iM: "[haters] can say whatever they want. I don't care."

It was easy to expect the loss of s1mple to dramatically effect NAVI, but the international roster has taken it in their stride and look just as strong with their new boy, w0nderful.

Following their elimination from World Final at the hands of Vitality, we caught up with iM to talk about his first six months with the team and criticisms of his performances in that time.

A disappointing end to what's been a good tournament from the team, how are you feeling?

I'm not feeling that good because of the loss, but I think overall we did good. It's our second tournament with w0nderful and we only lost to Vitality, they're a top two team right now alongside FaZe, so obviously it's going to be a hard game to win. We tried our best, but we made some mistakes, although I think we deserved to win at least one map. But, it happens, they won 2-0, they deserve it, they played better.

You've obviously only just added w0nderful to the team, but what is the gap between the top two and yourselves?

To be honest, they have all been tier one players for so long, but we just started. jL, w0nderful, myself, we all came from tier two after the Major and the other teams have a lot more experience. Sometimes there are little mistakes they punish, but we don't punish their mistakes. They make a lot of mistakes as well, everyone does mistakes, but they punish in the right moment and we don't punish in the right moment. That's the difference.

You've been a part of NAVI for six months or so, how are you summing up your time with the team so far?

I feel good, I'm not going to lie. Like I said, six months isn't that long, and we didn't play many tournaments. For example, if I joined a tier two team or stayed with GamerLegion we would play a lot, there's a lot more online games, a lot of work. Obviously we work here, but as everyone says, the most efficient practice is officials. I think we are heading in the right direction, top four here isn't bad and we only lost to Vitality.

People have been critical of you since you joined, do you think it's fair criticism, or is it maybe a consequence of how well you performed in Paris?

Obviously there is a lot of hate towards me, but to be honest, I have no idea why. Sometimes it feels like it's my fault that I joined NAVI, but I don't care. They can say whatever they want. I can see some comments because you can't not see them, but I don't care, I try to play my game and if I do well it's fun for me, I'm trying to play for the team, and if I don't win, I get it. I don't care about individual performance, of course I want to play as well as I can, but the team comes above me.

What are the goals for next year?

As a team we haven't set goals, but personally, it's obviously the Major. It's the most important tournament, so winning the Major. I don't usually set goals, but that is the one.