iM on NAVI’s IEM Cologne bootcamp: “We didn’t have have a lot of time for practice… we mostly suffer out of this”

Mihai “iM” Ivan has been part of the main NAVI roster for over two years now, a pickup from when the Ukrainian organization made the bold decision to go international. His NAVI roster had a short period of dominance in the CS2 scene, but have fallen on harder times of late.

This latest iteration of the NAVI CS2 lineup has made the Quarter-Finals of IEM Cologne 2025 at its first event together. With a tough match against The MongolZ up first, we caught up with iM ahead of the match to get his thoughts on the clash (and more). The full interview with NAVI’s iM can be found in text and video form below:

iM on makazze, better times ahead, and a lack of practice

Sophie McCarthy: I wanted to start off by talking about last season. You had a little bit of a tough run, but now you’re into the Playoffs at IEM Cologne. How are you feeling about that?

Mihai “iM” Ivan: It feels good to start the season with the Playoffs. Especially that we have a new roster, a new member during. And yeah, I’m glad that we managed to give that to him because having first tournament, first Playoff, for him as a first Tier 1 tournament to be in the LANXESS. It’s something special, I would say.

Sophie: I mean, no pressure for him, right?

iM: No pressure.

Sophie: So as you were saying, you are just coming into this tournament with makkaze in place of jL. Did that change much in terms of your expectations before you played any games?

iM: We came into this tournament with mostly zero expectation because it’s our first tournament. Like I said, we didn’t have a lot of time for practice. Obviously we had a boot camp like 12 days, but it’s not enough to have like all the maps ready and so on. And then we mostly suffer out of this. But we still managed to do it, which is very good, and then we take it.

Sophie: I mean, so far so good. How is he settling into like the ecosystem of the team off the server? Like what do you guys do to bond?

iM: I mean, he’s a simple guy, he’s just playing FACEIT. We had in boot camp, some team building and I think he’s doing pretty good in those terms.

Sophie: Do you guys play a lot of just FACEIT outside of the server?

iM: Most of us, yes. Most of the rest, maybe not.

Sophie: So you’ve already played quite a lot of CS at this event so far. How would you rate the performance of the rest of the team as well as yourself?

iM: I think we, I will say that our performance of our last team, it was pretty good. We could have beat MOUZ, like they come back to us two times. We lost on our mistake, I will say, but also they played good. And I think overall we showed some very good potential. So it’s good to have a first tournament like this.

Sophie: So, to just touch on the recent map change, we’ve had Overpass come back into Active Duty, but we haven’t seen it from NAVI yet. Is there something up your sleeve there or are you guys trying to avoid it?

iM: You will see.

Sophie: Ok, that’s the kind of answer that we’re looking for here. So on to the next round. You’ve got MongolZ in the Quarter-Finals. They’re just coming off a second-placed finish at the BLAST Austin Major. So how do you feel about their performance so far? Anything special that you’re preparing for?

iM: MongolZ, they have a different play style than I think most of the teams and they are not afraid to do anything, any mistakes. They just go mostly as 4, 5, maybe, just trading each other, winning the round. They have good chemistry, I would say as well. And yeah, they are a stronger team than they were, like, one year ago, let’s say. They’re going to be a tough opponent. But we just need to play our game and we also know how to counter them. So I think it only depends on us.

Sophie: The last thing I wanted to ask you was about your personal rating. I think you’re the third top player in this entire event coming into the Playoffs. So what’s behind your strong individual performance there?

iM: I don’t know.

Sophie: Didn’t see that one coming?

iM: Playing my own game, and yeah, that’s it. Like I don’t think I did something special than other tournaments, but it just felt good. I don’t know, it’s just, every play that I did, it worked or… I don’t know how to explain it.

Sophie: Maybe you’re just gelling with makazze really well.

iM: Maybe.