Natus Vincere got their PGL Masters Bucharest campaign off to a winning start as they moved past G2 in a close series where both maps were decided by the narrowest of margins.
NAVI earned 83 Valve points from the win, climbing ten places to 23rd in the global VRS. HLTV’s latest projections put their chances of qualifying for the Major at 98 percent.
Questioned if the Major race added pressure to the team, Mihai “iM” Ivan replied, “I will say no, because we know how we can play.”
“I think we showed pretty well in the other tournament, in EPL,” he added. “We lost to Vitality, PARIVISION and Falcons. The pretty rough loss, you can say, was against PARIVISION; to be fair, it was our game. We should have been 2-0 on that Cache. We lost so many of our rounds.
“And we learned from that, and then we are trying to make playoffs here to make our lives easier for the Major.”
The Romanian player also shared details of NAVI’s plans for HyperX Retake, the tier-2 team in Lisbon, and cautioned that the team should not get ahead of itself after beating G2.
“I think it was good, but we started the same in EPL, so let’s not slip up,” he said.
You can listen to the interview here.
Congratulations. It must be a relief to get that one over the line after the many overtimes on Dust2.
Yeah, it’s a relief because, Nuke, we went in kind of blind. Obviously, if they don’t ban it, their perma-ban, we’re going to pick it. And we knew that they prepared. We went blind only because we didn’t know positions. We ended up finding their positions, I don’t know, around the sixth [round] maybe, or maybe fifth.
Dust2 is not our strongest map, but we are ready to play it whenever opponents are picking it. And it was tough, very tough. We started very well, but then it started to slip on the T-side. Then we kind of came back to one point, because they had 12 rounds, if I’m not wrong… no we had 12, they did three in a row, got to overtime. I remember this round on Long that we knew, Igor killed cross right side, I’m checking left side, and I don’t see him somehow. It’s crazy. And he kills two, HeavyGod, full blind. And that’s it. It was overtime.
Obviously that game was big for your VRS, right? All the talk about NAVI at the moment is VRS, the Major. Does that add any extra pressure to you when you go into games like this?
I will say no, because we know how we can play. I think we showed pretty well in the other tournament, in EPL. We lost to Vitality, PARIVISION and Falcons. The pretty rough loss, you can say, was against PARIVISION; to be fair, it was our game. We should have been 2-0 on that Cache. We lost so many of our rounds. And we learned from that, and then we are trying to make playoffs here to make our lives easier for the Major.
I was going to say it felt like you, obviously StarSeries was a bit rough, and then you came to EPL, it looked like you had improved and gotten better, got some wins there. And again, coming here, you’ve come out of a tough game against G2. Does it feel like you’re starting to move in the right direction?
Obviously, after every victory, it’s moving in the right direction. And even after some losses, it can move in the right direction because you learn from the mistakes, right? So I think it was good, but we started the same in EPL, so let’s not slip up.
Like you say, you want to get to playoffs to make your job easier for the Major. If you don’t make playoffs, things start to get complicated. Some people think it might be better for you to skip IEM Beijing, that it might actually be better for your Major chances. Do the players have any kind of idea of what’s going on in terms of planning events that you’re going to go to, or are you guys just playing the game and keeping your heads down?
We know a bit about what’s going to happen. After this, if we fail, we have this LAN in Portugal.
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NAVI sign up for HyperX Retake Season 13 despite PGL Masters Bucharest and IEM Beijing conflicts
Yeah, HyperX, right?
HyperX, yes. That’s pretty much it. I don’t think I can go into more detail about what we’re going to do about Beijing and stuff, but this is our plan. Obviously number one is to get to the playoffs here, and then if we fail somehow, we go to HyperX. Because we need those LAN wins.
