gotthejuice talks NAVI's stability, new coach, and first place ambitions

15.02.2026

NAVI has reached the grand finals of tier one tournament for the first time in nearly six years. The young line-up promoted from NAVI Jr to the main team, has proved any doubters wrong and is now fighting for a trophy at BLAST Slam VI.

Ahead of NAVI’s playoff debut in Malta, we had the chance to talk to the team’s carry player, Taras "gotthejuice" Linnikov, about what changed, how the team progressed through the past few months, and how the expectations might have changed.

NAVI's return to playoff contention feels significant to longtime fans. Inside the team, does that legacy add pressure or motivation?

I don’t feel pressured at all, and regarding the motivation, we’ve always been very motivated. Nothing changed.

The roster features a very young mid player stepping into Tier-1 competition. How has the team helped Nikku adapt to the pace and expectations of top-level play?

Because he is so young, he is so adaptive. Overall, both inside and outside the game, he is a great person, and I think he feels very free about what he wants to play. I also don’t think I saw him feeling pressured or anxious.

You’ve been very open about working with a psychologist for two years. How does that mental training specifically help you reset during a high-pressure LAN match when the draft goes wrong, or the early game falls apart?

My work with my psychologist is more about daily routines. I also talk to him about my mistakes, and I find it much easier to improve on certain aspects if I talk to someone about it.

What has changed most in NAVI’s structure this season that’s allowing the team to compete more consistently?

We used to have draft problems, and overall, we had some instability in how we played our games. So, our new coach brings that. Stability, most importantly. He is trying to improve the team in every aspect, especially our drafts and the early game. I think every day it becomes clearer that we are improving our early game.

You just mentioned the attention he is giving to the drafts. How much of a final say does Cy- have in this aspect?

Cy- knows pretty much every team so well, and he is a very experienced guy, so he is helping us a lot with the pre-game preparation. It’s also very easy to talk to him about matchups and what we need versus each team.

photo credits: Luc Bouchon | BLAST

I know Cy- likes Grimstroke quite a lot, and I noticed the hero popping up in your drafts. Not many teams play Grimstroke these days.

Yes, he is very happy to have a level 30 Grand Master on our team. He said that during his time with Gaimin, he tried to add Grim to their drafts, but no one was listening to him.

In the recent closed qualifiers, you picked a carry Pugna against PARIVISION. pma mentioned you were confident on it, but the timing didn't work out. What was the thought process behind that pick, and is that something we might see again this weekend at BLAST with some adjustments?

Oh, I’m not sure we will see that again. It’s one of our faster strats. In that game, we had an Enigma, but the enemy had a good creep skipping start. But even though they were constantly creep skipping, we still took two tier one towers before the 20-minute mark. If they hadn’t creep skipping so much, I think we would have destroyed them.

The idea behind a carry Pugna is pretty clear, but would you say it’s possible to replicate in pubs? I’m asking for everyone watching you play Pugna who might be inspired to try it themselves.

I think it’s not that easy to play this in pubs because you need a lot of synergy with the other heroes and a clear plan and execution for this strategy to work.

So, your advice would be not to try this in pubs. Thank you for that. What would be key for NAVI to win the whole thing in Malta?

I’d say we have a lot of strategies, and we understand the meta well because we played a lot of games in the qualifiers before coming here. We had a strong performance in the group stage here as well, and I think all our work should help us make a deep run and even reach first place.

NAVI will be stepping onto the BLAST Slam VI stage in Malta this Sunday, February 15, at 16:30 CET for a best-of-five battle with Team Liquid for the championship title, so make sure to catch the action live!