Happy birthday NAVI!

Natus Vincere esports club is eleven years old! To celebrate this event we've prepared something special. On December 22nd at 17:00 CET on the   Twitch-channel, a celebratory stream will start. Players, famous figures of esports, giveaways — all this and much more awaits for all who click on the and joins the fan club

Over the year NAVI had a lot of interesting events, victories, and discoveries. Today we will look back at the most interesting ones together with you!

New rosters and players

From a comeback to one of the most popular Battle Royale titles, to mobile esports, who's been added to the Born to Win roster over the past twelve months?

Back to Fortnite

In the height of summer, our club announced the foundation of the Fortnite team and the signing of Daniil "" Abdrakhmanov, and then Igor "" Popov. 

Fans of the discipline and those who follow the CIS scene closely, know these names well.  Putrick and 7tor are considered to be the strongest players for a reason: in their fourth season alone, Daniil earned more than $ 16,000, surpassing the other CIS players, and Igor's prize money was about $ 7,000.

Some of the major accomplishments include successes at the DreamHack Open 2020 Duos in November, where the 7tor duo placed 17th ($ 1,800) and Putrick placed 27th ($ 800); Trio FNCS (9th place for the Daniil trio and $ 16,500 for the whole team); EU ENCORE (12th place for the Putrick's team and 16th place for 7tor - $ 2,000 and $ 1,000 respectively). 

New Dota 2 team

In September there were some major changes. The club has released the whole Dota 2 staff, including "old-timers" Vladislav "Crystallize" Krystanak and  Pavel "9pasha" Khvastunov. A few days later FlyToMoon players Alik "V-Tune" Vorobey, Bogdan "Iceberg" Vasilenko, Andrey "ALWAYSWANNAFLY" Bondarenko and familiar to many of our fans Viktor "GeneRaL" Nigrini and Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan were invited for a test period.

GeneRaL, RodjER, ALWAYSWANNAFLY,  V-Tune, Iceberg, manager AnahRoniX

The fans were excited about these changes, and the players stepped up to the challenge with confidence. So, at ESL One Germany 2020, the team took second place and soon entered the top 10 of the ESL ranking. 

Mobile esports: PUBG Mobile 

In October, NAVI entered the world of mobile esports forming the PUBG Mobile team. It included players familiar to a lot of people, some of the strongest in the CIS: Dmytro "OldBoy" Bui, Vitalii "Matic" Shulga, Alexey "Mequ" Tolov, and Daniil "Tixzy" Suchkov. 

It did not take long for them to succeed: the guys had a great performance at the EMEA League, took first place, and earned not only $ 24,000, but also a ticket to the LAN tournament Global Championship 2020. Before the championship, Sergey "ADERR" Pomerantsev officially joined the team.

An experiment in the main NAVI CS:GO roster

The introduction of additional players into teams is relatively new, but already quite popular. The Born to Win also used this format as an experiment. 

Valeriy "B1t" Vakhovskyi, who had previously shown a high level of play in NAVI Junior, had the chance to perform in the main roster.  B1t played for NAVI at BLAST Premier: Fall 2020 in games against Astralis and FURIA Esports, replacing Egor "flamie" Vasilev. Note that Valeriy played only on Inferno: this is due to the need to refresh the playstyle of the team and improve the quality of the game on this map. 

NAVI Academy

Last fall, the NAVI Esports Camp project has concluded. Since then, the Natus Vincere academy has developed quite a bit.

In January 2020 the club signed young talent Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov, and a little later Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov joined our ranks. From that moment the second junior roster under the name NAVI Youth started to form. 

Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov

In addition to Ilya and Daniil, Rodion "fear" Smyk joined the team. In the fall, Daniel "SynyX" Mazur and Sergey "pogor3lov" Pogoryelov joined NAVI. So far, NAVI Youth has not played many matches, but the guys have already managed to prove themselves: for example, they became the champions of ESEA Autumn Cash Cup 1. 

