Despite a mixed start to their Summer Split,
are continuing their push to break through their current ceiling in the LEC. With upcoming matches against SK and G2, the Ukrainian organization faces another challenging week as they look to build on their opening results and establish themselves among Europe’s best.
In an exclusive interview, NAVI toplaner
sat down with
Sheep Esports to discuss his latest matches against Karmine Corp and Shifters, his development in the LEC, what he hopes to achieve this year, and the race for Europe’s third spot at Worlds.
You went 1-1 this week, losing to KC earlier but winning against Shifters. How do you feel overall about the week?
Volodymyr "Maynter" Sorokin: “Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, but I didn’t expect us to win against Karmine Corp, especially early. They’ve always been a really strong early-game team, with good mid-game, and perhaps not the best late-game. This is how Vitality and G2 have pushed them in the past as well—through late-game and outsmarting them around the map.
My point of view was that we’d just need to survive until late-game, and then we’d be able to win with a decent mid-game. Our match was especially weird because we actually stomped them early, and then lost later. It’s frustrating. We had about 6,000 gold leads in both games and lost anyway. It’s a good lesson for the future.
It was important for us to beat Shifters afterward. It wouldn’t have felt right to go 0-2 in the first week after having done pretty well against one of the best two teams in Europe. It’s a good start. It will give us motivation to improve and, at the same time, remove this fear of losing, since we already got a win on the board. Overall, I’m pretty happy.
What did you think of your performance individually, against Rooster and Canna?
I was really excited to play against Rooster today, and I’m happy with how I did. Some people got mad at me for my comments on toplane in the past, but I think that he, along with Naak Nako and Canna, are definitely the best laning toplaners that we have in Europe. Those three form the top three.
We saw Rooster stomp Canna in lane last split, and also solo kill Naak Nako two or three times in a Renekton-Gnar game. He is just a really scary player to go against. I’m happy with how I matched him, for example, in the K’Sante-Rumble matchup. I’ve seen him take 2-3 plates, blow flashes, and get solo kills, so I’m glad I survived that matchup, which can be very volatile. I never died, I didn’t lose plates, I was always first on rotations, so I was a source for a pretty big advantage this way, even though I was running First Strike and on a full scaling mindset.
I was really happy with my second game performance. And I’m really happy with how I survived Game 1 as well after a bad early. So I was a much better guy in my head. And when you’re a much better guy and playing good, you’re happy and more confident for the next game. So yeah, I’m pretty happy for today.
How do you feel overall about the form that the team is in? One of the issues we’ve noticed over the matches is that the team tends to go too far sometimes. How do you feel about that overall?
Maynter: It’s a bit of both. Sometimes we definitely go too far, but in my eyes, the biggest issue we had was giving away positions too easily. One of our major issues was being scared to hold our own in-game, even while ahead. We’d had games where we had good positions, some nice poke, and then the moment they came to contest it, we would just be so scared and surrender our position to them.
Those situations are insanely bad, because you lose out on a lot and let them retake positions they shouldn’t be able to get, which then leads us to losing fights.
We did pretty well this time around, and we were able to pressure them much more, slowly chipping away at their HP as well. So yeah, I can see going too deep as an issue, but it’s not what we’re working on fixing this week, for example. It’s still pretty bad too, though, so we’ll work on it.
All in all, going too deep is far easier of an issue to fix than not going in at all.
At the start of the year, there were talks about NAVI being a long-term project, targeting summer. Do you feel like you’ve reached the power-level you were expecting to achieve by summer, or is it still a work in progress?
Maynter: Honestly, the year went by so fast. I can’t believe it’s already summer, and I’ve been playing for a full year. Still, I feel like I’ve shown a lot of improvements individually, and I’m rather happy with that.
Still, I feel like there are some stuff I used to be better in the past than now, which I’m trying to fix. In our match against KC, I told myself that what I showed was really not good, and I knew I wouldn’t normally make these mistakes. Right now, I’m focusing on more basic concepts like how to flank, not lose HP before a fight, etc.
Next week you’ll face SK and G2, two important matches if you want to stay in the upper part of the standings. What are your thoughts going into those games?
Maynter: For SK, well, I’m just really hyped to play against my old friend from Karmine Corp Blue, SlowQ. Personally, I’m of the opinion that SK looks very good as a team this split. They have way more synergy than before. They upgraded their midlane, and Wunder is playing better than he did last split. Right now, they are genuinely a pretty scary team and can be really good. They have high highs and low lows.
For G2, well, you never know with them. Sometimes they are like prime T1, and then they show the complete opposite and are too tired to play. Right now, it feels like they’re somewhere in between—pretty beatable.
Overall, it’ll be a tricky week. We could very well win both matches, or lose both. We’ll focus on them one by one.
You mentioned Naak Nako, Rooster and Canna among the best laning top laners, but not BrokenBlade. What are your thoughts on him, especially with you facing him next week?
Maynter: I respect BrokenBlade and he’s a really good guy, but he’s not a good toplaner because of laning. His champion pool and knowledge of the game, how to be useful, where to be on the map, when and how, how fast… he’s just so smart about how he moves around, and he’s a big shot-caller.
That’s why, in my opinion, I rate Naak Nako, for example, as better than him. BrokenBlade is the kind that will come onto the Summoner’s Rift and gap you in terms of macro. Of course, he can still be a good mechanical player—we saw his games against Doran at MSI, for example.
But normally, he commits to those weird picks like Kled, or any new matchups that his opponents most likely do not know about, and he just rotates on the map, diving someone on the other side and sacking his lane a bit. It’s not about getting a lead in CS or getting your tower, he’ll obliterate the map.
So yeah, rating only laning, Naak Nako, Rooster, and Canna are all more dangerous, even if BrokenBlade is overall among the two or three best toplaners in the league.
With the end of the year approaching, what would make 2026 a successful year for you and the team? What would you like to achieve by the end of summer to look back on the year positively?
Maynter: Well, everyone in my team, from players to coaches, are talking about reaching Worlds. Personally, I see things a bit differently. I would value making a deep run into playoffs, perhaps even reaching semifinals or finals, as my number one goal. If we get that, then Worlds will come to us by default, right?
Looking at the way teams are playing right now, I don’t think any team has solidly made a statement for the third slot in Europe yet. G2 and KC are obviously really strong, even if they remain beatable, but beyond that, it’s unclear. It could be us, it could be SK, it could be MKOI—it can be almost anyone.
Everyone is aiming for Worlds, and it would be a big success. It is the most prestigious tournament of the year. For me, I would really like to play a semifinal at LAN. It would be a great experience.
How beatable do you think MKOI are? They’ve been the third-best team for most of the year, so you’ll most likely have to beat them to make it to Worlds.
Maynter: They are pretty beatable, but there’s a long time before playoffs still. A lot of teams are not really playing to their level right now, and maybe they’ll lock in for playoffs again. We’ll face them in Week 4, so we’ll see then where they are in their growth.
Their form in best-of-fives is always very different—they are a much more playoffs-oriented team than us. Normally, we do well in the regular season, and then we’re really shaky in playoffs, so it’s hard to say.
So yeah, it’ll be hard, but it’s definitely doable. I don’t want to say that I “hope” we’ll win, though—I want to win, and I will come in with nothing but victory in mind. It’s not some kind of dream, but a goal.”
