Do You Really Need One Player to Be the Main Strength? - Reflections with B1ad3 2/4 - CSGO

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Andrii "B1ad3" Gorodenskyi, former in-game leader of Amazing Gaming and FlipSid3 Tactics and current coach of Natus Vincere, is the star of the 468th Episode of 'Reflections'. This is episode two of four about B1ad3's career.

B1ad3 is one of the most established veterans in Counter-Strike history and was competing in the early 2000s in his native Ukraine as part of the burgeoning CIS scene.

His Amazing Gaming project became the first Ukrainian team in history to make a significant mark on international play as they shocked the world to win the bronze medal at World Cyber Games 2007, one of CS 1.6's unofficial majors. Better known in the latter parts of CS 1.6 for his time taking over UNiTED, a CIS super-team funded by NAVI bankroller Arbalet, and leading KerchNET to close out the game.

In CS:GO he is legendary for leading the FlipSid3 Tactics team which was famous for both finding young prospects and qualifying to majors, sometimes inexplicably if one looked at the roster on paper. Names like s1mple, flamie, WorldEdit and electronic all came up under B1ad3's tutelage in F3.

FlipSid3 even made top eight at a major at ESL One Cologne 2016, beating Malmo champions NiP to do so. Aside from the majors his most famous finishes are using NA players Hiko as a stand-in to beat NiP and crack top four at ESWC 2015 and winning Dreamhack Open Leipzig in 2017.

In 2018 transitioned to becoming a coach and during a spell in Gambit saw the arrival of talents like Ax1Le and some of the other newer prospects that would later flourish. B1ad3 himself moved on to coach NAVI and has found massive success doing so.

NAVI under B1ade won IEM Katowice 2020, IEM Cologne 2021, the PGL Stockhom 2021 major, BLAST Fall Finals 2021 and BLAST World Finals 2021 with his all-CIS line-ups. 2022 into 2023 was a year of difficult transitions and only yielded the BLAST Spring Finals 2022 trophy.

Switching to an international English-speaking team for 2023 B1ad3 overcame the loss of super-star s1mple to build a new CS dynasty in 2024. NAVI won the PGL Copenhagen 2024 major, EWC, ESL ProLeague S20 and IEM Rio. At one point the team was in six straight finals and was the clear world number one despite having no player of the year candidate star!

In part two, B1ad3 talks about IGLing in FlipSid3, qualifying to majors, dealing with young s1mple, his own style of calling and who electronic was back then.

This interview was recorded on the 5th of January, 2024.

► Time-line of topics discussed:
00:00 Early CS:GO
05:29 Eye for scouting talent
13:00 Coaching HellRaisers at Dreamhack Winter 2014
20:43 s1mple in FlipSid3
27:06 s1mple's confidence
34:03 Qualifying to CS:GO majors
41:24 Style of calling
43:40 ESL One Cologne 2016 vs. SK Gaming Ro8
54:12 electronic in FlipSid3

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#B1ad3 #s1mple #Thorin