Na’Vi vs Fnatic – ESL Pro League Season 9

One of the oldest competitions in the competitive world of CS: GO, ESL Pro League Season 9 is underway. At the moment, the best teams in the world are competing in the group stage. All matches will be played in the Best of Three format. So, get yourself prepared for some exciting matches of the weekend.

We picked this match between Na’Vi and Fnatic to highlight how the CIS lineup up shaped up in 2019. Na’Vi has also faced Fnatic a couple of weeks ago. So, it will be a lot easier to foresee the outcome of this match.

Na’Vi

The CIS side, Na’VI is amongst the most successful teams in the competitive world of CS: GO. They won four competitive titles in 2018, finishing the year at 2nd place in the HLTV rankings. In 2019, they made an interesting start to the year with a 2nd place finish at the GG.Bet Ice Challenge. Na’Vi was beaten by North in the final. This was a surprising defeat since they were expected to win it. It was also the last competition before the start of Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019. Despite the defeat against North, Na’Vi was expected to make it to the grand finale. Some analyst even tipped Na’Vi to win the title. But what actually happened shocked not only the fans but the entire competitive community of CS: GO. The Na’Vi team was defeated by ENCE eSports in semis.

Fall of Na’Vi

After the fall of Na’Vi, a lot of rumors arose regarding the problems in the roster. Daniel “Zeus” Teslenko, in December 2018, hinted about ending his career. Just a week before the start of Major, a video circulated on social media where he was having an argument with Mikhail “Kane” Blagin, the coach of the team.

Zeus also made controversial statements regarding “problems” with the attitude of “certain squad members”. Yet just a few days after the Katowice defeat Zeus clarified that the fight with the coach was just a discussion regarding the strategy of the team. While the statement about certain players was just an emotional moment after the defeat.

Mistakes were made

The defeat in Katowice could be attributed to the lack of training before the Major. Yet, it is still an impressive feat by reaching the semifinals. But, we believe the team could have beaten ENCE if they didn’t play arrogantly and should have made better choices when it came to picking the maps. The Mirage pick was the worst choice in the semifinal. We know that Na’Vi was good on this map but they had their fair share of troubles on it against FaZe.

In the quarterfinals, Na’Vi took its time to win on it. Meanwhile, ENCE absolutely annihilated Liquid on it. Therefore, the Finnish side was in a good form coming into this game. We believe that instead of Cache, Mirage should have been banned. After that team had a choice to play either on Dust2, Nuke or Train. Since the team holds better results on all these maps. But instead, they went with the Mirage pick and had to rely again on the best player in the world, S1mple to win a 1v3 clutch on the last map. After the defeat, the Na’VI team lost its spot in the world ranking and dropped to fourth. But despite its fair share of losses, the team bounced back.

Learning from their failures

Just a few days before the next competition of the CIS side, StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7, there was a breath of fresh air. Denis electronic Sharipov had a child and Zeus posts on Twitter indicated a friendly atmosphere. The mood and psychology of the team were better. It evidently meant that the team should have posted a strong fight for the StarSeries. Since it was their first tournament after Katowice humiliation and the competition didn’t have Astralis or Liquid. Let’s see how the things played out for them

Na’Vi arrived in the tournament as the favorite’s yet they were beaten by Vici Gaming 2-1 in the first series. After this defeat, some believed that they will end up like the MIBR, yet the CIS came out all guns blazing. After getting wins on the board, the team finished at 3rd place in the league phase by beating BiG, NiP and NRG.

Back and better than ever

In the playoffs, their opponent was none other than ENCE. The Finnish side won the first game of the series, and it was expected that they will again get the best of Na’Vi. Yet, S1mple and team had other plans and won the series 2-1. This strong comeback showed that why Na’Vi was the 2nd best team of 2018. The team then went on to face their upcoming opponents, Fnatic. This is the best result of Na’Vi ever since the start of 2019 as they completely demolished their opponents 3-0. After the victory, Na’Vi was the champions of the StarSeries while their star, S1mple won the MVP title of the competition.

After their successful endeavors in the StarSeries, the team competed in the BLAST Pro Series: Miami 2019. They were expected to give a strong fight but luck was not on their side. They lost Astralis and the grand finalists, FaZe and Liquid. The team did manage to get a couple of victories against C9 and MIBR. Yet it wasn’t enough to qualify for the next phase.

Now the team arrives in ESL Pro League Season 9 – Europe and should have an easy run in the first phase. We don’t expect them to have any problems against their upcoming Fnatic. Since Na’Vi beat this team a couple of weeks ago in the finale. Moreover, this will be a best of three series, which makes it a little room for error. Na’Vi will be eager to dominate the group and qualify for the finals that will be held in France.

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