Year recap: NAVI.GG.BET CS:GO
The overview of the year: CS:GO
The year is over for 
NAVI.GG.BET CS:GO team, so it's time to take a look back. Let's recap what our guys have achieved in this period of time, as well as analyze the achievements of each player individually.
Events
In 2018, Natus Vincere took part in 16 LAN tournaments. Our guys won four of them, became runner-ups five times, and got top 8 six times. Only IEM Chicago wasn't the best event for us: NAVI finished in the top 16, losing two games in a row — against 
eUnited and 
BIG.
This result is unexpected in the sense that just a few days before the tournament, the guys became champions of the BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen and looked like a team that could fight for the champions title in Chicago. There's nobody who can shed the light on this better than the players themselves (the passage is taken from with Zeus on the eve of ESL PL S8 Finals):
Danylo "Zeus" TeslenkoAdequate performance, four out of five. I consider the second and first place to be a good result; leaving the group stage is unpleasant, but again, this is simply an incorrect distribution of strengths and capabilities over the tournaments. Should have declined one of the championships. Rapidly flying to three tournaments, especially over long distances is just wrong. However, it all comes with time and we learn from our own mistakes.
On the other hand, failures in Chicago are overshadowed by excellent results of the Born to Win in other tournaments. This is proven by the current position of our guys in the world ranking by HLTV.org. For example, for 
flamie the success at ESL One Cologne 2018 was one of the most and enjoyable in his career:
Egor "flamie" Vasilyev"ESL One Cologne. It was a Major tournament with a prize pool of $ 250,000. We beat Astralis, who were almost at their peak. Additionally, the importance of this championship increased due to the fact that all the best teams in the world were there.
In addition, we all remember very well how "yellow black» scored a triple, winning three tournaments in a row - StarSeries S5, CS: GO Asia Championships 2018 and ESL One Cologne 2018. Naturally, you should not discard the exit to the finals of the major. Hopefully, in the coming year NAVI will be able to claim the Major champions title on the 5th try!
Competition
The first battle of 2018 for Natus Vincere became a fight with 
mousesports. It all started with losing the StarSeries S4 finals. Back then NAVI were unable to defeat the Europeans in a fierce match (1:2), although they had an excellent opportunity to finish the match with a score of 2:0. However, a number of ridiculous mistakes on Mirage allowed the “mice” to make a comeback and deprive our team of the title.
The next encounter arrived shortly after. It happened in the quarterfinals of DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018, and this time NAVI did not lose their way and achieved victory (2:0). Unlike the game in Kyiv, our guys beat the opponent during the overtime on the second map! The final standoff in the rivalry between mouz and Natus Vincere occurred during StarSeries S5, as we defeated the European team in the semifinals (2:1).
Another principal rival of NAVI in 2018 became the American five Team Liquid. While mousesports were behind Natus Vincere in terms of wins, we only had 2 victories over the Americans in Bo1's at the ELEAGUE Major 2018.
Later, the teams' paths crossed at ESL Pro League S7, ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018, and ESL Pro League S8. In all cases, Team Liquid players were stronger and did not drop a single map. We believe that in the new year NAVI will turn the tides around.
Of course, the final rival of Natus Vincere, who we had to play a lot, was the best team of 2018, 
Astralis. It may seem to many that the Danes have a considerable advantage in terms of personal encounters. However, zonic and his team took the lead in this regard only after the victory at BLAST Pro Series Lisbon.
So, the Bo1's score is still tied (1:1). As for the best of 3, NAVI beat Astralis at StarSeries S4 and ESL One Cologne, and the Danish five was stronger at DreamHack Masters Marseille, FACEIT Major and BLAST Pro Series Lisbon. Hopefully, the words of electroNic in recent with HLTV.org will come true and NAVI will be able to put up a fight against Astralis in the battle for the top of the world ranking!
Map pool
As we can see, NAVI had the most matches on Inferno. This is due to the fact that at the beginning of the year this map was the best for our guys, and then, when most of the teams understood the meta of the map that had recently returned to active duty, it became a lot more frequent decider map. The average win rate (57.1%), as it was mentioned in by electroNic, has to do with the fact the team shifted focus onto other maps.
The three strongest maps of theBorn to Win are Train, Overpass and Mirage. Compared to last year, the figures on Train remained almost unchanged (80.8% against 80.0%), but on Overpass (71.9% against 42.9%) and Mirage (65.7% against 35.3%) NAVI demonstrated significant progress.
Comparing the state of mediocre maps to 2017, the team somewhat improved on Nuke. Not only did the team play twice as many matches on this map, it significantly raised its win rate (55.6% versus 37.5%). Unfortunately, with the return of Dust2, our guys never found a recipe for how to demonstrate stable results on this map.
