Ukrainian NAVI League of Legends player Volodymyr Maynter Sorokin gave an interview to Players. He spoke about joining NAVI, adapting to the LEC, and the quarterfinal match against Fnatic at LEC 2026 Versus.
How would you evaluate yesterday’s quarterfinal match against Fnatic and your overall performance?
I think we didn’t play insanely well. My team played really well while I was there, on my own island. But I think Fnatic looked kind of lost. You couldn’t feel the team spirit from them. We had a third game against them in the regular season, and we also stomped them with an 8k gold lead and then lost. And when we were losing to them because they found some cases, some angles to kill someone, it felt like they understood each other. But yesterday it felt like they were just losing, that’s it. And they had no idea, just “we’re losing, what do we do, okay let’s go fight at dragon and die.” They went in, initiated a fight, died.
Personally, I liked my performance in the second game. At one point I was straight up winning the lane in a counter-matchup until I pressed teleport. After that it was kind of easy. In the first game I got beaten up pretty well, especially before minute 15. Empyros had a decent gold advantage. But then, maybe not even him, but his team around him played poorly, and he just didn’t find another way to snowball and became useless. So both games in a row were kind of very calm.
So basically it wasn’t that you beat them, but they lost to you?
Well, it’s always two sides: we played as a team with an idea and good drafts, and they played less energetic and less interesting than they could have. So when you win, it’s not only the enemy’s mistakes, and it’s not only that you did something super flashy and won.
How is it playing at the LEC level overall? Do you feel a big difference compared to Tier 2 players?
I think yes. There are Tier 2 games where you play and don’t really feel the difference. It’s like they’re not exactly giving up, but maybe they don’t even know how. Sometimes it feels like you’re just playing a solo game. You don’t feel that pressure like the enemy will break both your arms and still try to kick you with their legs. In LEC they really try to do something until the very end, even if there’s a 9–10k gold lead, it doesn’t matter. They’ll look for something, some cross-map play, kill someone, and there’s way more pressure. At any stage of the game, especially early. There’s much more pressure in LEC.
In Tier 2 there were moments where you could make a few mistakes, or even many mistakes, and still win super easily. They punish mistakes less, so the difference feels bigger.
You came to the LEC as one of the most promising top laners from the ERL leagues. How different is the in-game pressure in LEC compared to your time in KCB? In football there’s pressing, where teams press you almost to your own goal. Is there something similar in LEC?
Yes, there are teams that like to draft champions and comps that are super strong early. For example, GX — they play fast and with early comps that can decide the game in the first 10–15 minutes. There are teams that draft more stable, but there’s still pressure. KC, for example, create a lot of pressure because they play very well mechanically, understand their matchups, and are very fast around the map. So yes, that’s true.
There are teams like Manchester United six years ago, that sit AFK and then suddenly run out, cross the ball and score with a header. There are teams that play more with a plan to win at minute 30–40, like “we’ll scale and kill them.” That was more like Los Ratones, sometimes Movistar KOI play like that. And there are teams that from the first minutes just want to kill and kill and get gold. That’s more like GX, KC, teams like that. So yes, there’s a difference between styles and between teams.
Did you have other offers besides NAVI?
There were tryouts. I tried out for Team Heretics, I tried out for SK before Mikyx came. He came with his crew, so they took him. The ones he chose are now called the Mikyx team.
So there were SK, Team Heretics, NAVI and Fnatic, but with Fnatic I didn’t even try out, they were just selecting players by demos, there weren’t scrims where they watched you play. And Fnatic were very late, they were the last. NAVI were choosing their top laner, and I was top-1 there, and Fnatic still didn’t know if they wanted me or not, they said two or three weeks. And I decided not to risk it, not to create any problems for myself, I said I already have NAVI. And then Fnatic chose their top laner and picked Empyros.
So there weren’t direct offers, like a contract on the table from other teams. But I was quite close with SK, and I think I would have been very close with Fnatic if I had waited, but waiting wasn’t an option. So yes, around 2–3 teams that were more or less interested.
Do you feel additional responsibility for results when playing for NAVI because the club has a huge fanbase in Ukraine?
