IEM Katowice Major: Tournament recap

The fourteenth Major is over

Unfortunately, on Saturday, NAVI.GG.BET didn't manage to defeat ENCE and finished its way at the Katowice tournament in 3-4th places. Let's go over the past Major.

The quarterfinals went all the way to the third map. The series started with the Finnish team map pick — Train. So, the Born to Win got the right to choose the side, and the guys preferred the counter-terrorists. The beginning of the match was good for  NAVI, but when the score was 7-2, the Finnish five had a timeout, which seemed to give the second wind — this was the turning point of the first half. As a result, it ended with the minimum advantage for our guys (8:7). The second half started off well for  NAVI again — the guys won the pistol and the eco. However, ENCE managed to turn the tides again and won on their chosen map - 16: 14.

Then the action shifted to Dust2. The fate of the map was sealed in the first half of the game, where, for the side of the attack, our squad destroyed the opponents with 13:2 on the board. The final result was 16:3. The third map (Mirage) was incredibly similar to the Train: first Natus Vincere players claimed a decent advantage, but towards the end of the CT half, they gave the opponent several points (6: 9).

The key episode here was the eco loss in the nineteenth round, which marked the beginning of the comeback for the Finnish team. As a result ENCE managed to bounce back from a seemingly losing position again, finally winning the game at 16:14.

Let's also go back a little and take a look at the other matches of the Born to Win at the tournament. In the quarterfinals, we were to face FaZe Clan. The fight promised to be very difficult for NAVI, but in fact, everything turned out to be much simpler. Despite not the most successful game for the defense of Inferno (5:10), the guys played excellently on the attack and gave the opponent only three rounds.

However, a good game by NAVI on attack wasn't the only memorable point — flamie ! This has never happened before in the history of Majors. As for Mirage, Natus Vincere played their own pick without any extra nerves and won with a score of 16:7.

The group stage for  NAVI began with two matches against the French teams. Thus, in the first game, the yellow-blacks beat the  G2 five (16: 7), which, before the “New Legends” stage, gave our team the lowest seeding compared to other participants - seventh place.

Next, the fans got to see a truly thrilling match: NAVI vs. Team Vitality. It seemed that the game should end without any problems in favor of our guys, but something went wrong at 14: 8. So, it took 47 rounds to finally determine the winner. During overtime, Natus Vincere were twice on the verge of losing, but both times they were able to play the match point well. On the third attempt NAVI managed to finish the fight in their favor - 25:22!

In the next round, our team didn't make it into the playoffs straight away — NAVI lost to Team Liquid (0: 2). Then the fans got to see the CIS derby -  NAVI vs.  AVANGAR. Our guys controlled the course of the fight and won with a score of 2: 0. Thus,  NAVI finished the "New Legebds" stage with 3–1 statistics, and fulfilled the minimum task at IEM Katowice Major - they retained the status of “Legends”.

If we turn to the stats, our players were noted in various nominations. First of all, s1mple was one of the main contenders for the best player title until the end of the major. Sasha had the best KD difference (+ 74), second best rating (1.29), was the first for the number of rounds with 1+ frags (54.4%), and also surpassed everyone at AWP kills per round (0.45). As for the other players of the Born to Win, flamie ranked fifth in the total number of assists (50), and  Zeus ranked fifth in the number of clutches won (5).

In terms of teamwork, NAVI had the second best result in force buys won after losing pistols - 44.4% ( NRG is the best team with 75%). Also, our five ranked third in games played with man disadvantage (4 vs 5) - 33.6%. But in the majority (5 vs 4) our guys were worse (75.0%) and took the fifth place. Another second stat ( NAVI lost only to Astralis) was the victorious opening duels: 55.1% ( Astralis - 55.7%).

In the near future NAVI expects a short break, after which the guys will play at StarSeries S7 (March 30 - April 7), BLAST Pro Series Miami (April 12–13) and ESL Pro League S9. We believe that Natus Vincere will delight the fans with their game and achieve positive results! #NAVINATION