nafany: "It's not way better than it was with interz but it's different, and it's what we want"

Cloud9's oft-maligned in-game leader hopped on HLTV Confirmed to address swapping Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin for Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov, as well as criticism of his shotcalling.

Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov, Cloud9's in-game leader, joined HLTV Confirmed on Tuesday for his second appearance alongside Zvonimir "⁠Professeur⁠" Burazin, Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill and Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda.

nafany joined the podcast to address Cloud9's the recent roster change, as well as to provide his insight into the team's results over the past 18 months and his approach to leading, among many other topics.

Conversation began with talk of Cloud9's results in 2022, with one of the first major subjects being the IEM Dallas 2022 victory, Cloud9's most significant result since the online era. nafany was frank in his assessment of why the team performed so well: "Let's be honest, it was one of the few tournaments in 2022 that wasn’t a disaster if we talk about my individual level." The in-game leader expanded on the thought, musing "If we look at statistics, I was fucked up in 2022, at least the first half. I would say it was the main thing why we were losing.” The squad had produced underwhelming results for the first half of the year, the most egregious coming when they crashed out of the PGL Major Antwerp at the hands of Imperial.

When asked why the whole team seemed to step up their level in Dallas, the 21-year-old was of the opinion that their poor form in the earlier part of the year had fired the team up. "I think we just were angry with ourselves," he began. "Let’s say it like this: we were really thankful for Cloud9 signing us and believing in us, that’s why we let Jack lift the trophy, we were really thankful to Cloud9. We were like ‘okay, they believed in us and we fucked up, we must make them proud of us’."

The podcast continued to recount 2022 and eventually turned to the Rio Major, where Cloud9 fell to MOUZ in the quarter-finals despite being a favorite to take the trophy. nafany appeared to rue the missed opportunity: "It was a great chance for us to probably win it, but we fucked up really hard. I guess that’s why we had a shuffle, because when something like this happens it’s pretty tough to play." He later expanded on the point, stating "usually we did not have such a bracket, we always had FaZe, Liquid, NAVI or something, so it was really good for us. We didn’t feel like the favorites or something, we just were confident that it was a really good chance for us."

Eventually the chatter turned to more general topics of conversation, first addressing nafany's approach to leading the team. "If you have strong players, you must play not always how you want, but usually how they want because that’s the right way to win something," opined nafany. "When you have sh1ro, you must play in a way where he will be the best player… sometimes it’s really hard to understand where to listen to someone, and where to call for yourself."

The Russian also addressed the criticism that often crops up regarding his calling, and he was philosophical in his response. "A lot of people can hate me for my calling, and I can’t even say that I don’t give a fuck because I am a cool caller or in-game leader, but let’s be honest I am only 21," he began. "Can you name any good in-game leader at 21? Even if we talk about karrigan, does anyone still remember when he was in FaZe? A lot of people were saying karrigan is shit or something like that."

He went on to talk about how he needs "to learn from the best," the two names mentioned being Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen. "I'm not saying I want to be like karrigan or HooXi, I have my own way and want to be myself," he noted, concluding that figuring out how to counter his opponents is how he improves. "If you will watch G2 demos, you will try to understand their vision and why they are doing it or another move. After that you realise how you can counter it, I believe."

Discussion inevitably turned to the topic of Cloud9's recent roster moves, and nafany revealed the team had been considering changes for some time. "We were speaking about a roster change even in Spring, when we lost at the previous Major in Antwerp." He went on to say that "not only interz could be moved, it was obviously also me because I was playing shit the previous year." When explaining why it was interz who eventually made way, nafany identified a stylistic reason, saying "he is a really great and cool player if you say what you want from him, he would not say on Mirage at 14-14 ‘I will rush underground and kill two people’." He concluded "when you have such a player it is pretty cool, but sometimes you must understand he could only do what you want."

nafany was confident that buster was the right selection, stating "It was not so hard to choose buster, we were speaking with each other and groove said we will most likely take buster." When asked why buster was the right choice, nafany was clear: "One thing I really like with buster is he can fill any role. He could play Mirage connector if I say ‘I am so fucking bad, let me play B’." The in-game leader concluded his thoughts by saying "it's not way better than it was with interz but it's different, and it's what we want."

With regards to interz, nafany claimed to be "surprised" that no team had registered an interest in the player. "I can see a few teams that are really struggling, and I can see how interz can easily fill them, but they are not interested for some reason… I can see at least three teams." Whilst nafany would not be drawn on who these teams are, he did go on to say he could join an international roster. "In my opinion he would fit it easily, his mindset fits well for an international team," the in-game leader began, before confirming that interz spoke reasonable English.

The final insight nafany provided on his own team was with regards to his star AWPer, Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov. "sh1ro is crazy right now, he is in really good form and I believe one day he will be number one in the world," was the Russian's first point. The podcast panel pressed him on whether that could happen this year, to which nafany responded "I hope so, it depends on the team because we understand that he could be insanely good, but still we must help him to do it."