the event in Germany after securing a spot at the LANXESS Arena with a 2-0 victory over FaZe in the group's lower bracket decider.

The skipper also spoke about how Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri has been integrating to the team, as well as how Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan has been shining at the event in Germany so far with the off-season role changes, and shared his thoughts on the star player he coached for years, Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, going to a lower-tier team.

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B1ad3, congratulations on making through to the IEM Cologne playoffs. A tough road, I would say — tell me about how you would evaluate this debut with the new NAVI lineup.

I think the first FaZe match, we were just playing our game, checking the maps, everything. Then we played MOUZ, a pretty close game, but since we have a very raw map pool, we don't have a very wide strat book, everything is not so sharp. These little margins were really important versus MOUZ, and this is what we were lacking versus them. NIP...

A tough finish on Train there...

A tough finish, but at the same time because of our map pool we could get a better veto, but since we didn't have the same map pool as before the Major, we couldn't play with the veto and remove their strong maps. I think they got two of their stronger maps in the pool, Nuke and Train. Thank god that at the end of Train we finally won some crazy rounds, like with an eco.

Playing two matches [in the same day] is kinda tough for us, for our system it's hard to play too much in the same day. We had like a two hours break.

Hard because of the preparation?

Of course, of course. We always prepare for opponents and we need to know what they are doing. You only have time to eat, a little bit to rest, because it's exhausting to play three maps, and then you don't have time to find a good game plan to find real weaknesses to abuse.

It was very good that we played FaZe before, so we already had a game plan. Inferno we analyzed the previous time, so it was interesting to switch now to Inferno. They were also planning Inferno, I think. They wanted to remove Nuke, maybe, even if we picked Mirage. This time they removed Nuke to play Mirage third.

Game by game, it's a good sign that we did one bootcamp with a new player, changed some roles and are in the playoffs kinda very fast. All opponents were strong, the scene is very competitive, so yeah, I'm happy with what we achieved.

Can you tell me how happy you are with makazze? A big debut to come into such a tournament for his first one, it must be quite challenging — how did he handle this pressure and the debut?

The important [thing] is that we cannot compare him to other players from the top tier. He will be for sure lower in a lot of aspects, knowledge, experience, protocols of our system, obviously. We need to consider he came from the academy, doesn't have LAN experience at all, and if you analyze him like this, he is kinda incredible, showing really good potential for me.

Like Aleksi said, he's kinda confident in terms of what he wants to do, and at the moment all he needs is to upgrade his knowledge, which is obvious. We need to give him some time, not like one tournament. Viewers can really test him and see how strong he will be at the Budapest Major, if we qualify there.

Can you tell me about the thinking behind adding him?

Any team from tier one will for sure want to pick up, let's say somebody like ropz, or somebody like donk, for example. For sure, for our system it's much better to add a guy with experience with tier one, because you don't need to waste time. We are instantly playing a lot of tier-one tournaments where we need to be tested, with good results, which is also a huge risk for us, to take an inexperienced player.

Obviously, if we had a chance to take a superstar player, we would have taken it, but if not, it is much better to take a young player from the academy and give him time to evolve. You always balance this, either you want to step back and then become more fresh, or you can take somebody with experience, like Vitality, for example.

makazze got a real chance in his career to prove himself, which is what other teams should do with other young players, if they have this choice like we did.

Can you speak to how you're using him differently compared to jL? You're putting him in some of the same positions, but they're different styles of players.

We had our weaknesses with the previous lineup, and I analyzed them and spoke with Drin [makazze], I spoke with his coach, and then I pieced the puzzle of how I see it should be. Obviously we are ready to change anything in two or three tournaments in terms of roles. We need to start with something to see something.

The best way to add a new player is always to test him, like a long time ago we did with Perfecto. Nowadays it's really hard to have this opportunity, so unfortunately you need to add the player and start guessing, like 'this should be like this, let's see, start playing and see how it goes.'

Cologne is kind of a big tournament, and it would be tough for makazze if he was playing all new roles. Something that Falcons did, we did the same. We just gave him most of his roles. I asked what he likes, what maps he favors, and where he's more confident, and analyzed who can be doing what role. Can Mihai [iM] do this role more, with more knowledge, more experience, and so on. It was optimizing everything to try the best, and this is what it looks like. We are still playing and I think we still need to see.

Like I said, we need to give makazze more time to see how he will evolve in his role and how Mihai will evolve also in his role, sometimes passive lurker, sometimes active lurker. You see this tournament he has played incredibly good. At least this game for sure.

What are you looking to see from this team to tell you that it is an improvement from the last season?

Well, this is a rebuilding process. For now, we're focusing fully on the rebuilding process and come up to the Budapest Major in the best kind of shape and to see our potential for the next season. Obviously, nowadays with a good game plan and with good decision-making, with MR12, you have a chance to beat any team.

We're focusing on the process, trying to improve everyone in each role, and to see what material we have for the next season. And then we basically aim for trophies for the next season. Nobody says that we will not try to win anything this season, but for sure expectations should be lower, it's very important. We just need to focus on enjoying the game, being constantly in the flow, nothing else. Maybe then it will bring us a win this season.

Lastly, s1mple came back to sign for BC.Game. He even referred to your comment from late last year about him needing to grind through tier 2. What are your thoughts on the move?

If you cannot get a tier-one team, like I said last time, it's for sure much better to grind with a lower team. Go lower and show them that you want to go upper. I think s1mple showed a really good performance, in my opinion, at the Austin Major. Everything is quite easy. He has potential to still be the best player in the world.

It's all about effort, right? If he really wants it, like let's say karrigan, look how much passion he has, or apEX, look how much passion he has at his age. People like that have a real goal, and they're constantly working to reach this goal. s1mple needs to do the same.