NAVI were swept by Legacy in the EWC Round of 16, starting both maps down 2-10. After the match, Aleksib said bluntly: "It's hard to win at this pace." He felt the opponents played better, while NAVI completely failed to show title-contending form. With BLAST Open Porto coming up next, Aleksib said they will adjust as quickly as possible and aim to bounce back at the next event.
Q: Out 0-2, eliminated in the knockout stage. This loss must be very disappointing, can you talk about what happened?
Aleksib: The start on Inferno didn't go our way. We actually read a lot of our opponents' intentions correctly, our reads were fine. But even when we read them, we still couldn't hold them off. For example, in the pistol round, we already had three players waiting on B, but we still didn't win it. In several other rounds, we guessed they were going to hit A and reacted accordingly, but we just couldn't stop them from pushing in. There was also a 5v2 in the middle that we should have closed out, but we failed to convert it.
We were slow to get going throughout the entire first half, starting far too slowly. After switching to the attacking side in the second half, we found our rhythm a bit, but we had fallen too far behind earlier. On top of that, we made some mistakes on crucial points, and ultimately couldn't complete the comeback.
Going into Ancient, we had already reset our mindset and felt we could bounce back, after all it was our map pick, and we had been playing well on the T side throughout the tournament. But they completely shut us down, they had full control of the pace. n1ssim played really well that game, and we failed to trade in several key duels. If we had won those rounds, maybe the match would have gone differently, but in the end we couldn't turn it around.
Q: The two maps played today were exactly the same as at the Major. You won 2-0 back then, but lost 0-2 today. And on map one, Inferno, if it weren't for those two rounds from w0nderful — a 1v3 and a pistol-round ace — the scoreline could have looked even worse. Do you think it was a problem with your preparation today, or did they do their homework for this match?
Aleksib: We haven't done a detailed review yet, and the emotions haven't fully settled, so it's hard to say. But for now, I think they just played better than us, we didn't show at all what a championship-contending NAVI should look like. They definitely played better. I'm not sure if it was a gap in tactical preparation or something else, I should have a clearer idea after I properly review the footage tonight.
Q: This Round of 16 loss was clearly not the result you expected, especially considering the Club Championship is important for NAVI — if I'm not mistaken, you were previously ranked third. Looking at the tournament as a whole, what are your main takeaways?
Aleksib: Not much to say, the result was bad. We trained really hard, we practiced every single day here, although we only played two official matches, this is the third. All the rest of the time was spent training, trying to stay in form and improve our proficiency on every map in the pool. This is not the result we wanted, and we are very dissatisfied with it too. But there are still several tournaments left in the season, and the next one is coming up soon. All we can do is try our best to get our mindset right and play better next time. There is no other way.
Q: After this loss, what goals have you set for the upcoming matches?
Aleksib: At least don't go out in the Round of 16 again, try to make the playoffs. And then just make ourselves stronger. We started slow on both maps today, and against an opponent like this, it's almost impossible to win with that kind of start. If we can't do it now, it will only be harder in the semifinals. We just have to work twice as hard, prepare twice as much, don't lose hope, and keep gritting our teeth and pushing forward. That's pretty much it.