Right now the academy is a strong fighting unit, and in some NAVI Junior matches you can spot m0NESY. 

Personal achievements and major victories

Here we will recall the team's most notable victories and Natus Vincere players' achievements.

IEM Katowice 2020

The championship was one of the last LAN tournaments before the global quarantine caused by COVID-19. At the last moment, the organizers of the competition decided to hold the playoffs without spectators, but the empty arena did not shake NAVI's confidence in their abilities.

We'd like to note that our team advanced to the Grand Final without a single loss. And there the guys also left no chance for G2 and with a score of 3 : 0 they've got the well-deserved win, and s1mple was recognized as the most valuable player of the tournament. 

For CS:GO fans, this victory meant a lot, because ten years ago the legendary NAVI squad won the Intel Extreme Masters. Back then ceh9, Zeus, Starix, Edward, and Markeloff laid the foundation for our team's great history. 

Continuing the theme, let us remind you that in August the club organized a show-match with the "golden" squad and the current players — Na`Vi 2010 versus NAVI 2020. The battle has unfolded in both CS 1.6 and CS:GO. 

PUBG Mobile: a ticket to the LAN-tournament

Here we take a closer look at the EMEA League. In this tournament, the guys made their debut under the banner of Natus Vincere. The team took the lead on the first day and then held the leading position until the end. As previously mentioned, NAVI won a slot to the PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2020, and the tournament organizers appreciated OldBoy's skills: our player became the MVP of the tournament with a K/D stat of 3.28. The flight to Shanghai for the LAN tournament is ahead!

Since Tixzy and Mequ were unable to participate due to age restrictions, they were replaced by ADERR and a member of Team Unique Lightning. We wrote about how the teams endured the quarantine in China in a separate article. 

Matic, ADERR, Lightning, OldBoy

At the PEC 2020, the team had to fight with the strongest teams in the world. The most dangerous of them were the four representatives of the Celestial Empire: it was almost an impossible task to overtake them in the number of points. Otherwise, our guys were pretty confident and took sixth place at the championship.

The journey of young players in the FPL. Boombl4 in Forbes' ranking

FACEIT Pro League is the Champions League for professional CS:GO players. To qualify for it, you have to show outstanding results, and our young players managed to do that. 

One of the youngest FPL members was Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov, who received a direct invitation from the organizers in March. In August, after winning his 36th FPL CS:GO Challenger Europe season and playing 261 games in a month with a win rate of 53%, Rodion "fear" Smyk entered the FPL. 

In April, the financial and economic magazine Forbes presented 100 people who had a chance to be included in the rating of the 30 most promising Russians under the age of 30. NAVI CS:GO in-game leader Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov was included. In May, Kirill won in his category ("Sports and Esports"), along with swimmer Anton Chupkov and figure skater Alyona Kostornaya.

NAVI Shop evolution and jersey customization

In August, the NAVI online store marked its one-year anniversary. We continue to develop our own products and please fans with new arrivals and unique merchandise. 

Last December we unveiled new uniforms for our players, in February 2020 they went on sale, and in the fall one of the main new features became available —  jersey customization.

For World Animal Day, the club released , for the start of the school year the club introduced the , which included all the necessary things for students, and recently with the Ukrainian brand KSENIASCHNAIDER. The new collection is released under the hashtag #ownthestreet and includes . 

Аnton Schneider

Designer

"It didn't take long to persuade me to cooperate with NAVI. I  had never had any experience with the professional esports scene before, but I allowed myself to make references to games in our collections. Thought I was in the loop. An obvious match for me. Turns out it's more serious than that. The scope and passion. Very glad that the NAVI club, just like us, cares about aesthetics in addition to winning. We've done great things together that have raised the bar in the genre."

What's next?

We've got a lot of new and unforgettable things to come for us. Thank you for staying with us! Don't forget to join our celebratory on December 22nd!