It feels like a small dream, because I don’t know how it was for others, but when I was a kid there was this vibe, back when CS 1.6 was around, and everyone at school watched demos of some guy killing everyone, how NAVI were winning their first championships, some highlights. And from childhood you felt that somewhere out there NAVI exist. There is this thing called NAVI, and you watch it, and NAVI, and some Marvel movies, and Harry Potter. And you don’t think you’ll act in Harry Potter, right? You just know it exists. And when 10–15 years pass and you join such a team, at first it feels more like a movie than real life, but then of course you get used to it, and it becomes your goal, your job.
So yes, now I mostly think about performance and the game, not about which team I’m in. But at the beginning it was very cool, very hype.
NAVI is the only Ukrainian team that has ever made it to the LEC. So it’s really cool to represent Ukraine. Even if it’s not an official national team, it still feels like I’m playing a bit for Ukraine, so it’s very nice.
And you want to give more of yourself when you know what you’re playing for, how you’re playing, and you have more desire to do something cool, big. So yes, playing in NAVI is a bit of responsibility, but also respect, and just some small dream all together.
Did joining NAVI together with TheRock7 help you adapt to the team faster?
I think yes. It’s not that it’s very hard for me, but I’m not a fan of changing environment or meeting new people. When I was in KCB, I played there almost two years, there were French guys, sometimes new people, but it’s the same organization, same office, you know everyone, it’s easy. But when you change everything completely, even jokes, vibe, everything, a blank page, it can be a bit hard. And of course joining a team with someone I knew for two years is cool. We have our own jokes, I can make references and he understands. For example, when nine people are in a room and I make a joke and only he understands it, that’s cool, it creates its own vibe, and yes, it helps adapt faster. Not that it wouldn’t work without it, but yes, it’s good that TheRock7 is with me.
Coach TheRock mentioned that he chose you because you’re a “leader-type player” who leads discussions. How did you manage to gain authority in the team so quickly?
Authority for me? I think you mean authority like Messi walks into the locker room and everyone follows him, but in our team everyone respects each other, and we try more and more to be together, that everyone makes impact, and if someone struggles, we try to help, not flame. From my side, I just do the same thing I did in KCB. If I feel like I want to make a presentation and show it to the team, usually players don’t do that, as far as I understand. But for me it’s a convenient way to show what we’re struggling with and learn something new. I go to the coaches, I have two, even more, but two in the office, and I say I want to show a presentation about something because we’re struggling with it. And they say okay, and sometimes the next day I get time, I stand up and present like some mini-coach showing something to my players, and they say thank you.
That kind of thing usually earns you authority, if you do something valuable for your teammates, they appreciate and respect it, and maybe sometimes it even motivates them to make a small presentation or show a VOD review, like it started in KCB. I did it there and pushed a lot of things so my teammates would give their maximum, because not everyone in IRL tries very hard, and that’s considered normal, but in my team I tried to create a mindset that it’s better to tryhard now than lose later, better to suffer now than be sad later, and when I changed my teammates’ mindset a bit, they also started pushing me, doing VOD reviews, calling me, asking questions, making small presentations.
So doing the same here would be even better. Answering your question about authority, of course you’d have to ask my teammates, but I’m very happy with what I have now. I can come and show some presentation, maybe it’s not 100% correct, but I don’t feel shame like a teammate looks and thinks “oh my god, what is this bullshit he’s showing,” I don’t have that pressure in my head, I just show it and I’m happy to share something new with my teammates. So the atmosphere is great, I like it.
You have quite a young team, where only a few players had Tier-1 experience. How do you evaluate this first split for yourselves? Did you expect to reach playoffs so confidently right away?
