There is a certain set of expectations set on a team when they wield the firepower of the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player in the world. Winning is at the top of that list.





Na`Vi, who boast the services of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, are burdened with the guaranteed nature of his excellence. They know, he knows, we all know that he is the ace of aces being dealt Na`Vi’s way at the start of every round. As such, Na`Vi are a team that should be, based on s1mple’s presence alone, lifting trophies consistently, or at least pressuring the likes of Astralis in close series.





In reality, though, Na`Vi is a fragile titan. Despite having the greatest player to ever touch the game they play, the Eastern European line-up only lay claim to one meaningful international LAN trophy. What’s more, since winning ESL One Cologne 2018, Na`Vi have consistently proven to be a team vulnerable to upsets. They are the longest standing five-man core out of all the top 10 teams in the world, and a dramatic upswing in form seems increasingly unlikely. While they are still capable of blitzing a tournament to lift a trophy, a distinct type of fragility may characterize their 2019 even more prominently.









Screenshot via Na'Vi/YouTube





Electric firepower...





It’s always difficult to see the underlying issues of a team when it fields two of the five best players in the world. Na`Vi, with Denis “electronic” Sharipov and s1mple firing on all cylinders throughout 2018, were afforded this veil. Both players reached and maintained world-class individual peaks in the deepest, most important parts of big events. Electronic especially, in this sense, was the difference maker.





As Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko outlined in an interview with Cybersport the importance of electronic in the Na`Vi system before he joined, they “lacked a strong fragger, a strong player that is capable of opening frags,” he said. “We had s1mple, but it wasn't enough with flamie, me, and Edward, the old guard as the support. With the addition of electronic, we just started working according to our system, which has been developed over years.”





He was the second highest rated T-side player in 2018, only being bested by his teammate, s1mple. The two of them fuelled Zeus’ experienced, fleshed out, and intuitive sense of how to approach the game. With immense horsepower from s1mple and electronic, and a veteran hand behind the wheel, Na`Vi were able to steer themselves to becoming the second best team in the world in 2018.





While he isn’t necessarily under-performing, since the FACEIT London Major, electronic’s integral 1.2+ rated events have gone missing. That red-hot streak of form which started around Marseille has petered out for the Russian rifler. He still posts respectable numbers in the context of other riflers in the top ten, but not to the same tournament-defining level we’ve seen in the past.





… But only for so long





Around the FACEIT London major, Egor “flamie” Vasilyev stepped back into the mixed support/entry role he’s played on a number of historical Na`Vi line-ups. He said about this change around the major that “someone needs to do some support roles and someone needs to go first, I'm okay with having the role of going in first and dying because I know that I have electronic or s1mple or Edward or Zeus who can trade me, or we can win the round because of me going first and dying. So it's ok.”





As tends to happen with most star riflers, when electronic plays at his average, rather than peak level, he posts a lower opening kill attempt percentage (OKA%). For example, despite flamie being in a more entry-focussed role, at the FACEIT London major, electronic had the highest OKA% in Na`Vi and the fourth-highest in the tournament overall at 28 percent. This was also tied for his highest rated international LAN ever. Comparatively, at his quieter ESL One New York, EPICENTRE, and IEM Katowice events, he sat behind flamie and s1mple in OKA% at around ~18 percent.









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Screenshot via HyperX/YouTube





In other words, more pressure is being put on the likes of flamie and Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev to step-up individually in-lieu of a God-tier T-side electronic. At the major, we saw both do so. Flamie had his highest-rated event at IEM Katowice 2019 since the ELEAGUE Major over a year ago, and Edward since StarSeries in June of last year. In spite of this, Na`Vi still failed to even take a map off of Liquid in the group stage, and they were broken by a tightly-knit ENCE in the semifinals.





While Edward, flamie, and even Zeus had a good overall major, the firepower of Na`Vi without electronic at his peak is still too patchy in important games. It’s one thing for flamie to drop nearly 40 kills in an overtime best-of-one against Vitality and another for him to have a 0.90 rating in their two most important games against ENCE. The same could be said for Edward who went big against ENCE and then missing against Liquid.





There’s no certainty outside of s1mple for Na`Vi’s fragging pack. Such a precedent is reminiscent of Mousesports last year. They have enough talent and experience to float in the top 5, but not enough consistency or fragging cohesion to truly rise within that pack. If, however, someone like flamie and electronic—comparable to Chris “ChrisJ” de Jong and Miikka “SuNny” Kemppi—find a brief streak of form, then they are capable of winning a big international tournament like ESL One New York 2018.





The art of the brawl





Understanding the inconsistent firepower of Na`Vi is important as it also contextualizes the inherent fragility of their style of play. While they were once infamously slow, patient, and constricting, in the present, they are anything but. Na`Vi is a team that will make the game scrappy. Like an MMA fighter who is looking to land a knockout punch in a flurried trade of blows, Na`Vi want to take duels. They want to take their opponent into deep, uncomfortable water and dominate them individually.





Such a style is capable of winning series in spectacular fashion as we saw against Astralis at ESL One Cologne 2018. Na`Vi beat the Danish kings through immensely strong individual play, ballsy calls on both sides of the map, and an unrelenting confidence that broke the best team of all-time. S1mple, in this series, didn’t even need to top-frag. His teammates were securing clutches in the micro as Zeus was mentally a step-ahead on the macro; calling risky stacks and messing with Astralis’ game plan.





Since this peak of Na`Vi as a team though, other rosters have gained an understanding of these unique win conditions. What’s more, given the importance individual skill plays into this style, we’ve seen many lower-tiered teams dense with talent beat Na`Vi at their own game. S1mple said before the Katowice major that other teams, “they're watching us more, they're learning more and reading us more because we're always in some tournaments. Now they just feel more confident against us, they hit their headshots and they get confidence and they win really easily against us. We just need to stop it somehow.”









We saw Gambit at ESL One New York 2018 destroy Na`Vi in two consecutive best-of-threes in a similar way Na`Vi were able to beat top teams themselves. Players like Abay "Hobbit" Khasenov and Nikolay "mir" Bityukov relentlessly pressured and caught-out Na`Vi players with pace and aggression, forcing them to take straight duels. In that tournament, with the momentum of the series going the way of Gambit, Na`Vi crumbled, living and dying by the sword.





Fragility, volatility, and inconsistency





The seeds of fragility within Na`Vi are sowed through a combination of their style, which hinges on individual dominance, and the fact that those individuals fire off inconsistently. Unfortunately, dramatically changing this style may do more harm than good.





A player like s1mple wants to have the freedom to get scrappy. He thrives in the intensity of dueling, and it’s where we see him at his best. A return to the intense structure of the old Na`Vi or a rebuilding of Zeus’ system may kill what got them to the dance of elite teams in the first place.





As such, Na`Vi are in a tough spot. Zeus has said that he will probably retire in 2019, and a roster move between electronic/Edward/flamie seems unlikely. We did “nothing different, actually. When I was talking about the preparation I was thinking about... You know, it is not enough to just play CS to improve your game. You need to do a lot of annoying work as a team. Discuss tactics, discuss many small details. That is what we missed, in my opinion,” said Edward after the Katowice major.





It is in these small adjustments, band-aid fixes to broader problems, that we’ll see Na`Vi oscillate throughout their tournament runs in 2019. They may find the right blend of communication and individual form occasionally enough to see Zeus’ career end on a trophy, but not consistently so that they will displace Astralis, or maybe even MIBR for that matter. Such a fate for a team that boasts the best player in the world and a legendary core may be tragic, but it seems unavoidable. Fragile, yet dangerous.