Na’Vi vs BIG – FACEIT Major London Preview

After five days of struggles in the New Legends Stage at FACEIT Major 2018, only eight of the best teams in the game are left in the tournament. The other eight, who also participated in this phase, unfortunately, had to finish their adventure early in London. These teams suffered three defeats in the previous stage, which in the Swiss system means elimination from the tournament.

Now, the last phase of this most prestigious event on the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene is ahead of us. It’s called the Champions Stage and there will be a single elimination system in play for this final stage of the competition. All matches, including the grand finale, will be in the BO3 format. The competition will start with the quarter-final matches and will last from 20 to 23 September. The prize pool of this tournament is $1 million, and the winning team will receive 500 thousand dollars.

Let’s have a look at one of the matches between BIG and Natus Vincere. The reason we have picked this map for you is that it is one of the most exciting matches. Na’Vi is like royalty in competitive CS:GO and they are assumed to win it all. Meanwhile, BIG has come out from out of nowhere. The team was denied silverware after Na’Vi defeated them in ESL. Now BIG will be looking for redemption on one of the biggest stages.

BIG vs Natus Vincere (FACEIT Major: London 2018, September 20, 2018 – 07:15 PDT,  Best Of Three)

Natus Vincere

Ukrainian Natus Vincere (Latin, means “born to win”) belongs to the most well-known organizations in the world of eSports. Established in 2009, Na’Vi always had a particularly strong CS:GO and Dota 2 teams.

Na’Vi is the only team in the CS:GO history that has managed to win three major tournaments in one calendar year (Intel Extreme Masters, Electronic Sports World Cup and World Cyber ​​Games in 2010). The current lineup is known for its staggering unique skills, and their star man s1mple is considered to be the best player in the world at this moment.

After winning the ESL One Cologne 2018 by defeating BIG, Natus Vincere along with Astralis was the main contenders for the title of the best team in the world. With this flying high attitude, the lineup went on a vacation since they didn’t participate in any of the minors. Obviously, the players were confident before the FACEIT Major 2018 since they spent only a week in the bootcamp.

In London, Na’Vi started their run in the second round since they had a very good result in January at the Boston Major. Their lack of training had an impact in their first game as Astralis defeated them14-16. However, Na’Vi secured their way to the Legends Stage after defeating FaZe Clan (16-12), NiP (16-6), and Fnatic (16-9).

Players

• Ioann “Edward” Sukharev, UKR
• Egor “flames” Vasiljev, RUS
• Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev, UKR
• Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko, UKR
• Denis “electronic” Sharipov, RUS

BIG

The German side of BIG is quite new to the competitive world of CS:GO. The team was founded in 2016 by former NRG Esports players: gob b, LEGIJA, and tabseN. BIG’s biggest achievement so far is the second place in the Cologne July ESL One tournament. They were defeated by none other than their upcoming opponents, Na’Vi in the grand finale.

For FACEIT Major London, BIG had to take a longer road than Na’Vi since they have to win the Challengers Stage. The team in this early stage didn’t get an ideal start they were hoping for. However, In the second phase, they recorded wins over FaZe (16-5), TyLoo (16-7) and HellRaisers (16-9) but had to taste defeat to compLexity (8-16). However, it was enough to get them promoted to the next stage.

To be named in the same list as teams like Astralis, FaZe, and Na’Vi, it is not an easy job. Basically, the guys from BIG are definitely proud of their performance. The German eSports organization is amongst the eight best teams of the FACEIT major in London and will have eyes on the world title.

Players

• Fatih “gob b” Dayik, GER
• Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz, GER
• Johannes “nex” Maget, GER
• Tizian “tiziaN” FEldbusch, GER
• Owen “smooya” Butterfield, GBR

Maps

Let’s see what maps can we expect to be picked and removed in this encounter. Firstly, the map that will be first removed by Na’Vi will be Dust 2 since they haven’t won a single game on it. While the first pick that we expect will be Overpass since both teams have a decent win rate on it. We can expect Na’Vi to prevail on it since they have a slightly better win rate on it. They have played on this map 37 times compared to just 5 times of BIG. Na’Vi also won on Overpass when these two sides met last time in Cologne. Meanwhile, Train will be removed by BIG since they have just over 50% win-rate on the map compared to the 72% win-rate of Na’Vi. Mirage is also likely to be eliminated since BIG lineup has never played on it while Na’VI also have an over 70% win-rate on it. Inferno and Nuke could be picked since both of these sides have not a very significant win rate on them but the experience of Na’Vi should get them to the winning line.

Final Verdict

Natus Vincere 2 – 1 BIG

Odds on bookmakers

Bookmakers	BIG Odds		Na’Vi Odds
	European	American	European	American
EGB.com	3.04	+204.00	1.28	-357
Betway	2.95	+195.00	1.35	-285
Loot.bet	3.10	+210.00	1.37	-270
GG.bet	3.14	+214.00	1.36	-277
Bet365	3.00	+200.00	1.36	-277