I think everyone knew it would be hard, and it had to be hard, but when we started playing our first practice against LEC teams, we saw that it’s possible to win. It was still at home, we beat G2, I think 4–0 or 3–0, on the first or second day of the new patch, when we had barely played together, and of course G2 weren’t playing at full strength and were testing things, but these small signals showed that, oh, you beat MKOI in scrims, or played 2–3 against a good team, or 1–4 but those four losses were still close. From the start everyone aimed to improve for spring, for summer, get to MSI, to Worlds, that was more the vibe, but when we started playing and saw that this works and that works, that we can beat this team and that team, and then when regular matches started and we began to win. Of course it’s Best of 1, anything can happen, but we started winning and took a fairly high place in the regular season, so it was another big signal that we can achieve something even in the first split. Now we just give our maximum, show what we can. If we can reach First Stand and take first place there, that’s maximum. If not, we’ll try very hard and get as much practice as possible, because playoff practice is different, not like regular season, you play Best of 1 for 30 minutes and go home, playoffs are more valuable experience, so the more rounds the better. It’s much more valuable because now we’re aiming for maximum. We saw we can do something cool and don’t want to give up, don’t want to stop like that.
In your opinion, did NAVI entering LoL and the appearance of Ukrainian-language LEC broadcasts contribute to the growth of the discipline’s popularity in Ukraine?
Before, I didn’t know the answer to this until I heard it from smart people. In Poland it was the same situation: few players and little hype around the league, it was more of an anime game, everyone played CS, some played Dota. It was more like VP: “wow, I want to be like pashaBiceps, let’s go.” And in Ukraine it was the same, there was NAVI, there were Zeus and others, and more hype. Everyone at school played Counter-Strike, you go to a PC club, you won’t see a LoL player.
There was an example of Jankos, a Polish player who joined G2, won a lot of LEC, won MSI and made deep runs at Worlds. Because of that he created a small hype at first, then more and more Polish players saw they had a very successful LoL player who wins, and more people started paying attention to LoL. And now that he’s retired, I look and there are 20–30 times more Polish players than us. You go to LOLPros and see 200 players, while we have like 18 active.
We also have war, no comfortable conditions, no stable internet, not many people and money to play or start, because starting in LoL means small salaries at first, Tier-3, Tier-2 scene, I think it’s like that everywhere, but in LoL even less. Not everyone has time, money, electricity, or even a place to sleep properly, so LoL in Ukraine is in even bigger decline than before. But what motivates me is that I’m the first Ukrainian in LEC, and it’s cool that I can set that trend. I know more players are appearing, I saw young NightSlayer playing in Movistar KOI academy, and MKOI play in LEC, there are two teams, and if he reaches LEC in the near future, that will be hype too. And these small hype cases, one Ukrainian comes, another Ukrainian comes, a third wins some league, the more we play, the more people know, and the more people play, the better.
Just making a tournament and inviting people doesn’t work, you won’t turn 100 people into 200 even if they all come. The best thing is to create a Jankos case, play as much as possible, create hype, develop your media. For example, if I were more successful or famous, I could stream more like Jankos, more players would see there is a game called League of Legends, maybe more would come. When 2k or 3k people watch you, Jankos gets like 10k, I don’t know what percentage are Polish, but still. You show there’s this game, that you’re an esports player, that you’ve won, people know you, it’s hype, it’s cool. You stream Worlds. The more people know, the more new players appear. Even increasing gold or silver players in Ukraine by some percent is already a big plus. It spreads between people too.
Someone starts playing, says “I saw someone, I started playing, I got gold, come with me.” And slowly it will grow. But now conditions in Ukraine aren’t very good to play, I’d say. It’s very hard.
What would you like to say to Ukrainian fans?
I’d really like to, because I think the discipline is the most popular in the world, but getting in isn’t the best way. Honestly, at first it’s always hard. Salaries, teams that can scam you. I don’t know if that happens in CS. But in LoL there are many small problems. Many people give up at the start. But with my own example I want to show that it’s possible, that you can come and do it. And motivate people who like it or dreamed about it.
It will only be a plus. Of course forcing someone, saying “why are you a doctor, go play LoL,” that’s cringe.
There are many people who at some stage of their life dreamed about it but never even tried. And I want more people to try themselves. Maybe someone will like it, maybe someone will achieve something. I want to show it’s real. And I want more cases. I expect a couple of cases that should happen. One Ukrainian might break through, maybe not. But I hope so. And slowly we can expand.
