“Challenge we had was no real off-time between knock-in and this event” NaVi Lateks talks about busy schedule for them
At VCT EMEA Week 6, Natus Vincere took on Team Liquid in a best-of-three series. After an intense battle, Natus Vincere took down Team Liquid 2-0. After the game, Strafe interviewed Natus Vincere’s assistant coach Oliwer “Lateks” Fahlander. In an exclusive one-on-one interview NaVi lateks talks about the game, working with NaVi, the upcoming Fnatic game and more.
Q. Congratulations on your victory. What were the positives and the negatives from the game?
NaVi Lateks: “I think a lot of things went wrong. This was a really bad day in terms of individual mistakes or decisions. Like a lot of sloppy rounds that shouldn’t have been sloppy. 5v3 losses in retakes, 5v3 losses in the post plant, a lot of 4v3s that shouldn’t be close. At the same time, they played really loose, they weren’t afraid at all. Having a sub, they were playing like nothing to lose kinda style”
Q. Team Liquid played with a sub today. Did that add nervousness to the NaVi knowing they won’t be playing what you prepared for?
NaVi Lateks: “Yeah, not nervous I’d say. But more like, obviously we always play better with prep, like deeper rounds. So we obviously lose a bit of an edge there. It was the same with Karmine corp with the coach stepping in, we lost all our prep and we base our game plan around opponents most of the time”
Q. We saw you swapping out Kay/O for Fade in your fracture composition. What was the reason behind the change given you have performed well with the composition previously?
NaVi Lateks: “Yeah, We Fade + Yoru before the Kay/O composition against multiple teams. We changed to Kay/O for the Vitality game, because they play Killjoy composition. The Killjoy usually plays solo B and we can just knife site and we don’t have to worry about it. But these guys, we expected them to play the Viper+Cypher mirror comp with Raze obviously so we went back to Fade.
Q. How has it been like working with Ange1, doombr0s and everyone?
NaVi Lateks: “Me and doombr0s go way back. Like overwatch and in our first team in Valorant I was the IGL and he was the Coach. With him I have been working for a long time. Ange1 is such a cool guy in and out of the game. He leads the team like no one else.
Q. Can you give more insights on Ange1’s working as a leader.
NaVi Lateks: “When he joined the team he was teaching these guys, since he’s been around for ages like in CSGO as well. So he was teaching them so much. Now two years of playing with Zyppan and Shao, now they teach him almost new angles and stuff. He is a cool guy to be around. He does a lot of new strats, he has a good vision of the game. A lot of times it is the same style me and doombr0s want to implement so it lines up really well with us”
Q. What has been the biggest challenge for NaVi so far in the season:
NaVi Lateks: “No, not really. Internally we have no issues since everyone gets along superwell. I think the biggest issue or like challenge we had was no real off-time between knock-in and this event. We bootcamped for two-three weeks before LOCK//IN and then 4-5 weeks of LOCK//IN and then we have one week or four days before we're gonna be living in Germany for three months so it has been stressing out the schedule and energy level. So the teams that went out early had more time to prepare for the new map. I have been home for one week since January.”
Q. Who do you think is NaVi’s biggest competitor in EMEA?
NaVi Lateks: “No doubt Fnatic by far. That’s the team we look up to, they play great Valorant. They play a very different style from us. We like to change things up and keep ourselves and our opponents on toes. But they just play their own game and they play really solid”
Q. You will play Fnatic in the last week, Can you give some insights on the match-up?
NaVi Lateks: “I think, depending on the game against FUT, if we lose against FUT we have to win against Fnatic for the second seed. If we win against FUT, we are gonna experiment a little bit against Fnatic, because we are going to play Fnatic again in a week. But if we lose to FUT, we are going to put everything in the Fnatic game.
Q. What exactly separates a strategic coach from a head coach?
NaVi Lateks: “I am more of a help. The Head Coach usually directs what he needs. I do the dirty work, I find line-ups, executes etc. He’s calling the shots, but we have been together for so long in both teams and games even so a lot of things we do together”
Q. What was the reason behind the Yoru pick on Fracture?
NaVi Lateks: “It is just basically like the Chamber enabled double initiator meta. You can play your Fade and your flashes with Chamber. But with Chamber gone, you have to replace him with Sentinel. And with Yoru you get your Flashes and your duelist. The Yoru flashes are really good and it enables Fade picks.”
Q. How do you feel so far about NaVi’s performance so far in the EMEA League? You lost early against KOI, What exactly happened there?
NaVi Lateks: “I think it ties with having no time to prepare. After we got back from LOCK//IN, we started playing Gekko and it worked really well in scrims so we decided to try it in an official. It didn’t play as we planned to play out. As we got more time with the new meta and patch, we found our confidence and style. And form wise it has been scrapy and we have been grinding and our best challenge will be in playoffs and hopefully masters.”
The seventh week of VCT EMEA kicks off on 10th May, with Team Vitality taking on Giants Gaming.
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