Aleksib calls NAVI's early play unacceptable

Natus Vincere captain Aleksib said his team’s performance before the comeback on Inferno was unacceptable, Cybersport.ru reported. He spoke in a post-match interview on the official broadcast after NAVI beat PARIVISION in the IEM Beijing 2026 quarterfinal.

Mirage: communication broke down

Asked whether the game plan differed from the one used against Falcons and other opponents, Aleksib said it was clearly different because the two teams play in very different styles. He described PARIVISION as very passive, a team that lets you choose how to make the final attack and is comfortable playing that way.

NAVI had already lost to PARIVISION twice on Mirage, Aleksib said. He added that the team tries to make the right adjustments, but its decisions may be wrong, since it still lost by a wide margin.

He pointed to communication and to how NAVI played after planting the bomb. In his words, the team should have approached opponents together rather than one by one. He said the communication that helped against Falcons was missing on Mirage, and that NAVI worked on it seriously before Inferno.

Inferno: from silence to a comeback

Aleksib said NAVI looked like a different team on Inferno after the side switch. At 0-4 down, he said, TeamSpeak was completely silent, and he wondered whether everything was about to fall apart.

Then NAVI won one very important round, and Aleksib said he heard the players start talking again. After the team won the attack pistol round, he felt everyone was engaged and offering ideas, which made it much easier for him to lead.

The series

According to Cybersport.ru, NAVI lost Mirage 14-16, then won Inferno 13-9 and Ancient 13-10 to take the series 2-1.