“They clearly prepared for this matchup, we saw that and they did it very well” were the first words from captain Alexei “Solo” Berezin after Virtus.pro lost 1:2 to Natus Vincere yesterday in the EPICENTER XL group stage.

The VP – Na’Vi rivalry never was more tense than this 2017-2018 competitive season. It all started exactly three months ago when Vladimir ‘RodjER’ Nikogosyan was transferred from Na’Vi to VP at his personal wish. The move was made five days before the official roster lock and in return, Natus Vincere welcomed Ilya ‘Lil’ Ilyuk under their banner. The player trade was received with mixed feeling by both of these two teams’ fans. Lil played for over four years for Virtus.pro before being signed by Na’Vi. Some attributed VP’s success from the start of this competitive season to his super aggressive and tempo controlling roaming support plays. In many ways, the duo support Solo-Lil was what enabled Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev so many times.

Seeing Lil leaving VP felt like the end of an era, but soon after his departure Virtus.pro became champions of the ESL One Katowice Major and their newest addition, RodjER, was crowned by the community the tournament MVP and went home with a shiny Mercedes-Benz.

While VP were simply crushing in every tournament and became the first team to qualify to The International 2018 courtesy of the 1st place at the Bucharest Major as well, Na’Vi had a lot of work to do to find a way to gel. In the same February official shuffle, they also let go Akbar ‘SoNNeikO’ Butaev, due to numerous internal conflicts and welcomed aboard Nikola “LeBronDota” Popović, a player with far less competitive experience than any of his new teammates. It’s been a long and at times painful to watch process for Na’Vi to get their new team to work. Danil “Dendi” Ishutin took a lot of responsibilities on his shoulders, he became the team captain, the drafter and had a lot of new things to adapt to and to learn as well.

Three months later Na’Vi seems to finally have something going on. Arrived at EPICENTER XL from a direct invite seat, which also opened several debates, the Ukrainian team took by surprise two of their toughest opponents in the group. Team Secret were first to feel the bitter taste of defeat at the hands of Na’Vi and then yesterday, Virtus.pro fell 1-2 to Na’Vi.

Right after the loss, VP’s captain made a few comments for the CIS fans in a short video made by Virtus.pro.

“Of course the latest patch had an impact on our game but I don’t think we lost because of the patch. We played poorly, while they played well.” said Solo. “They [Na’Vi] surprised us, they picked heroes to which we are not particularly used to. We had Terrorblade, which is a pretty hard hero to play against, especially when he has an Oracle to support him,” said Solo, referring to the third game of the series where they called out the GG just 23 minutes into the game.

According to Solo, Na’Vi adjusted through the draft phase of that game three by picking Brewmaster and Zeus which translated into a “pretty hard game for our kid [Ramzes666].” “Plus, Slark is not so bad after all” concluded Solo in his brief 40 seconds thoughts after the series versus Na’Vi.

Courtesy of the two victories on the first three days of the group stage at EPICENTER XL, Na’Vi stand on the third place in group B, while OG hold the lead with three series won, a total of 6-1 game winning record. Na’Vi already fought against OG and lost the series 0:2 but they still have two more series to play. The first one is against Newbee scheduled for today, May 1 around 15:00 CEST and the last one is scheduled for tomorrow, May 2 against paiN Gaming also, at ~15:00 CEST.

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