After a series of six defeats NAVI seemed to stabilize and won four in a row, but then lost ground again, dropping four of the last five encounters on Dust2. While the last year the guys never played Cache, in 2018 they decided to pick the map twice - in matches against Heroic and Astralis. In both cases, the risk did not pay off (0 wins and 2 losses).
Players
By far the best player in the lineup of Born to Win is s1mple, who had a terrific year, setting many significant records. For example, Sasha was the first to win the MVP in two championships in a row without his team winning! Also s1mple was the first in the history of Counter-Strike to reach K-D difference of +1000 during a year.
All in all, over the past year s1mple received six MVP awards: StarSeries S4, DreamHack Masters Marseille, StarSeries S5, CS: GO Asia Championships 2018, ESL One Cologne 2018 and BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2018.
In addition to online success, Sasha "Esportsman of the Year on PC" by Esports Awards. In November s1mple all FPL winnings to Movember Foundation, which conducts research of oncological diseases, and also provides support to organizations dealing with the problems of depression and bipolar affective disorder.
When electroNic joined NAVI, many experts wondered if Denis would be able to adapt to the tier-1 level of the game. As it turned out, doubts were in vain: electroNic had a great year and met all expectations.
Unfortunately, Denis didn't get an MVP award this year, but his efforts were noticed, and he was recognized as an EVP (BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen, EPICENTER 2018, FACEIT Major 2018, ESL Pro League S7, ESL One Cologne 2018, DreamHack Masters Marseille, StarSeries S5 and WESG World Finals).
Of course, thanks to these results electroNic and s1mple got into the list of the twenty best players in 2018 according to HLTV. If Denis's hit in the top 5 is questionable, then the only threat to Sasha’s first place is dev1ce.
Three other players of Natus Vincere were doing a lot of work as well, doing everything in ther power to allow s1mple and electroNic show their maximum. For example, Zeus finished the year on third place in terms of the number of assists (715), and also had a good support with flashbangs (+ 0.40 seconds).
At the beginning of the year flamie continued to play the old positions that he held before electroNic joined, but then the role of Egor changed and he had to take some "dirty" work. As for Edward — Vanya continued to play on the linking positions and support teammates. Yet, as Edward himself noted, he has recently experienced difficulties in finding stability in the game.
Ioann "Edward" SukharievA lot of things happened to my level of play: ups and downs. I'd say: for me, an indicator of a high level of individual skill is stability, which I have not recently shown, but I have been working to acquire it.
— How do you rate the performance of the Born to Win in 2018? From the position of the coach, when were you satisfied, and where could the team do better?
Mykhailo "Kane" BlaginI rate it 8 out of 10. I was pleased with our progress at the beginning of the year, at some point we were very close to beating Astralis. We could have a better second half of the year, we faced various difficulties that caused a lot of negativity and distracted us from work.
— Which tournament was the best for you? Why?
Kane: StarSeries 5 and 4, ESL One Cologne and BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen. At each of these tournaments, we were able to find a team synergy, get into a rhythm and gain momentum with each game. There were championships that could have been added to this list. I think those are ELEAGUE CS: GO Premier and FACEIT Major, but in the end we paid for our mistakes.
— There is one more question regarding tournaments. From the organizational point of view, which tournament operator surprised you with the quality of the events? Why?
Kane: A Chinese tournament, CS: GO Asia Championships, and BLAST. I happened to visit China once, but the standard they've set... I would not single out something specifically, it's just what China is as a country... They want to be the best in everything. The second operator is BLAST. They took a lot out of football and constantly keep in touch with the teams on how to become better. In both of these tournaments, we feel special care.
— Could you go through the team’s map pool and briefly describe the results of Natus Vincere on each of the maps?
Kane: We have six maps in the pool. Overpass — long story short, the best in the world. Train — the map has brought us many important victories, we will strive to bring it to the Overpass level. Mirage — at some point we were the best, but now we are playing very unstable, we will work on that.
Inferno — this is where we began our rise, at the beginning of the year there were many important victories here, now we need to work on it as well. Dust2 - this map is still an enigma, but there are some possibilities of success. Nuke — we were among the leaders in the middle of the year. However, the last few months didn't quite work. We will see if we can return the position.
— What goals does Natus Vincere set for itself in 2019 and what aspects of the game will be emphasized?
Kane: We set the highest goals — win the Major tournament, become number one in the world ranking. The first focus will be on the quality of our work. For us, this aspect will be even more important than winning a particular tournament. The rest is secret. I just want to honestly say to myself: I did everything I could. Then the result is secondary, but I am sure that it will be delivered.
Summing up, 2018 can be safely called a good one for Natus Vincere. NAVI did their best and showed a decent game, as the team’s results eloquently show: only four out of sixteen tournaments didn't see Born to Win hit the top 4. We believe that in the coming year, the guys will be able to win a major and take the first place in the world ranking! #NAVINATION
