NAVI coach B1ad3 hails electroNic\u2019s IGL potential: \u201cMuch higher than Boombl4\u2019s\u201d Jo\u00e3o Ferreira\/DexertoNAVI coach Andrey \u2018B1ad3\u2019 Gorodenskiy has played down concerns about Denis \u2018electroNic\u2019 Sharipov\u2019s ability to lead the team moving forward. electroNic has taken over in-game leadership duties in the team following the removal of Kirill \u2018Boombl4\u2019 Mikhailov due to what the NAVI organization described as \u201chigh reputational risks for the club\u201d. The decision has raised concerns about NAVI\u2019s chances to return to the top, with electroNic having little experience in the role. Boombl4 had soaked up plenty of knowledge from his brief time playing alongside Danylo \u2018Zeus\u2019 Teslenko and from the years he spent competing under B1ad3\u2019s tutelage. Still, it was only in 2021 that Boombl4 overcame some of his initial struggles and became a capable in-game leader in high-pressure situations, helping NAVI to dominate the CS:GO circuit before the war in Ukraine broke out and disrupted the team. B1ad3 said that it\u2019s still early to pass judgment on electroNic as an in-game leader, but he backed the Russian player to succeed in the role. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a lot of time to practice [for BLAST], and we\u2019ll need to see the mistakes that will be made during high-stress situations in games,\u201d he told Dexerto. \u201cBut electroNic\u2019s potential as an IGL is much higher than Boombl4\u2019s. He has a better vision of the game and more experience. It depends on how much effort he puts into this.\u201d B1ad3\u2019s comments echo those of star player Aleksandr \u2018s1mple\u2019 Kostyliev, who said that electroNic \u201chas more ideas\u201d and a better understanding of the game than Boombl4. It has only been a couple of weeks since electroNic took up the role, but leading is not something entirely new to him. In ESL Pro League Season 13 at the beginning of 2021, he was the team\u2019s caller on Mirage and Overpass in their early matches after some promising scrims. The experience did not last, though, and Boombl4 returned to being the main caller on all maps following back-to-back losses to FURIA and Gambit. But now it\u2019s different. There is no fall-back plan, no one to hold his hand or step in if things go wrong. And because of this, B1ad3 said, electroNic is fully committed to making it work. \u201cAt the time, he was not serious enough as an IGL,\u201d B1ad3 explained. \u201cIt was something like, \u2018Let\u2019s give it a try\u2019. You know that if it doesn\u2019t work we will go back [to how it was]. You don\u2019t give 100 percent of yourself because of this. \u201cNow it\u2019s a different situation, there\u2019s a more serious approach. Now he must work more on his role. It was his desire, his ambition, to try to lead. He said that he had a vision and that he knows how to lead. \u201cWe didn\u2019t ask him to do it, like, \u2018Please, you must do it for the team, you must sacrifice yourself\u2019, because if you do this, the lineup will not have a good future. But if he wants to do it, it\u2019s worth trying. I think that he just needs some time.\u201d Doing it like Astralis Every championship team needs a player who can share the load with the star, and for NAVI, that player has often been electroNic. Signed in November 2017 from FlipSid3 Tactics, he has been a valuable sidekick to s1mple, even taking over when the Ukrainian is having one of his rare off days. Proof of that is his four consecutive appearances in HLTV Top 20 lists, twice entering the top five and never ranking below No.7. A common theme in the CS:GO scene is how high-fragging players see their numbers plummet when they become in-game leaders because of all the micro-managing that comes with the role. But B1ad3 doesn\u2019t think that has to be the case, pointing to Lukas \u2018gla1ve\u2019 Rossander\u2019s performances during Astralis\u2019 era as an example of a high-impact in-game leader. Still, he noted, there will be other players ready to put in extra work, including NAVI\u2019s still-to-be-determined new fifth man. \u201cI\u2019m not worried,\u201d he said about missing firepower with electroNic\u2019s new role. \u201cIt can come from the new fifth player, from b1t, or from Perfecto. As soon as we know the lineup we will have, we will start to build in that direction. \u201cBut electroNic can be some kind of gla1ve. You cannot say that he was in anyone\u2019s shadow during prime Astralis. I think he had a huge impact in terms of firepower. I think electroNic can easily be that kind of IGL. Not like karrigan, not like Boombl4. He can be like apEX.\u201d B1ad3 also used Astralis to explain why he felt it was important to hand the reins to someone who was already familiar with NAVI\u2019s system rather than bring in an outside IGL with his own method and way of thinking. \u201cI think when Magisk was leading it showed that others players also have this knowledge [of the system] because you evolve as a team together and their strength was that they were analyzing their situations and building collective knowledge of the team,\u201d B1ad3 explained. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to do the same. The IGL should be someone from our system. It\u2019s much easier to control our players with somebody from the system. If we took someone from the outside it would be difficult, we would need to explain the system to that person or he would bring his own system. It is doable, but Plan A is to have one of our players lead.\u201d The early signs are encouraging: NAVI are through to the quarter-finals of the BLAST Premier Spring Final, where electroNic is averaging a 1.07 HLTV rating and a team-high 1.25 Impact. But the first real test will come today against FaZe \u2014 a match that will offer a better gauge of how the Russian can handle himself in the saddle. B1ad3 is not too worried about the outcome of this match \u2014 or of the tournament for that matter \u2014, even though he thinks the team still has a chance to win the trophy, based on their individual talent and the fact that they\u2019re sticking to a system that has proven so successful. For NAVI, electroNic\u2019s growth as a leader will be worth more than the results they achieve here. This is merely the first stage of a transformational process that requires him to open his eyes to a new way of feeling the game. \u201cHe must always remember that his first priority should be to control the team,\u201d B1ad3 said. \u201cHe has played for so long as a star player that I can see that sometimes he\u2019s still thinking like a player and doing some things automatically. It\u2019s like a habit. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of adapting. I think he needs to set the goal to become a great IGL and that\u2019s it. He has everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NAVI coach B1ad3 hails electroNic\u2019s IGL potential: \u201cMuch higher than Boombl4\u2019s\u201d Jo\u00e3o Ferreira\/DexertoNAVI coach Andrey \u2018B1ad3\u2019 Gorodenskiy has played down concerns about Denis \u2018electroNic\u2019 Sharipov\u2019s ability to lead the team moving forward. electroNic has taken over in-game leadership duties in the team following the removal of Kirill \u2018Boombl4\u2019 Mikhailov due to what the NAVI organization […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}