NAVI Dota 2: year's recap

2020 for NAVI.Dota 2

The past year has brought many challenges. The  Natus Vincere Dota 2 roster was no exception, and during the year we experienced both moments of joy and not the most successful performances at tournaments. In this material, we will recall all the important events of 2020 and summarize NAVI's results in the discipline.

The first significant event of the year for the team was the , for which the Born to Win qualified back in December 2019. At the competition in Germany, our guys performed well in the group and took first place (against such opponents as Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses!), but they slipped up in the playoffs. Two losses in a row and 9th-12th place in the tournament was a sad outcome of a good start.

However, the tournament played an important role, because after it there were certain changes in the team (also with a small controversy): the place of Bakyt "W_Zayac" Emilzhanov who left for Virtus.pro was taken first temporarily, and then permanently by Semion "CemaTheSlayer" Krivulya. With little time left before ESL One Los Angeles 2020 qualification, the team had to get into great shape in a very short period of time.

We should credit our boys, they played great at the qualifying stage and won one of the two slots for the CIS region. Perhaps the story of the squad would have been different had it not been for the coronavirus pandemic, which canceled the international competitions, resulting in the above championship being switched to the online event.

The absence of the Major tournament in its usual format was not in favor of our team, which spent so much effort to get to it. The last place in the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 standings and then only 7th-8th places in the WePlay! Pushka League became a catalyst for the pursuit of new ideas.

At first, CemaTheSlayer left the team. He was replaced by Vitaly "so bad" Oshmankevich. With this roster, NAVI only played at ESL One Birmingham 2020 where they failed to advance from the groups and in the end took the 9th-10th places. This result led to even more radical changes.

At the end of June, two new players joined the team. Aleksandr "Immersion" Chmielewskaia took place of so bad, and Nikita "young G" Bochko replaced Idan "MagicaL" Vardanyan on the middle lane. With this lineup, the team played in the second season of OGA Dota PIT, as well as in the OMEGA League. 5th-6th place in both tournaments (and in the second division of the OMEGA League) and it was not what the fans expected from the team.

September was a turning point in 2020. The club's management abandoned its attempts to assemble an effective five on the basis of the previous team and made a logical, though a risky step, inviting an already established team — FlyToMoon to play under the yellow-and-black banner.

Aleksey «xaoc» Kucherov

COO Natus Vincere

«FTM has been playing together for quite some time without any contractual obligations, salaries, or other benefits of the Dota ecosystem, but they manage to hold the discipline of the team to a high standard. Thanks to their well-functioning training process, they have been able to perform well in many championships this year.

This is exactly what often lacks in CIS Dota, where many professional players are looking for options to play with friends or join them at short notice. Such scenarios preclude the prospect of building something long-term. All teams have problems sooner or later, the important factor is to be able to find the strength to deal with them instead of running away. 

Today we are glad to start the cooperation with the guys from FlyToMoon and we will do our best to make sure the fans enjoy the Natus Vincere performance».

The choice was based on the fact that the players had already played together for a long time and had shown very decent results. Thus, in the second half of September, the Natus Vincere team was completely new, although among its members there were well-known players to the fans: Victor "GeneRaL" Nigrini and Vladimir "RodjER" Nikogosyan.

The first tournament for the new team was OGA Dota PIT Season 3, where we took fourth place and managed to beat Nigma and OG. But the team really shined at the ESL One Germany 2020, where the Born to Win made the playoffs, though not without issues. The boys made it to the upper bracket of the tournament and reached the final, where, unfortunately, they lost to Team Liquid. Nevertheless, this was the best result of the year for NAVI.

Then our team had time to play in the EPIC League, where after the confident performance in the group stage, the team had a slip up in playoffs and in the end reached only the 5th-6th places. However, they finished the year 2020 very confidently, winning the fourth season of OGA Dota PIT! Such a long-awaited victory in a major tournament was a great gift for the New Year, both for the players themselves and for the fans of Natus Vincere!

In addition, the players of the new Natus Vincere roster are a real boon for all the fans of media activities! Various interviews, participation in interesting quizzes, frequent streams, and much more! channel is a must-see!

Yevhen Zolotarov

«The season should be divided into two parts — before we signed FTM and after. Before, we had constant attempts to glue the roster together, replace the captain, taking over that role by other players, etc. At some point, something started to work and the roster with Zayac in the position of the captain started to perform quite well. Unfortunately, Solo and Noone turned out to be closer to Zayac. And after the famous contract history and his departure, we somehow managed to stay afloat, and even won the quals and made it to the major, which was canceled, but it was really just a convulsion. Replacing the support player and a mid-laner also didn't lead to anything, and the most logical solution was a total disband.

As a result, we were again faced with the choice to build a team around some player or to sign a decent FTM roster at the time. I fully trusted Aleksey "xaoc" on this one, as he really wanted to sign these guys and offered fairly risk-free terms with a trial period. I must admit that I, and probably many fans had some doubts, given the past experience of some players with the signing with the orgs and the salary cap :) There were also some thoughts like, well, now they are in shape, but what's next, what if this is their limit, what if they start facing problems with motivation. But in the end the guys were getting better and better, and in all tournaments, since they joined NAVI they have been consistently ranked in the top, and in the last tournament of the year, they even won. Also, Mag's previous coaching experience definitely helped him to organize and systematize the training process, and I want to thank him for that.

And in terms of media, of course, it's a dream team :) If there was a little less profanity in the content (none at all), we would have signed a couple of guys as the McDonald's ambassadors a long time ago.

In short: this is the best decision NAVI has made in the last few years in this discipline, and I hope that this message will not loosen the guys and that they will be the same truly cohesive team and our flight to the moon will continue!»

Our team goes into 2021 in a good spirit and with a great desire to show our best in the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit season. We're sure we'll have a lot of positive events and great victories ahead of us! #navination