Slingshot’s Vince Nairn and Jarek “DeKay” Lewis caught up with Natus Vincere’s Denis “Seized” Kostin during ESL One New York to talk about the team’s troubles and what needs to happen for Na’Vi to get back to its peak.
Vince Nairn: What were you major takeaways from the performance in New York?
Denis “Seized” Kostin: We just have to see what we need to do to continue improving our game. Just watch the matches and start working again, start practicing again. That’s it.
VN: You guys are so competitive. How do you handle going through tough patches of play when you obviously have a clear desire to succeed?
DK: It’s really hard to be honest, because especially for us, when it was here one year ago, we were playing semifinal or final of almost every tournament. We are not one of the best teams in the world right now, and we need to work hard to get back to that level. We understand our level right now, and we just need to work.
Jarek “DeKay” Lewis: How do you feel as a player right now that you don’t have to in-game lead?
DK: First game against Cloud9 I was so stressed and I didn’t play well at all. But after, I relaxed a bit and started to play better. I think every tournament I am playing better and better, so I need to keep practicing.
JL: What are your expectations toward the end of the year? Where do you want to be?
DK: Of course we want to win some events by the end of the year. But we need to improve a lot, and we just want to be again one of the best teams to compete for the titles. That’s our goal.
VN: Who are players you kind of looked at to emulate? Are there any specific players you look at in that respect?
DK: Usually I’m looking for players who play the same role and same position as I am playing. Looking to the best teams and trying to take some stuff from their games. Nothing special
VN: With your map pool, where are your areas you think you can improve?
DK: In these days, if you want to compete for titles at events, you need to play seven maps, at least five of them on good level and two decent. We’re looking for the same map pool. Right now, we’re playing six maps. We didn’t play Cache but we’re going to start soon as we will have time to practice it. I think in our level we need to improve every map. There is no good map for us. We are playing better than others on Train, but we need to improve everything.
JL: How are you going about trying to improve each map?
DK: We feel some confidence on Train because of old days. So that’s why we are playing better (on it) than others because of the understanding in micro game and how we need to play.