B1ad3: "We were close to making some changes"

NAVI's coach spoke to about the off-season and why no changes came to pass despite the organization's attempts.

Natus Vincere have returned to top-tier play for the first time since they went out from the IEM Cologne Major in Stage 3, securing their first win of the season over 3DMAX in the opening round of the Esports World Cup.

Upon the team's elimination from the Major, Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy told NAVI would "definitely become stronger next season" but was not ready to say how, leaving the door open to roster changes.

However, in the end changes did not come to pass despite the fact that NAVI came "close to making some changes," B1ad3 has revealed to in an interview from Paris.

"There were some possibilities to change the lineup. We also spoke to players that we might change the lineup if we see the potential to be a better team in the next season," the coach said.

"We tried some negotiations, but it didn't go well. We were close to making some changes, but eventually we understood it couldn't happen [...] There was competition, let's say, for these players, and we couldn't do anything," B1ad3 explained.

In the end, the team also came to the conclusion that it was better to stick with the lineup that has been together for over a year now: "We knew at some point it was much, much smarter to just keep playing with this lineup because knowledge and material you build as one unit is very, very crucial.

"Winning two tournaments last season was the result of this aspect, that we're playing for a long time as a team already."

B1ad3 also spoke about how he has tried to ensure the team does not stagnate with the same lineup, how the removal of Overpass and addition of Cache helps them, and why he persuaded NAVI's management to skip BLAST Bounty and take nearly two months off officials.

You can watch or read the interview in full below:

B1ad3, congratulations on your first win here at EWC. First of all, I wanted to backtrack a couple of months to our last conversation at the Major after you went out. There you were talking about the possibilities heading into the off-season, and what the future of the roster would look like. Can you tell me about how that off-season went from your point of view and how it resulted in no changes in the end?

Yes. Like every end of the season, we were trying to build and analyze our strategy for the next season and overall the evolution of NAVI's CS squad. A lot of offers were made to us. There were some possibilities to change the lineup. We were thinking, speaking with different agents, about who we could change.

Eventually, we also spoke to players that we might have changed the lineup if we would see the potential to be a better team in the next season, because NAVI's aiming to be maybe not like Vitality, but close to Vitality. Everyone does this, just playing a season and winning like one, two tournaments is good, but if you can improve, you want to improve. So yeah, we tried some negotiations, but it didn't go well. But we were close to making some changes, but eventually we understood that it couldn't happen.

Was this from the organization or negotiation side, or did something go wrong in the end, or did you decide it was not worth it, or why didn't it happen?

It was on all levels basically. Sometimes we were deep in discussion and then, days by days, people analyze everything. We make an offer, they make an offer, and then some other team can come and make them an offer. There was competition, let's say, for these players, and we couldn't do anything.

But obviously you're speaking about strong individuals, and always when you have this possibility, you always try to bring them to the team to change and make something fresh, new and stronger for the future. But we also knew that at some point it was much, much smarter to just keep playing with this lineup because knowledge and material you build as one unit, with five players in a team, it's very, very crucial. And it's also very valuable, and it can be very efficient if you use it in the correct way. And we should not underestimate this because I think that winning two tournaments last season was the result of this aspect, that we're playing for a long time as a team already.

And we also understand that this season can... We don't want to get into a slump where we are stagnating and playing with the same lineup without any future or enthusiasm. That's why we also focus on this a lot so we don't start the season just playing, right? So we made the goals and we want to use our experience with this lineup and now to activate as much as possible. And I see the desire, I see the motivation from the whole squad, and it's not like we are just playing because we couldn't make a change. We're just starting from scratch, let's say, motivation-wise.

You said you'd come back much stronger, and you touched on how that would happen. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you mean by working with the team on the enthusiasm part or on the motivation part? What did you do to bring that out of the players more?

For me, it goes always to reality. I don't want people to be delusional and to say something like, 'We are strong, we can do better,' all this basic stuff. We just basically went to tournaments we played, games we played, on the review and there we have full clarity of why we are losing and why we are winning the rounds. And if you bring this topic to the table and say, 'Guys, if you literally, on the edge, if you fix this little stuff, everyone be more united, more connected,' let's say, 'more creative,' and all the stuff, something that is real, right? If you work harder, we can say it in a different way, then everything is possible.

NAVI's current lineup has been together for over a year, since makazze joined I think last season we played with a lot of potential and with possibilities. In my opinion, we were a strong contender. When we played the best teams, we were almost always competing and being a hard team to beat. Like I said, for me, the main factor always is that if you play, for example, one year with the same lineup, you can always use this as a big strength. It's not something shallow, let's say. It is real, because the amount of protocols we build in our system is very big. You need time to build with another lineup. So for me, it's always a big strength.

I have, on one hand, a strong lineup, which was playing for a long time together, and they know a lot as a team. Team knowledge is huge, and using it is also a strength. On the other hand, you can start from scratch, with new players to refresh the lineup. Both are strong. That's my point. Just different directions, but both are strong for me, and this is how it was. Also Cache was added to the map pool, and we will try to surprise some teams on this tournament.

As I said at the beginning, it's been almost two months off of officials for you guys, which is quite rare in this competition. I'm not even sure there is another team that has been off for this long. Can you talk me through that decision to skip Bounty and to take more time in the off-season?

