After Gambit sold his five players to the American e-sports organization Cloud9 at the end of April 2022, Navi CS GO, in the absence of its main competitor, becomes the undisputed leader in Counter Strike: Global Offensive in the CIS.
By mid-2022, NAVI had reached the status of world champions after winning the Stockholm Major. The club had a great 2021, retained a stellar roster of players, including the best rated player for 2021 according to experts and 2 major record holders, and, apparently, is not going to stop there. The team intends to achieve a dominant position in the CS:GO discipline, and for now it has every reason to think about the future in a positive way.
Origin of the name
The Navi CS GO team was formed on December 18, 2009 in Ukraine with the money of a millionaire from Kazakhstan Murat Zhumashevich, also known in the eSports community under the nickname “Arbalet”. The name of the gaming group completely copies the name of the tribe at war with people from the famous 2009 blockbuster "Avatar".
The backbone of the newly formed team was made up of gamers who had previously played in the recently disbanded KerchNET. Navi's first lineup became a star, his rivals were afraid of him. The reasons for fear were, in fact, compelling. Five gamers consisting of Zeus (Daniil Teslenko), markeloff (Egor Markelov), ceh9 (Arseniy Trinozhenko), Edward (Ivan Sukharev) and starix (Sergey Ishchuk) destroyed everyone in their path, winning 9 tournaments in 2010.
In the wake of the popularity of the club, HLTV.org held a competition in 2010, where they proposed to decipher the abbreviation NAVI. This is how the second name of the club appeared - Natus Vincere (translated from Latin as “Born to Win”). The winner of the competition, Bruno Estevens, came up with just such a variant of deciphering the abbreviation because he was impressed by the iron discipline of the players and their all-crushing power.
Players
Today's composition of Navi CS GO is already the eleventh in a row. It was finally formed in 2021, when the management decided that flamie (Egor Vasiliev) would leave the club, and his place would be taken on a permanent basis by B1T (Valery Vakhovsky).
Thus, the five players representing Navi now look like this:
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s1mple (Alexander Kostylev). One of the best Counter Strike gamers of all time, in 2018 and 2021. number one in the world, which, by the way, no one from the CIS has achieved.
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Boombl4 (Kirill Mikhailov) has been acting as an in-game leader in Navi since 2019. The amount of Kirill’s transfer to Navi from Winstrike made him the most expensive Russian e-sportsman at the moment.
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electronic (Denis Sharipov) is famous for his responsible approach to Navi CS GO matches and his ability to combine e-sports with the life of an exemplary family man.
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B1T (Valery Vakhovsky) – specialist in headshots, major record holder for this indicator.
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Perfecto (Ilya Zalutsky) – one of the best rifflers in CS GO. Set a record for Major tournaments in terms of KAST, i.e. Ilya has the best percentage in terms of the number of rounds in which he simultaneously made a kill, an assist, remained alive, or was traded by a teammate.
Management
I consider it necessary to say a few words about people who are not paid close attention to as players, but who provide the Navi CS GO squad with the opportunity to comfortably prepare for competitions, organize the solution of everyday issues, and suggest what to do in difficult situations.
Firstly, this is the founder and general manager of the club until 2017, Alexander “ZeroGravity” Kokhanovsky. He played CS 1.6 from 1999 to 2005, was one of the first professional e-sportsmen, but did not achieve great success as a gamer. His organizational talent was evident in the management of Navi as an e-sports organization. It was Kokhanovsky who started promoting Navi CS GO players and matches in the media, began looking for sponsors and building the structure of the club.
Secondly, coach Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodensky. Perhaps Andrey – the ideal coach for the Navi team, which adheres not just to the philosophy of victory, but considers itself born to win. His ambitions are such that he plans to create a Navi era in CS GO, similar to the dominance of the Spanish national football team in the late 2000s. or the Chicago Bulls basketball team with Michael Jordan in the 1990s
Where does Navi play in 2022
Professional Counter Strike eSports teams typically have a very busy schedule. At a minimum, 1 major tournament is held per month, and therefore gamers have only 1-2 weeks of rest.
Navi CS GO game schedule is no exception. In 2022, Natus Vincere has already taken part in four tournaments:
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BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2022, held online from January 28 to February 7.
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IEM Katowice 2022. This major LAN competition ran from February 15 to 28.
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ESL Pro League 15 – from March 9 to April 11, 2022
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PGL Major Antwerp European RMR A – from April 17 to April 21.
As of May 2022, the Navi CS GO schedule includes PGL Major Antwerp – first major this year. The team has passed the selection and will participate in the prestigious tournament straight from the Legends stage, from where, with successful play, it will advance to the playoffs, where the main fight will unfold for 1st place and an impressive prize of 500 thousand dollars.
It is still unknown what cyber competitions Natus Vincere will compete in next. Apparently, the management and players are still completely focused on the Antwerp Major, where they intend to defend the champion title won in Stockholm in 2021.
Interesting facts
Several interesting facts are associated with the Navi CS GO team. Some of them may be unknown even to the eSports community.
First fact. Navi’s story began on December 18, 2009. As mentioned earlier, the gaming team borrowed the name of the tribe fighting against the invasion of people from the movie “Avatar”. At the same time, "Avatar" was officially released in Ukraine on December 17, 2009. So some of the future members of Navi were very impressed by James Cameron's masterpiece.
Second fact. Natus Vincere – the club that was the first in the history of Counter Strike to win three major tournaments in one year. This happened in 2010, when Navi took first place at the World Cyber Games 2010, Electronic Sports World Cup and Intel Extreme Masters.
Third fact. In 2010-2021. The club won $7,734 259.34 dollars in prize money alone.
Fourth fact. After a mega-successful 2010, the team found itself in a period of a long 11-year drought. Only in Stockholm in 2021 was Navi again able to win the coveted championship title.
Fifth fact. In 2020, Navi CS GO matches attracted the greatest interest of viewers around the world (60 million hours of viewing).
