Natus Vincere finished the first phase of the Europe League on the 14th place and immediately disbanded the squad. For many fans of the team, this was a big surprise, because, before this disappointing result, the roster looked good. But, Vadim POKAMOLODOY Ulshin stated later that he simply did not want to perform with the same team and went into the mix of players from Jokers and Red Diamonds. The new lineup of Na’Vi is yet to compete in official matches, but it is already called one of the most promising in the CIS.
Ulshin gave up the role of captain and gave it to Arseny “ceh9” Ivanychev, who had previously competed with the Jokers. This team lacked only 20 points to get a slot at the FACEIT Global Summit. In addition, ceh9 keeps the second place in the league in term of damage dealt and is among the top ten players in the number of kills.
Meet the renewed PUBG roster by watching this set of awesome highlights!
?️: https://t.co/4pIgNxjZG3#NAVINATION #PUBG pic.twitter.com/Cv95HZvX2H
— Natus Vincere (@natusvincere) April 27, 2019
The organizers of the championship advanced the team in the top 8 and indicated it as one of the main contenders for getting into the top 3. Whether NaVi will succeed in raising above 14 places at least in the Kick-Off Cup is not known. Yet we believe that this competition will be a big test for the side.
The Format
From April 30 to May 5 in Berlin, there will be an interim championship between the first and second tiers of the PUBG Europe League – the Kick-Off Cup. 32 teams from PEL and PEL-C will compete for $ 125 thousand.
At the Kick-Off Cup, all participants in the main division will compete with the 16 best teams from the contenders. In the final stage of the tournament, we will have 16 teams, among which we could see teams from PEL-C. For this achievement, the organizers should free up a couple of slots in the PEL. But, alas, the championship results will not affect the position of the teams in the next stage of the competition. Kick-Off Cup in this regard is not a proper tournament, but a show match within the Europe League.
Have you Mastered your PUBG skills? #comingsoon pic.twitter.com/MCh178w7XH
— PUBG (@PUBG) April 14, 2019
The last time teams from Europe and the Contenders League met was in December 2018 – during the qualifying rounds. Since then the teams competed in different tiers of different tournaments. Therefore, it’s very difficult to compare their level objectively. It is quite possible that if the transition system from division to division was more flexible, the composition of the leagues would have been completely different.
PEL Kick-Off Cup will take place in two stages: group stage and finals. In the first stage, teams will be divided into two groups, where they will play 12 matches – four maps a day from April 30 to May 2. Top 8 of each group will reach the finals and only these team will get a share of the prize pool, while the other 24 will go empty-handed.
