"Something is wrong with VALORANT scheduling" - ANGE1 discusses the season schedule, his future, and more

VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Stage 2 has been nothing but clutch plays, heartbreak, and surprise twists. With teams like Fnatic or Team Vitality bombing out relatively early, Natus Vincere made a deep lower bracket run in hopes of reaching the Grand Final to punch their ticket to the elusive VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Valorant Champions. This run, however, was cut short by a raging GIANTX.

While NAVI took Icebox, their most efficient map, with ease, GIANTX were simply more clinical on the following two maps to take the series 2-1. This meant the end of VCT season for NAVI in 2025.

VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - EMEA Stage 2

GIANTX

2

X

1

Natus Vincere

Lower Bracket Round 3 of 4, Best of 3 - August 29, 2025 - 6:35PM

6

Icebox

13

13

Sunset

6

13

Haven

4

GIANTX

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

ara

1.33

265

56/28/5

+28

2.00

80.3%

171.7

25%

71%

10

4

westside

1.30

257

51/35/13

+16

1.46

80.1%

165.2

44%

86%

6

1

Cloud

0.96

188

36/33/19

+3

1.09

80.3%

121.9

21%

62%

8

5

Flickless

0.95

182

32/36/29

-4

0.89

69.4%

127.7

26%

50%

3

3

GRUBINHO

0.82

168

31/44/20

-13

0.70

67.8%

114.3

29%

40%

6

9

Natus Vincere

player

Rating

ACS

K/D/A

+/-

K/D

KAST

ADR

HS%

FBSR

FB

FD

hiro

1.19

244

47/37/11

+10

1.27

79.7%

158.9

32%

80%

8

2

Ruxic

1.04

211

43/39/11

+4

1.10

72.7%

131.8

28%

44%

4

5

Shao

0.84

168

31/42/17

-11

0.74

81.6%

105.4

31%

54%

7

6

ANGE1

0.67

139

26/47/17

-21

0.55

70.3%

94.9

40%

38%

3

5

alexiiik

0.61

146

29/41/6

-12

0.71

60.0%

101.6

28%

0%

0

15

We managed to get a hold of none other than NAVI's IGL, Kirill "ANGE1" Karasiow following the crushing loss. Despite the defeat, the IGL remained composed and entered the interview room with a smile.

Some key points discussed include the rapid rise of his teammate, Uğur "Ruxic" Güç, his future in VALORANT as his contract expires in a month, a major takeaway in how VALORANT was played this year, and more.

ANGE1 discusses his future, comments on the season structure, and more

THESPIKE: Commiserations for the loss. Despite the loss, I wanted to ask about Ruxic. He's been dubbed one of the best Viper players this Split basically. How do you see his potential moving forward as part of NAVI? And what separates him from other players out there in EMEA and in VALORANT?

ANGE1: Ruxic's strongest points is movement and game sense. We saw it in the tryouts. He delivered exactly what we expected. I expected him to evolve a bit slower, to be the best player in the league next year. But it's all in his hands. So yeah, he plays insane. He's central [to the team].

THESPIKE: So looking back over this year and this season, I know that I've talked to you over the course of a couple of years and the balance of the season changes year to year with the schedule. How did you like the scheduling this year and are there any positives, any negatives, anything to say about the EWC, any comments?

ANGE1: I would say this. Something is wrong with VALORANT scheduling. I'm not sure what exactly should be fixed but it's very weird because like teams like Heretics who qualified for EWC, who played until the final, they had zero break. I'm sure they burned out that they had to travel almost instantly. They had no break. And I think their poor results on this stage is because of that. And Fnatic partly also. And it's very weird to understand that after this loss that we have four months of nothing. Maybe some like off-season tournaments. But that's if you get lucky to get invited to sponsored ones. So yeah, something is wrong but I'm not sure how to exactly fix it.

THESPIKE: So you mentioned off-season events. Do you have actually anything on your plate in the off season or will you have to be waiting for something now?

ANGE1: I have no idea. My contract ends in one month, so...

THESPIKE: So I guess we'll see what comes your way then. Do you think you'll be continuing your journey with NAVI or that's up in the air right now?

ANGE1: No, I don't think retirement is an option right now. No, actually there is an option to go coaching, right? Because I think I can give a lot of things to any team, but as I told you, I need to think about it.

THESPIKE: Are there any lessons that you can take from this season in terms of anything related to the evolving meta, to the maps? Are there any things that you can, if you stay obviously as a player, etc. That you can take with you to next season? Any learnings?

ANGE1: Oh, a lot of actually. This season was not eye opening, but I understood that certain way of play in current VALORANT is meta. And especially when teams are bringing a lot of young players who are not experienced, it's very beneficial to have just a lot of scripted executions which they just know what they should do. I'm not sure you can win a big LAN tournament playing like this, but short term qualifying for LAN, it might help a lot, especially when you have young players.

At the start of year, for example, we tried to play more of a default your style of decision making by players and it didn't go well. But when we started giving simple tasks for players, scripts, like you go here, you throw this, they became more comfortable. I still stand by this point that you can't win international tournaments like this. But for example BBL and Liquid are playing like this

Featured image credit: Michal Konkol/Riot Games