Natus Vincere became the last team to qualify with a 3-2 record in the Swiss format, defeating Liquid at the end of the fifth round in dominant fashion to clinch the eighth spot.

flamie is happy to see more CIS teams at the Major

In one of our last interviews from the Main Qualifier, Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev talked about the issues Na`Vi faced in their big losses to mousesports and FaZe, goals for the Major, and the CIS region that exceeded expectations at the tournament.

Can you tell me about the big FaZe loss that you suffered earlier today, why you weren't able to compete?

I don't really know what happened in our game versus FaZe, it was the same game as we had versus mousesports, we lost 16-4. In practice we play a different game, we have a lot of focus and we have a different view in-game. But when we play such games, like against FaZe or mousesports, sometimes - I don't know why - we stop believing in ourselves as we do in practice, or as we believed now versus Liquid.

When they won the second round 5v0, it was the first force round, we just got a mental block, and they started to shoot very well, started to rush everywhere. We just didn't focus, nothing helped. After the match versus mousesports, we had a big talk in our team about how to fix these mistakes, how not to let that happen again and we just played versus Liquid and won.

Tell me about the Liquid match as well - it was clearly very comfortable for you, were you just all feeling well individually?

Yeah, first of all, we did our team chant, we focused, we said it might be our last chance, because we didn't want to play two more games. We were just very, very focused as a team, the individual plays, we just hit almost everything and everything worked.

What is it going to take for you to do well in the group stage of the Major?

We will have four days before the Major, we will practice a lot. We didn't practice for a week before the Major almost, because we went to New York for Pro League Relegation and there was no place to practice. We just forgot how to play (laughs). Right now we will focus on our game, focus on our tactics, and I hope everything will be okay at the Major and we will pass to the playoffs.

Is there anything specific you will focus on?

It's about our map pool I think, we don't have a big map pool as other teams, we don't play seven maps, but we will focus on our strongest maps to win and to get to the playoffs stage.

What do you think about what Valve have done for this Major, including the Main Qualifier into the whole system?

I was never at the Major qualifier before, but it was a feeling as in Major games, playoffs, finals, every team is playing with their hearts. It's very hard, if we lose focus like versus FaZe or mousesports, and they are more focused than us, they can crush us and as you can see, we need to focus a lot. Of course nothing changed for the players, but they know this is a Major now, and they're playing more with their hearts to go through here.

The CIS teams have done very well here, Vega Squadron advanced, now Quantum Bellator Fire advanced and AVANGAR still have a chance, what are your thoughts on your region doing so well here?

I'm very happy there are a lot of CIS teams at the Major, on the main stage. I didn't expect that Vega and Quantum Bellator would pass the qualifiers, but I'm very happy for them, happy for us. I think our region is becoming more powerful and very strong, as you can see there are more CIS teams than any other country, any other region.