One of the dark horses of the tournament, Natus Vincere, had a shaky start to the event, losing to Liquid in the opener. However, Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and co. secured a top four finish in Germany after eliminating G2 with a 2-0 victory.

Andi's first event as Na`Vi's coach was StarSeries S3

In the aftermath of the first quarter-final of the day, we talked to Andrey "⁠Andi⁠" Prokhorov to hear his thoughts on coaching, the AWPing in Natus Vincere, losing to Misfits and more.

Starting with you coming into the coach role and starix leaving, tell me just a bit about that period, your first goals with the teams and what you wanted to do?

I was working as an analyst with the team for two years, and I felt that I wanted to try out as a coach, that I was ready. That was what I was thinking at the time, but when I started coaching, there were so many new things for me because my role was something new and I needed to figure out how to work as a coach now, as my focus was analyzing before.

And now I feel comfortable, I can feel the situations on the map and I think that the calls I make in the game are on point. Hopefully, I have this understanding now because my team needs it. For example, today on Nuke or Overpass, I made a few calls and they worked.

At the beginning of your tenure as a coach, one of the differences that were noted was s1mple not AWPing that much. That was to focus on getting GuardiaN to main AWP. Can you tell me about that move?

It wasn't only s1mple, I felt back then that GuardiaN wasn't playing his role really because when we had tactics, he needed to do something in them. I gave him the free role so he can focus on opening frags, that is what is what he does best. With s1mple, I think it depends on the map, but usually, I have no problem with him using the second AWP whenever he feels. For example, on Mirage it works really well, same as Cobblestone and other maps. The two we have are some of the best snipers in the world.

After StarSeries S3, your first event as a coach, came a period with not that many events and then the last two you were at had some disappointing results. You lost to Misfits at DreamHack, and then ESL Pro League... Can you tell me about that period and how you viewed it?

That was the most bitter time for me. Actually, I still don't get it, why we lost to Misfits, because we won Train against them in the group stage and then Cobblestone in the decider match, before losing Train and Mirage without any chances. That was really strange. I felt that we were ready back then, to win that tournament. It was disappointing, but it was a good lesson for us, for me, so I can notice many more mistakes, what we should work on and so on.

Then we didn't have enough practice time. We needed to go to Poland for our sponsors, made a boot camp for that, then other things, health problems and so on. That's why we weren't really able to prepare and didn't feel confident. But now we are coming back into shape.

At this event, you lost the first match against Liquid. It seems like this five of Natus Vincere has always had either blowout, great results or just lose straight out. Did you see that as one of the problems in Na`Vi, handling big deficits? Is that something you are trying to work on, coming back into matches?

First of all, our big problem is communication and discipline, because we have young players, they are really talented, and the first thing I tried to create was synergy, communication between players. Hopefully, we are getting this level of communication, that is pretty much what we are working. It doesn't matter how we are prepared, but how we communicate, how disciplined we are...

In the match against G2, in the veto phase, a lot of people were surprised, that you didn't go for Train. That looked like their weakest map, you looked confident on it. Can you tell me about the decision?

I didn't want to play Train because we played two Trains before, against Cloud9 and Space Soldiers. So we showed a lot, and I don't think that playing a map for the third time in a row is a good idea. We picked Overpass because we are confident in it, I think Overpass and Train are our best maps.

I feel like if our opponents let them in, we should play Train and Overpass whenever. We knew they were going to pick Nuke and then Cobblestone or Inferno, something like that. We played Nuke against them before, EPL online, we lost 16-10, but now we are a bit different.

Your decision to not pick Train, is that influenced a bit by all the analysts and coaches teams now have, like G2 have both a coach and an analyst? How much do you think analysts and coaches help the team in the middle of a tournament?

It helps a lot, analyzing and preparing really well. I know G2 have enkay J and other teams have analysts as well. We don't have it because I feel like it needs to be the right person, he needs to think same as me. And I haven't met such person yet. (laughs)

I'm a bit different because I didn't play Counter-Strike competitively so I have my own mindset, my own vision, that is influenced by classic coaching. I played professional football before so that's why I'm a bit different and think a bit differently, I guess.

Tell me, after a big BO3 win against G2, what are your hopes for the tournament?

We need to do everything step by step. Win the round, then the map, then the game. So yeah, focus on our semi-finals and let's see what we can do there. And then, maybe finals, the dream would be to fight to the end.