seized: "We [feel] great pressure"

Heading into DreamHack Bucharest, we caught up with one of Natus Vincere's new additions, Denis "seized" Kostin, to find out what to expect of the Ukrainians.

The 19-year-old Kostin has massive shoes to fill as he's one of the two youngsters together with Anton "kibaken" Kolesnikov who joined Na`Vi, one of the world's most storied CS teams, roughly three weeks ago.

The squad has achieved varying degrees of success online as their results range from wins versus fnatic to draws against VeryGames and losses in games versus k1ck and Playing Ducks.

seized will make his Na`Vi LAN debut this weekend 

Now Natus Vincere are preparing for their first LAN event ever since the roster change that saw Yegor "markeloff" Markelov and Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev depart the team for Astana Dragons.

Want to find out what to expect of the Ukrainian powerhouse this weekend at Sala Polivalenta? Continue reading, because Kostin has some of the answers for you right here at HLTV.org.

How have you prepared for DreamHack Bucharest? Have you only practiced online or also bootcamped? How well prepared will you be in time for the event? Will we see you in tip top shape?

seized: We were preparing for DreamHack for about two weeks on the Internet and then from the 2nd of September from our Na`Vi office where we are now. We've made some good results for such a short amount of time but these results are not stable because we are a young team that hasn't played together for long.

There have been a lot of online matches in the past few weeks, do you think this has helped or damaged you coming into a big LAN event? Do you think being able to study other teams’ strats helps or will others studying you hurt you more? How much should we look into your recent performance as an indicator of current form?

seized: Sometimes it's good, because as I said earlier we are a young team that needs a lot of practice and tournament practice is a good choice, but there is a bad side too, because every team that will attend the LAN at Bucharest can watch our demos and will know how we play.

You've been placed in group D and will start off against Astana Dragons, myRevenge and FAW. How do you expect to fare there? Do you see any upsets taking place in the other groups?

seized: I think that in groups there will be no big sensations. Really sad that we won't see LGB in our group because this way only our group was kind of unpredictable. I think it will be a very interesting tournament and only the best team will win it.

Na`Vi hope to return to their winning ways with seized and kibaken 

If you had a gun to your head and had to guess which placing you would end up at in Bucharest, what would you guess? What placing would you be happy ending up at? How do you think the top three will shape up? Who will surprise in the tournament, both positively and negatively?

seized: I would say: "kill me please, because I don't know the answer". But the only stable team nowadays is NiP, so they are the main favourites. I will be happy if we will show good game and will come home as the champions =).

Who in your team needs to play well in order for you to perform at your highest level? Which players from other teams do you think can turn some heads? Any up and coming stars to watch out for?

seized: If you want too see your team on the top, every player needs to play on a high level. I think that a lot of this LAN will depend on starix' AWP skills, and my rifles. But I can tell nothing about who can stop us. If we will play bad, the tournament will end for us pretty fast.

How do you feel about filling the massive shoes of markeloff and Edward? Do you feel extra pressure knowing how much is expected of Na`Vi and of you? How are you dealing with it?

seized: Of course we are feeling a great pressure, Edward and markeloff are players with excellent skills and all spectators that watch Na`Vi games are waiting for us to show the same level of performance and even better, but that only motivates me more and more. Hope that me and kibaken are good replacements for them.

Next up in our interview series will be Astana Dragons' Kirill "ANGE1" Karasiow, so check back later today for another feature as we ramp up our coverage before DreamHack Bucharest.