https://www.cybersport.ru/counter-strike-go/articles/skazka-navi-zakonchilas-glavnye-vyvody-posle-esl-one-road-to-rio

NAVI – will there be another reshuffle?

Champions IEM Katowice 2023 everything is very bad. After the victory in Poland, everyone applauded the team s1mple. Still: the organization only assembled a new composition with Perfecto, showed the world her psychologist and immediately won the most prestigious tournament of the spring (and one of the most prestigious of the year).

It seemed that NAVI finally got rid of all the problems: at first it seemed that Zeus, who had lost his strength and motivation, prevented him from reaching success, and then he started to shout GuardiaN. But the problem, apparently, was not only in them.

Difficulties began to appear in April at the ESL One Pro League Season 11. At the first online competition in a pandemic, flamie and Perfecto played nightmare, but the team still managed to get into the top 4. Even then, many had skepticism about the real strength of the new composition. It was too early to survive at that moment: after all, tournament to tournament was not necessary. But on Road to Rio, history repeated itself.

NAVI fell into group B, where they looked like an unconditional favorite: all the strongest teams gathered in sextet A. But Natus Vincere succeeded, it would seem, impossible – they did not leave the group. Again flamie and Perfecto played poorly, and in the first matches the team really lacked electronic firepower.

Not only the results, but also s1mple’s incontinence hurt NAVI. Of course, the Ukrainian’s chagrin can be understood, and hardly anyone was surprised at the sharp language of the best player of 2018. But this time, Kostylev is too much walked hard on haters: The image of the esportsman and the team clearly did not benefit.

What will happen to the team next? There are two options, as usual. For example, petr1k believes that there is nothing wrong with the NAVI departure. This position really has the right to life: it’s long before the major, ahead of us are the second and third qualifying tournaments – there will be enough time for debriefing and correcting errors. But not everyone shares the optimism of the analyst. The same ceh9 does not believe in the composition and believes that it will not prove to be a major – and therefore waiting for replacements before the fall.

In general, of course, nothing bad has happened so far: NAVI will still have many chances to rehabilitate. But the team only needs to remember that the fan lives today and is unlikely to forgive the next serious misfire: it’s worth taking some measures now.

ForZe – will perestroika help?

The forZe tournament path is much like the situation with NAVI, but public opinion (no, not only stakers) is not so much pressured on this team. Therefore the collective Jerry while he can afford experiments, the first of which have already taken place this spring.

The main one is the signing in April of the second coach, the most experienced lmbt, who began to assist liTTle. But this did not help improve the game: on ESL One: Road to Rio, the roster became the penultimate in Group A and did not reach the playoffs. ForZe’s rivals, of course, were stronger than those of NAVI, but nevertheless, the team was obliged to beat at least teams below the class – and conditional Gambit youngsters and Nemiga gaming they belong to them.

In the spring, forZe decided to train according to the European system – 6/1 instead of 5/2. Apparently, not everyone in the roster has maintained this pace. Yes, the team began to train more, but this not only did not help, but it also made it worse: how admitted Jerry, the team burned out.

In the Q&A session, the captain expressed another thought: the pandemic greatly changed the landscape of the scene, yesterday’s nicknames had real chances to show themselves online, and some teams accustomed to LAN sank, and therefore a little chaos in the results is generally justified. On the one hand, this is true: you can console yourself with the thought that with the return of the LAN, everything will return to normal, and the results online will be forgotten. And such a scenario is possible – the same Fnatic will certainly confirm. But still, this does not mean that until the time when Counter-Strike returns offline, you can lose without remorse. Astralis doesn’t allow it.

Despite a lot of objective reasons, the decline in the game forZe is still obvious. Excuses can be sought endlessly, but a jerk, a jerk, when? I would not want forZe to repeat the path in the end Vega Squadron and sank into oblivion.

Team Spirit – chopper builds new champions

Even before the start of ESL One: Road to Rio, we said that Team Spirit has great chances to prove itself. And she did not just live up to expectations, but did even more: the team chopper and mir won the tournament, and did it incredibly confidently and with a large margin.

Team Spirit became the only team in our region to win all the matches of the group stage: and the final statistics of the won / lost rounds was +64! Nobody came close to this result: the closest pursuer, Virtus.pro, had +25 following five matches.

What is the secret of Team Spirit – remains to be seen. But one thing can be said about the team: while there is simply no weak link in it. All five members of the squad are excellent at playing. Chopper and mir are distributed like in Vega Squadron in the good old days, somedieyoung holds the brand, iDISBALANCE and young magixx are not lost either. If someone doesn’t play the game, for another it starts to go twice as good.

One of Spirit’s strengths is the skillful shooter on the captain’s slot. After the September reshuffle, it was the 23-year-old Vishnyakov who became the ingame leader of the team, and, as we see, this is bearing fruit. Perhaps, at the level of the strongest Tier-2 teams, it is chopper that is one of the strongest riders, and in the modern realities of Counter-Strike this is very important.

Team Spirit just wants to praise. So far, the team is doing very well, and the first step towards the major has been taken. Someone will say: “Onliners”, but only partially will be right: before the pandemic, the team played on the LAN and did it very well, so that the CIS has definitely appeared a new serious contender for high places in the HLTV.org rating (and this is at least !).

Virtus.pro, Winstrike, Hard Legion – what did the others show?

Despite huge problems, Virtus.pro She performed well on Road to Rio: someone did not expect to see the team even in the playoffs, but in the end she entered the top 4, periodically showing a very good game. But the team is still far from its former form. Now VP resembles the early AVANGAR, which could either win or lose in any match, as it was at ELEAGUE Major 2018. As a result of the tournament, VP is still leading the race for major slots (the team received a bonus to points for participating in the StarLadder Major playoffs), so she was hardly upset about the outcome of Road to Rio. Now Virtus.pro can build the game relatively calmly: the squad has not yet lost its potential.

Players Winstrike team – great fellows. Before the tournament, we predicted good results for them, and the team did not disappoint: they reached the final. It seems that the presence of Uncle Mitya on the coach’s slot is bearing fruit: the team looks better than many in the CIS, and hardly hooch will allow players to relax – he is not such a person. The main thing is that young people listen and keep the ego under control, then success will not take long.

Of the dark horses (i.e., among all the others), Nemiga and Hard legion esports. The first one went through qualification on Road to Rio and eventually became the fifth: Belarusians will definitely spoil the blood of the favorites, or maybe even be able to gnaw out the slot on the major – no one will say for sure.

Hard Legion also showed its teeth: the team took third place, defeating Virtus.pro in the decisive match. Wards svyat quite able to go to the major for the second time in a row. If you forgot, in Berlin they performed under the tag Dreameaters and were remembered not only by the loud speeches of the coach: the team was among the 16 strongest teams.

The only weak link among collectives in our region was Team unique: in the group stage, she lost five out of five matches, speaking completely faded. Other (Syman gaming, Gambit youngsters, ESPADA and even problematic pro100), although they did not achieve high results, they certainly did not look hopeless. The race for the major has just begun!

Current Points:

1. Virtus.pro – 1 900;
2. Hard legion esports – 1,640;
3. Team spirit – 1,600;
4. Winstrike team – 1,500;
5. Natus vincere – 1 430;
6. Nemiga gaming – 1,200;
7. Syman gaming – 1,100;
8. Gambit youngsters – 950;
9. forZe – 750;
10. ESPADA – 750;
11. Team unique – 550;
12. pro100 – 550.