The next time we will see Na’Vi in action will be after 40 days. This might be a good time for the team to evaluate its failure in the ESL Pro League Europe season nine. We believe it is the right time to look at the 2019 performance of the team.
Denis “electronic” Sharipov and Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev have been in exceptional form for the CIS side. They have displayed decent stats in recent tournaments. So it means that the should be competing in the finals of Major competitions. But why are they continuing to struggle?
Losing to tier two teams
The side lost to Heroic three days in the round two of the ESL Pro League. We have nothing against Heroic, but we are quite disappointed to see Na’Vi getting defeated by a team that made three roster changes four days before the game. The CIS side also failed to shine in the last two BLAST Pro Series events. The were eliminated from the tournament before playing their last game of the of the group stage.
Despite losing that last map @s1mpleO is an absolute animal…#ESLProLeague pic.twitter.com/s96d5gOKE3
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) May 23, 2019
All these series of poor performance indicate that Na’Vi should make some changes. Their starman, S1mple is still amongst the best, but it is not enough to get wins for Na’Vi. In the entire campaign of the ESL Pro League season nine he showed impressive statistics, with 1.35 rating after 16 games played. Meanwhile, Electronic also followed the footsteps of S1mple and achieved an impressive 1.29 rating in 17 maps.Time for Zeus to retire?
Apart from these two, the next player was Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko who did well in the competition. He might retire come the end of 2019. He has no right to perform better than Egor “flamie” Vasilyev who was the star of the side in 2016 and 2017, before the arrival simple. But he has failed to deliver decent performances in the past two years. Even though, CIS might not have some of the best players in the world at the moment, they have some decent ones. They can sign the veteran Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev. He is without a team at the moment and is looking for interesting offers.
Asided of AdreN, Na’Vi could recruit one of the players from AVANGAR, who is currently performing quite well. It will not be a bad move to sign Ali “Jame” Djami, he has shown some impressive results and is a talent AWPer and in-game leader. The rifler of the team Alexey “qikert” Golubev is also a decent pick. Since these two players are only 20 years old and have the talent to compete against the best.
Over the years, Na’Vi has shown that they have greatly struggled without Zeus. The recruited him back to the lineup after his team, Gambit won the 2017, PGL Major. The experience and leadership qualities of the player really makes him a valuable asset for the side. But we believe that Na’Vi and Zeus fail to adapt to the modern tactics of the game and it is time for Na’vi to move him to the inactive roster and sign some new talent.
