makazze: “I was sleeping 5-6 hours and we won the tournament”

If one team feels like they can beat Vitality, it has to be NAVI. Fresh off of winning ESL Pro League, they could be hitting form at the right time to take BLAST Open Rotterdam away from favourites Vitality.

Ahead of NAVI’s first game, we talked to makazze about being an MVP, how less sleep could be the secret to CS, and the unexpected downside of making it to tier one.

You're an MVP now, does that give you more confidence going into events, or is that the confidence you were bringing anyway?

I always had this confidence, but obviously with an MVP it's more, that's normal. I think I am the same. It didn't change that much.

You came into that event on the back of some lower performances for your standards, and then you came out blasting. Did you change anything in your approach, or was it working until it hit?

To be honest I was working until it hit.

Also, when we were playing online from home I had some problems I would say, I couldn't sleep that well. I was only sleeping 4, 5, maybe 6 hours, I was feeling so awake. Then when I played officials from home I was feeling fully confident, I was kind of destroying everyone.

One day, I slept more than 9 hours, and my body was fully sleeping.

So I felt like, I will try for this tournament, to sleep like how I slept in that game, 4, 5, 6 hours. I was sleeping 5-6 hours and we won the tournament! Is this a routine or what? What the f**k is this?! [laughs]

Maybe I should try that!

[laughs] Maybe!

About playing at home, and maybe being better there. Is that something that surprised you when you started travelling to LANs? Was it a bigger adjustment than you expected?

I didn't know that if you travel a lot, you'll be tired. Because before travelling or going to tier 1 tournaments, I was like "I wanna go so bad" and "I'll never be tired." Because I was so excited.

But when you don't go home for 2 months, it's a lot. Yeah. That's the beautiful side of CS.

Is that's why it's really important to have a supportive team around you, so you can stay sane with that travel?

Yeah, for sure.

NAVI start their run at BLAST Open Rotterdam against B8 today (Wednesday the 18th of March) at 13:20 CEST. Tune in to see if makazze’s sleep tricks are still working, or if sleep debt comes for us all.

This is not life advice.