s1mple hopeful NAVI will show their “S game” at IEM Katowice

Aleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev dismissed NAVI’s struggles in the BLAST Premier Spring Groups as a bump in the road and said the team should perform much better on LAN in Katowice.

The CIS team looked out of form in their first tournament of 2022, the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, but still managed to qualify for the Spring Finals thanks to the competition’s forgiving format.

NAVI’s performance was a far cry from their dominant showings in 2021 as they won just two of their five matches in the BLAST competition – even dropping games to relative minnows MIBR and to a struggling Astralis side.

As NAVI finish their preparations for IEM Katowice, the first LAN tournament of the year, s1mple explained that the team’s issues in the BLAST tournament were down to a lack of sharpness as the players are still trying to come back to form after a long and demanding season.

“It was the first time we had such a long break, and it’s hard to get back to [where we were] when we were winning and crushing everyone,” s1mple told reporters at a press conference.

“Of course, we need some time. And it was online. Our team performs better on LAN from game to game, and I think we are reaching better levels of performance.”

Better preparation

NAVI will play their first match at IEM Katowice only on February 18, taking on one of the last teams coming out of the Play-In stage.

• Discover more: Pop Flash: Astralis are a MESS! | IEM Katowice Preview

In a way, NAVI will have more margin for error now as all matches in the double-elimination group stage will be played in a best-of-three format. This will give them the chance to iron out the flaws in their game and to improve as the tournament goes on.

At IEM Katowice 2020, for example, they dropped down to the lower bracket early and then cruised through the playoffs, beating Astralis, Liquid and G2 Esports without dropping a single map.

“I hope so,” he said when asked if NAVI will be closer to full force in Katowice. “We improve during LAN games. In the group stage, we’re going to play like this, and in the quarter-finals, we’re going to play much better. If we get there, of course.

“Our preparation for IEM Katowice was much, much better than at the start of the year. We all had vacations, we all forgot some strats. Hopefully, we are going to show our A game or S game.”