Aleksib: "We improved on the Falcons game, but it's not like we're filled with confidence now"

"We kinda took a step back after those two losses, but the most important thing is that today, our game plans, at least on the T side, worked perfectly," the Finn added.

Natus Vincere arrived at Pro League after a confidence-boosting campaign at StarSeries Fall and beat Aurora in their opener, but found themselves fighting for their tournament lives by day four following losses to Falcons and 3DMAX.

They were made to fight for the win against HOTU, who nearly came back from 1-11 down on the T side of Train before NAVI closed out.

"Today we played a much better Ancient, so we improved on the Falcons game for sure, but at the end of the day, it's not like we are... filled with confidence now," Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen told HLTV after the match.

"We kinda took a step back after those two losses, but the most important thing is that today, our game plans, at least on the T side, worked perfectly."

The Finn also praised Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri's personality and work ethic, spoke about NAVI's final months of the year, and their goals for EPL past reaching the playoffs.

You can watch the interview here, or listen here.

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Aleksi, you're 2-2 at EPL. Not the start you would've wanted I'm sure, but you're recovering. How are you feeling after getting this win?

We feel good. It was a bit of a tough one to swallow yesterday, and the comeback they were making now on Train CT. Overall I think n0rb3r7 played brilliantly, he was shutting me down on Ivy, so I need to look into that. But the most important thing is the win.

This format allows you to lose two times, and I was glad yesterday evening thinking about that. Like, 'You could be out at this moment,' after we lost to 3DMAX. We're still in it, and we need to go out with everything we have for tomorrow and come out on top because if we make the playoffs, then it's one game at a time and a different beast.

You came into this event after winning StarSeries, and you said there it was a good chance to build confidence. But you also said that if you lost, it would have really killed your confidence. Coming here with that win under your belt but not necessarily having the best results straight away, has that changed the internal conversation at all?

I do think that the loss yesterday, everybody was pretty unhappy because we knew that we really wanted to get revenge on 3DMAX. Before that, we played a very solid game against Aurora, and against Falcons we only played one competitive map. We tried to analyze it the best we could.

Today we played a much better Ancient, so we improved on the Falcons game for sure, but at the end of the day, it's not like we are filled with confidence now. We kinda took a step back after those two losses, but the most important thing is that today, our game plans, at least on the T side, worked perfectly.

On CT we started to crumble and didn't play exactly how we are supposed to, or what our protocols are. Like taking solo duels after a 5-on-3, myself included. So there is still stuff to work on, but I do think that today's showing is still good.

In terms of what stuff you have to work on, can you tell me how that's been? Especially with makazze, he's been in the team for a while now and he's developing as you go along, but how has it been recently?

I really like the guy, he's super sweet in real life. He's always cracking jokes, always laughing, and that's something that's really important in your atmosphere, to at least have one guy that's doing that. And we were all... like, when he's laughing, you're laughing, and that's a very good thing. He's also trying to grind everything he can.

We had pretty early games and very early wake-ups, so maybe he was not exactly in his comfort zone, he couldn't play his FACEIT games very late in the evening. But he's doing his best and I can see he's working and trying to improve constantly. It's not like I'm seeing him after a bad game and I feel like he's destroyed and loses motivation, all that type of stuff. I'm speaking to him and I feel like he's always there, and that's a very good thing to have.

The more games we have, the more tough games we have, or the more... like today, for example, this comeback that they were making. There were struggles, but in the end he was the guy who kinda won us the map. He got these very important kills pushing Secret on the CT side to get us on the 12th round, and that ended up being the difference-maker, at least on the CT side.

The Major invite list was just finalized. For NAVI, as we approach the end of the year, how are you feeling going towards the last months of the year? This is basically the most stacked event before we head into the Major as well.

Well, I do think that the rest of the reason is good for us. We have Thunderpick after this, and after that we will have a bit of time, Chengdu, then a bit of time, and bootcamp into the Major. It's going to be nice, and especially going into Chengdu, knowing that, no matter what happens after the tournament, you're going to have a bootcamp and you're going to start at Stage 2...

Meaning that, there are tough teams, it's never easy at the Major, but when we manage to qualify from Stage 2 to Stage 3, I do think that it's maybe going to give us an edge compared to starting straight from Stage 3 because it didn't work for us... or, previously, we did manage to qualify the playoffs, but I still think it's a good thing now for the development of the team.

Lastly, you're 2-2 now, one match away from playoffs. For EPL itself, what is the result that you're looking for, what are you hoping to achieve here?

First of all, we're looking to reach the playoffs, that's an obvious one. From there, we're looking to take down a top team, because the thing is, when we've had our chances lately, it's not been easy.

The last time I remember winning something significant was against The MongolZ in the playoffs of Cologne, and since then, it's just been rough, right? So we're looking into qualifying for the playoffs, starting with a win against a very good team, and going from there. Because I think that will allow us to get into the right path to analyze what we did correctly in order to beat them, and do the same thing for the next game.