Well, if you’re a NAVI fan, the beginning of the CS2 era can’t be going much worse in terms of pure results, but when external factors are calculated, everything still seems fine. One of CS:GO’s greatest players, s1mple, missed the tournament due to a European residency paper issue. The team was forced to use coach B1ad3 as a stand-in and performed well in an elimination match against FaZe Clan on Oct. 17 given the circumstances.
Overpass, the first map of the series, was a bit of a wash. FaZe Clan took the map home 13-7 and appeared ready to cruise through the lower bracket matchup. Mirage was up next. The map is considered a bit of an aim duel map, with straightforward meta strategies and an outsized importance on skillful gunfighters. Without s1mple, this put NAVI at an extreme disadvantage against a talented FaZe Clan roster.
NAVI won Mirage in impressive fashion, with a 10-2 T side punctuated by stellar play from NAVI’s Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy. NAVI took Mirage 13-4 but would go on to lose the decider map in the series, Inferno, 13-7. Unlike Mirage, NAVI couldn’t get their T side going on Inferno, only taking three rounds to FaZe’s nine. The deficit proved too much to overcome.
It’s a bizarre day indeed when you look at all the circumstances and conclude that the loser of the match looked better, but that’s exactly the case here. If you’re FaZe Clan, you feel much better if you’re able to close the series out on Mirage, but NAVI’s stellar T side without their best player gives them an important moral victory. NAVI will head into the rest of the CS2 calendar with a bit of momentum, while FaZe Clan will look to recapture their form throughout the tournament.
