Natus Vincere started the tournament in a rather slow fashion, trading blows with Quantum Bellator Fire during the first half on Inferno before closing out the match comfortably in the second half.

s1mple shared his thoughts on the tough first half against Quantum Bellator Fire

After the match, a few members of the press asked Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev about the match, the difference between Na`Vi with and without Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko, and about his opinion of the two French teams, G2 and Envy:

Milan Švejda (HLTV.org): Can you explain what happened in round 14 when you lost to a full eco?

We decided to take mid control and it wasn't really a good mid control (laughs). Me and Zeus died and then Edward tried to go ivy, he didn't expect the players there and lost his AK, they took two AKs and won the round.

We lost against a full eco, a force, and a really bad pistol in the first round, because no one pushed to the site, someone was low, someone was flashed. It was a decent game for us, not really a great start as we expected, but it's only the beginning and every beginning at the Major is really hard for every team.

Ethan Leslie (The Game Haus): Talk about what happened in the first half, it was really sluggish, a lot of trading rounds with QBF. What was sort of going on with the team, comm issues, rustiness in the first match, or...?

Last time we played an official at LAN was at DreamHack about a month ago and we just forgot how to play this game maybe. I'm pretty sure a lot of players were nervous, especially me at the beginning, but we know how to play in our game, that's what we practiced before the Major, and we did it on the CT side and everything was good.

Max Cuche (VaKarM): How is Na`Vi with Zeus and without him? What's the difference?

Zeus gave us a lot more tactical power and especially electronic as well, he gave us a lot of individual power, so it's like a new lineup with good chemistry. He's a great leader together with kane, they're working together really well.

Milan Švejda (HLTV.org): Can you talk about the veto, did you expect Inferno to come through, did you aim for it to come through?

We knew we were going to play Inferno or Mirage, I wanted to start on the CT side on Mirage or T side on Inferno. I wanted to play Mirage, but the team decided to play Inferno. We knew that we were going to do this veto, but we didn't expect this slow start at the beginning of this game against them.

Milan Švejda (HLTV.org): So is Inferno something you aim to play more after you haven't played it much in the past couple of months?

We played it a lot, we just want to play 2-3 maps not to show other maps to good teams, we need to qualify to another stage. So we just want to play Inferno as much as possible, and other maps.

Ethan Leslie (The Game Haus): How do you guys prepare for a team that doesn't have a whole lot of LAN experience, they've played a bunch of online tournament and things like that, but other than the CIS qualifiers, do you guys really have anything on them before coming into the match today?

Our coach watched 10 demos of their play on Mirage and Inferno. Not on other maps, he was sure we were going to play one of these maps. And after, we came to the room and watched one demo of them on Inferno as well against pro100, Zeus' organization. And we saw they beat Space Soldiers 16-7 at WESG, 13-2 on the CT, so they had a strong performance on this map.

Max Cuche (VaKarM): What do you think G2 and EnVyUs will do at this Major?

I think G2 and EnVyUs prepared really well, I heard that they had a bootcamp, both of these teams, so I'm pretty sure that they will go to playoffs. It was a long time since G2 were in playoffs, actually, and EnVyUs are becoming much, much stronger. I like EnVyUs because they're not disbanding after losing some tournaments, I remember them at New York, DreamHack Masters, everywhere, and they keep playing like this and they're becoming better and better.