Yeah, that was the decision I was asking for, maybe for two hours we were having, not negotiations, but I think more of a brainstorm discussion. I was trying to persuade our top management to skip this tournament because it doesn't make any sense. Every time you start, vacation is first of all important. You need to reset. You need to build the energy to start the new season.

Then after this, I think it's very important to go into the season, not raw in terms of your shape, the team shape, but being able to play, to know your strengths, to remind everything, to recall all the strats we played and to have very, very strong shape. It's very crucial for us. And when I think about this logically, I always say to our top management that we cannot force our team to be strong if they didn't practice enough time. After a vacation time, people forget a lot of stuff and they need to recall everything. So time was the main thing. We just needed more time to practice.

This is, I think, how it should be always. If you start the season as a tier-one team, strong organization like NAVI, it's crucial to have results. So you cannot just come to the first tournament and lose in the first round, like in single elimination, right? So if you have, for example, six days, it's not enough to practice as a team for six days, six maps and even, maybe even five maps.

And the second factor is, it's online. If you speak about VRS, you don't get a lot of points, and yeah, it's not valuable at all for VRS. You can lose more if you lose to some, let's say tier-three, tier-two opponent. You will lose points eventually, over the next days or weeks. It will eventually recalculate everything. So if you think about this, it was a no-brainer, and luckily for us, they said, 'Yes, of course, let's do it. Let's skip Bounty.' And we had like the best start of the season I had before.

What does that look like?

It's like you are not in a hurry anywhere. We're gathered in an amazing place in Barcelona. Everyone is bringing ideas. We're slowly starting the season, practicing map by map, fixing mistakes. You're just in the process constantly.

And what you said, we didn't play officials for a long time, it's very true. After this period of time, it's very crucial not to just only bootcamp, but you can practice a lot of stuff, but if you cannot use it or execute in the official, you can be again eliminated very fast, right? So for us, it was very, very important to activate and to come with full force, not to be casual or slow routine, sometimes we do this. So yeah, we spoke about this a lot. Let's start with full energy and let's not underestimate the opponent, and I saw effort from every player.

You hinted at Cache a little bit. Something I wanted to ask you about, also backtracking to a conversation I remember from earlier in the year where you were talking about one of the factors that hindered you at the beginning of the year was the map pool change that came in after the previous Major. After this Major Cache has come in, but maybe more importantly, Overpass has gone out, which was your previous permaban. So does that help NAVI going into the season?

Yeah. They hurt us and now the karma went back. Now we benefit from this completely. I think it's amazing because you can use this always, in my opinion, when you have a lineup that played for one year like we did, minimum. If you have another lineup which played minimum one year, you need to use this to play one more map if they change it, always. Because we spend so much time, teams playing a lot of tournaments, spending so much time in the practice room analyzing the same stuff constantly, on the same maps, the same meta, and people just get used to it. They just learn how to play the maps, that's all. Then if you're tier one, you're always on point, and then you have time to switch to some other map. Yes, it's maybe hard, but that's my point.

We will try to surprise teams with Cache. Obviously we'll choose the teams who are good or not good, we'll see, depends. You always have a chance to analyze the opponent because they played, we didn't play officials. They played, we can check how they play, what is their meta, and then you just build a game plan out of this. You think, for example, 3DMAX played a lot of officials on this map, and in a best-of-one, maybe it's not the best idea.

Does that mean that you guys have practiced and put in a lot of time into the new map?

This I cannot say, but I think some people know how much we practiced, because we practice against some other teams, and some teams maybe saw that we were looking on the scrims. But yeah, I think we can play all maps now. We're still figuring out by ourselves, because the start of the season, like I said, is very important. You can practice a lot of stuff, but eventually the real reality shows you only when you play officials. Because it's completely different: when you start to play the map, and there is no room for mistake, like on scrim, it's completely different. Now you show the real challenge, how you handle the stress on this specific map, for example, and how you feel it, how you make micro decisions, and this is a very crucial thing.

That's why I'm also very excited, because we start the season with two tournaments in a row, and that was also basically part of our strategy: we skip Bounty, have a good bootcamp, and can play two tournaments in a row. And with this, with these two tournaments, we can build a lot of strengths around our map pool, which was our problem at the beginning of this year.

Lastly, I just wanted to ask you about what's going to tell you that you are on the right path, that it was the right decision to stick to this lineup in this off-season. Early into the season, what kind of signs are you going to be looking at to make sure that this is where you want to continue?

Well, we have the same goals as before, like I said. Nowadays it looks, at least for us, for NAVI and tier one CS, very, very stable in terms of what is happening, what is going to be in the future, like what tournaments you can play on and so on. It means that all teams are in the same bubble, I'd say, and they all have now a lot of time to show the results, to perform.

And this time for performance gives you a lot of room without the pressure. So I don't think that we are in the pressure position at this moment. Let's say Vitality was on the Major, or maybe Falcons now must be under the pressure because they are the huge favorites after winning and they have this lineup.

So yeah, for us it's the same. We just, mentally, we are starting the same as previous season, but now everything changed in terms of map pool, and we played more as a team. So same, we are aiming to achieve the best this year on every tournament, to improve. Being in the process for us is now the main thing, being in the process, and then you go to the Major and try to achieve the best there. Same will be at the end: no trophies, they will tell me, 'We need to change,' for sure, right? So it's from season to season, from the end of season to the end of another season.