Natus Vincere started their run at the ELEAGUE Major with a dominating victory over mousesports, defeating them 16-3 on Cobblestone. Shortly after the victory, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev opened up about the team's preparation for the event and their biggest obstacles going forward in an interview with HLTV's Striker.

Na`Vi were one of the eight teams invited to the Major due to placing in the Top 8 at the previous Major, ESL One Cologne 2016. Without having to worry about qualifying, s1mple said that Na`Vi had plenty of time to practice and prepare for the tournament.

"We had about 22 practice days, 10 days of bootcamp. We woke up at 12, started talking about maps and practiced our communication after playing deathmatch," said s1mple. "After this we had like five or six scrims, and after the scrims some went to sleep and me, flamie, GuardiaN and seized, we played FPL and slept for about 5-6 hours. And this we did for the 10 days."

Na`Vi are currently one game away from advancing to the playoffs, having defeated mouz in Round 1 and Team EnVyUs in Round 2. Though Na`Vi is close to reaching the Top 8 once again, there are several teams that s1mple believes will be tough to beat.

"I think our biggest threat is going to be Astralis, because they didn't want to practice us, and I'd say SK Gaming even if they have fox and changed a position," said s1mple "Gambit are playing really great right now, at least from practice, and they already won against North."

s1mple also opined that the use of a Swiss format at the ELEAGUE Major was an improvement over past Major's, as it allows for Na`Vi to play a new team every match.

"Yeah, it's a great system, because you have one more chance to go to playoffs," said s1mple. "And you always change the opponent, you can't play the same team twice."

Preston Dozsa is a news editor for theScore esports whose journalism idol is Dino Ghiranze. You can follow him on Twitter.