Year recap: NAVI.GG.BET in other disciplines

2019 recap for other disciplines

There are only a few days left until the end of 2019, which, no doubt, was a busy year for our club. The Born to Win not only fought in the already familiar virtual arenas but also opened up new horizons for themselves. We will review the results of the year in the existing disciplines — PUBG, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six, — and those that have already become part of NAVI.GG.BET"s history — Fortnite and Paladins.

Fortnite

Earlier this year,  Natus Vincere esports club  a Fortnite division. The duo of young Swedish players Viggo “Bowman” Hahnsson and  Daniel “AlphaAmons” Johansson were invited to perform under the flag of the organization.

Bowman and AlphaAmons

The Swedes made their debut at the LAN tournament . Once in Katowice, our players competed in duet mode for two days. The result is 20th place and $ 4,000 in prize money. In addition, Bowman was of the Secret Skirmish tournament paired with Team Liquid Noah "Vivid" Wright.

In February, the developers of the game made a big announcement that the first Fortnite World Cup will have a $ 30 million prize pool! The long preparation for the qualifiers ended in disappointment: several times NAVI showed quite a strong game in qualifiers, but still stopped a step away from the cherished trip. The qualification stage, which lasted several weeks, was already drawing to a conclusion, and the duo could not proudly boast of the results - neither in Solo mode nor in Duo. The duo didn't make it to the final stage, and soon after such an unsuccessful qualification, the club management stopped cooperating with Viggo and Daniel.

However, NAVI intended to make it into the first Fortnite World Cup by all means. A few weeks later, the club signed a contract with a duet from the Netherlands, which performed in the qualifying stage and received a slot in the Fortnite World Cup LAN finals. Thus, the of the organization became Levi "Lnuef" Edelijn and Quinten "Quinten" van der Zijp.

However, at the Fortnite World Cup in duos mode, the  NAVI duo was unable to resist any other teams and stopped at 44th place, earning $100,000. 

The result was unsatisfactory, and after a while, there was a question about the future of the team. After a short consideration, a harsh decision was made: the club disbanded the lineup and the Fortnite-division.

Paladins

Since 2017, when a contract was signed with the Paladins team, our five have dominated the competitive scene. But 2019 was not a good year for the team.

The recession began after second place at the Paladins World Championship 2018 — it was not possible to start the new season on a high note. The guys were unable to pose a significant challenge at the Mid-Season Invitational 2019 participants and dropped out of the race, losing in the first match.

In August, Paweł "Creativs2" Majszyk  the team and was replaced by André "Ninu" Costa, who previously played in Virtus.pro and Sour Team.

The five showed a good result in the Paladins Premier League 2019 and guaranteed themselves a place in the World Cup, but they couldn't get it together in the final part. The team dropped out of the fight for the champions' title, not being able to confront the first opponent.

In December, due to a change in the format of the League,  NAVI decided to the Paladins division. You can find the team's extensive history in .

PUBG

In 2019, our team was composed of  Vadim “POKAMOLODOY” Ulshin, Aleksandr “BatulinS” Batulin, Dmitrii “Recrent” Osintsev and Artyom “Sadovnik” Danilyuk. In January and February, the team took part in the online tournaments, and , where they took first and second places, respectively.

Recall that in November 2018, NAVI received a direct invite to the first phase of the PUBG Europe League — the global regional league. In March our squad had to leave for Berlin and spend more than one week in Germany, competing with the best teams in Europe and the CIS.

BatulinS, Recrent, POKAMOLODOY, Sadovnik

60 — that's the number of matches our team had to play in the first phase of PEL. Unfortunately, NAVI could not boast of high results: the squad could not find its game, it seemed that the team members on the battlefield acted individually. At the end of the phase, the guys settled down only in the fourteenth place.

After the team returned from Berlin, the club management was forced to take action.  POKAMOLODOY remained in the line-up, while  Recrent, BatulinS and Sadovnik were  by  Roman “ADOUZ1E” Zinovev, Andrey “Bestoloch” Ionov and Arsenii “ceh9” Ivanychev. The updated lineup took part in PEL Kick-Off Cup but failed to make it to the top ten.

During the second phase of PEL, the result has improved considerably. After capturing the advantage in the first games, the guys took the leading position and almost until the end of the phase they held the first line of the standings. The final battles played a bad joke with NAVI: fatigue from long battles and pressure from opponents did their job. With only a few points ahead of the  Natus Vincere,  FaZe Clan took the lead. NAVI took and got the privilege to compete in the GLL Grand Slam: PUBG Classic off-season tournament. There, the team took third place.

POKAMOLODOY, ADOUZ1E, Bestoloch, ceh9

The third phase was the final one before the big tournament of the season — PUBG Global Championship 2019. NAVI still held on to the first section of the PEL tournament standings, but could not fight for the top 3 positions. The fourth place in PEL Phase 3 and the main prize — slot in PGC2019 was added to the team's asset.

Up until November, the guys practiced intensively — at the World Championship in the U.S. they had to face the best teams of the world. And many hours of practice proved to be worthwhile! After overcoming the group stage and semi-finals without any troubles, the team reached the Grand Final. And here the guys faced a real test of strength: mistakes, wrong rotation and bad luck with circles did not let the "yellow-black" to even reach the first five best teams. It was only in the final draws, after gathering the remaining strength, the Born to Win managed to take several first places. The acquired points were enough to enter the top 6 of the world and get a cash reward of $ 110,000.

