ANGE1 on Tejo: "We literally had, like, one practice day, like two Lotuses or three, max, with Tejo. But we felt it worked well for us."

The VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Kickoff is now well underway after the opening day saw two heated matches that went the absolute distance. Following the Karmine Corp vs. Natus Vincere matchup, we managed to talk with NAVI's in-game leader, Kirill "ANGE1" Karasiow.

From being the first player in the VALORANT Champions Tour to select agent Tejo in an official match, to his thoughts on the rotating map pool, the VCT calendar, as well as the game itself, ANGE1 gave us his thoughts and much more to go with it. Here's what the immensely experienced IGL had to share with us.

ANGE1 comments on first Tejo pick, VCT schedule, map pool and more

THESPIKE: You must be so tired, the game was a crazy one from start to finish. How are you feeling after your first match of VCT 2025?

ANGE1: Very good. I understand that we lost, but at the same time, I'm super happy to be playing again, because it was a big break. Unfortunately, we had no off-season tournaments. So I'm really happy and excited to come back to playing VALORANT on stage. Super happy. And even the loss can't make it much worse, let's say it like this.

VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Kickoff

Karmine Corp

2

X

1

Natus Vincere

Upper Bracket Round of 16, Best of 3 - January 15, 2025 - 8:30PM

10

Abyss

13

13

Bind

2

13

Lotus

6

Karmine Corp

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

avez

1.32

252

50/31/19

+19

1.61

82.4%

168.1

35%

44%

4

5

SUYGETSU

1.00

187

38/32/21

+6

1.19

82.3%

121.2

38%

45%

5

6

marteen

1.00

210

41/42/14

-1

0.98

74.8%

142.2

31%

50%

10

10

Saadhak

0.94

164

35/32/21

+3

1.09

76.6%

96.4

26%

30%

3

7

Elite

0.91

190

38/37/12

+1

1.03

84.3%

127.8

47%

57%

4

3

Natus Vincere

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

Ruxic

1.13

218

40/43/25

-3

0.93

81.0%

136.3

26%

58%

7

5

koalanoob

0.92

205

43/42/12

+1

1.02

62.2%

136.8

24%

48%

10

11

Shao

0.89

160

36/34/15

+2

1.06

77.5%

108.3

30%

67%

6

3

hiro

0.76

138

30/39/24

-9

0.77

61.2%

108.4

27%

33%

1

2

ANGE1

0.75

150

24/44/23

-20

0.55

68.5%

92.1

23%

58%

7

5

THESPIKE: We have to address the elephant in the room. After today you have claimed the title of the first guy ever to play Tejo on a VCT match. Walk me through that choice. Why did you pick Tejo? What was the thinking behind it? Why were you the guy to pick up Tejo? And finally, any takeaways from that pick?

ANGE1: We already had a certain comp on Lotus, similar to what we played. And when Tejo was out, we were testing out Tejo on different maps and different picks. Can we implement him without changing the whole comp? Basically, can we change for example Skye to Tejo or Breach to Tejo? So we still had the previous comps, which we practiced with. And would it work? And on Lotus, it worked pretty well.

Obviously, we didn't have enough game time. We literally had, like, one practice day, like two Lotuses or three, max, with Tejo. But we felt it worked well for us. And to be honest, I still think it was ok. It's like Tejo wasn't the reason we lost. It was a lot of, like, after plants, retakes, literally, just fundamentals. That's why we lost. But I'm not super sad because we didn't play it before with this roster officially, not a single one. And this gave us a lot of information to work on.

THESPIKE: I want to also to ask about Dmitry "SUYGETSU" Ilyushin You have quite a history with him obviously, both of you playing under NAVI. So, you know, how was it playing against Suygetsu? Are you this kind of guy who will be teasing him, much like some other guys are teasing their previous teammates? Or are you the kind of guy who shows respect? Essentially, what's the relationship between you guys right now?

ANGE1: (laughs) I'm the guy who doesn't really care. I don't think about it much. For example, I don't check the tab much during the game, looking how Su is doing. I have my own team with a new roster. I need to focus on that and on my gameplay, obviously. So it wasn't like a battle for something for me or something like that So no, it's nothing special.

THESPIKE: I wanted to touch base on Vincent "Happy" Cervoni coming in as the Head Coach. So most notably you had Erik "d00mbr0s" Sandgren for a long time. Now, Happy came in with a wealth of experience. I mean, his collective experience in CS and VALORANT is insane. What does this experience bring for NAVI compared to the previous coaches that you had?

ANGE1: Happy is just literally more experienced on the professional scene. He's been in a lot of situations and he knows when to motivate. Like, he's talking a lot about how to play, how to communicate, and motivate. And he really likes doing strats. He does so many strats that I'll be honest with you, one and a half months wasn't enough for us to implement everything we want. So, I'll be honest, we're a bit not ready yet, let's just put it that way. Especially with Tejo introduced, and the map pool changing pretty close to VCT. It was literally like 20% of what we want to do.

THESPIKE: I also wanted to ask your opinion on the map pool. First it was Tejo confirmed that he's available to play in VCT. Now there's been talk of the map pool, which has been confirmed that it's going to change after patch 10.04. And, as you know, Ascent will be back and so will Icebox. What are your personal thoughts on the rotating map pool especially that it's so quick.

ANGE1: I don't really like it. It makes the game random. It's like if we play every tournament on a new map pool basically, right? Because as I understand for split one, so for the second tournament (apart from Masters Bangkok), there's going to be a new map pool with two new maps, while two are gone. It's going to be hard. And it's especially hard because even if some team is eliminated early and someone else is playing until the end, including on LAN, it's very hard to practice those maps, because no one is practicing those maps yet, right?

So I'm not sure how good and high quality of maps the team is going to have for each split. We'll see. But I'm not a big fan of it.

I much prefer to have a season, we have a map pool, and for the next season we rotate. Even (change) four, three maps, up to you guys. Change however much you want. But give us time to prepare and fix mistakes, like two stages of work, right? First you cook, then you like fix the small details. Right now, we're not going to have this opportunity, at least on two out of seven maps, right? So we'll need to adapt. But at least it's fun.

THESPIKE: By extension to the map pool topic, what are your thoughts on this year's VCT calendar? In the past there's been talk of extending the calendar so there's more space, a bit more breathing room (for teams). And I remember previously you used to complain a little bit about how it's all crammed with a lot of events, one after another. So do you see this season being an improvement of how everything is laid out?

ANGE1: I'm not sure something changed from the previous year. Right now, Riot announced that it's going to be a kind of "summer break." But in reality, it's just a time for the EWC (Esports World Cup) tournament, right? In Saudi. That's all. It's like, we're just getting one more tournament. So, I don't know. We'll see. But for me, nothing has changed.

It's still going to be the usual. You stay in Berlin for like seven-eight months and mix it with traveling to a LAN if you qualify.

THESPIKE: Thanks so much for your time. All the best in the VCT season.

For more information on the VCT and the latest VALORANT news, stay tuned to THESPIKE.GG.

Note: Some minor parts of the interview may have been edited for the sake of clarity and or brevity.

Featured image credit: Photo by Michal Konkol/Riot Games