However, at the end of the championship, the club decided to renew the team. Arsenii "ceh9" Ivanychev and  Andrey "Bestoloch" Ionov have  in a roster. The full team will be announced early next year.

Rainbow Six Siege

February of the passing year pleased all fans of the game: NAVI announced the new division for Rainbow Six and in March the team was to the public. The team included former  Mock-it Esport players: Niklas “KS” Massirer, Jan “ripz” Hooke, Lucas “korey” Zwingmann, Pascal “CRYNNN” Aluan and Lasse “Lazzo” Kli.

korey, CRYNNN, ks, Lazzo, ripz with team manager - N1ghtEnd

The story of this lineup is short. The five made their debut in the ninth season of the Pro League, but, alas, did not succeed: although the guys made every effort to achieve high results, they still could not find their game. The end result was a Challenger series. In this regard, the club decided to the squad but soon promised to introduce new players.

So, in June the club with  MnM Gaming, which featured Leon “neLo” Pesić, Ben“CTZN” McMillan, Jack “Doki” Robertson, Luke “Kendrew” Kendrew and Szymon “Saves” Kamieniak. It took very little time for the guys to adapt to the new environment: the first excellent results were shown in a few weeks.

In July, the “yellow-blacks” took part in the ESL Premiership Summer 2019 LAN finals, previously winning six out of seven matches in the group. In the grand final,  NAVI left no chance for  Team Secret and celebrated their first victory under the organization banners!

Kendrew, neLo, CTZN, Doki, Saves, GiG (former team coach)

At the same time, the squad passed qualifying stages of the tenth season of Pro League and it went very well for the team. But at the end of the qualification, not the most pleasant news was waiting for everyone: Doki was banned to participate in tournaments from ESL for six months. The team was suddenly left without one player, and there were only 24 hours left until new matches in Pro League. The born to Win quickly sorted out the situation and contacted Ellis "Pie" Pyart, who had previously played in Who Knows and MnM Gaming.

It should be noted that Doki and is actively involved in the team's life: he is the creator of several guides and involving Born to Win.

From the very first matches, it became clear that the guys have not lost their competitive spirit and are ready for new victories. Together with the replacement player,  NAVI defeated the strongest representatives of the R6S scene, G2 and Team Empire, and received the coveted ticket to the Pro League S10 LAN finals!

It was in the Pro League LAN finals, which took place in Japan, that the series of victories continued. The team acted as one, defeated one rival after another and, as a result, won the tournament. The championship will be remembered for a long time by both fans and the players themselves: an incredible from neLo,  by  CTZN for the number of kills, a strong game by  Pie and a well-deserved for him.

The next and final tournament of the year for NAVI.R6 was the ESL Premiership Winter 2019, in which our players qualified to play a little earlier. During the championship, the guys defeated Fierce Esports in the semifinals and MnM Gaming in the final. Thus, NAVI became three-time champions of the ESL Premiership!

Summing up the year, we can certainly call it a success for the Rainbow Six team. A series of high-profile victories and personal achievements in the past year will be remembered for a long time!

Apex Legends

In April of this year, another discipline in the Battle Royale genre  — Apex Legends. Our team includes players who are well known to all Quake fans: Alexei "cYpheR" Yanushevsky and Nikita "clawz" Marchinsky. A little later they were joined by  Artem "pkmk" Nechaev, who had previously played Overwatch.

We could see the team in action at the TwitchCon Europe Showdown 2019 and ProApexLegends Spring Madness, however, our players did not achieve any high results in these tournaments.

In July,  cYpheR moved to the coaching position for a number of reasons, and the third player introduced to the roster:  Kirill "9impulse" Kostiv. In general, the summer passed quietly, and the debut of the updated line-up took place only at the end of August at the Twitch Rivals: Road To TwitchCon qualification. In the competition for one of two tickets to the LAN-final, in eight matches the Born to Win took twice the first place and made a total of 70 kills. The team took second place in the overall standings, receiving $5,227 in prize money, and won the slot to the final part of the competition.

Then the discipline gained its momentum, and the various tournaments invigorated the esport component of the game. Thus, in September we were able to watch NAVI at Preseason Invitational with a $500,000 prize pool organized by EA and Respawn Entertainment. There, the Born to Win has fought against 79 teams from around the world and took second place. And in this tournament,  clawz and 9impulse received the Apex Predator title for the most kills in the final matches.

A few days later,   NAVI went to TwitchCon in San Diego. There the team again showed a respectable game, in six draws placing twice in the top three. Upon completion of all matches, the trio added another runner-up title to their name.

After that, the time has come for some  in the team: Dmitry "Fyzu" Petrov replaced Artem "pkmk" Nechayev. In mid-December, the updated roaster took part in GLL Apex Legends Series and took fourth place.

We are sure that the guys still have many new achievements and personal victories ahead of them!

Of course, the Born To Win divisions have given fans a busy season, but the coming year promises to be much more interesting and challenging. Already in early January, the Rainbow Six team will begin to conquer the online part of the eleventh season of the Pro League and prepare for the Six Invitational LAN-final, and in February, the battlefield will be entered by  NAVI.PUBG in qualifications for PGS Berlin. #navination