Astralis Eliminate Na’Vi from IEM Cologne

A few weeks ago, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev said that Natus Vincere still needs a few more months of training to become fluent again. The massive roster changes that took place recently have had a major negative impact on the team.

Despite having great players, the individuals who left were just as good and possibly even better. On top of that, a team is more than the sum of its parts. There are a lot of components to success, including strategy, tactics, cohesion, and so on. To develop all of them to a level that allows you to win trophies takes a lot of hard work.

Sry all fans but we are not ready for arena yet
Ggwp @AstralisCS gl in playoffs
Thank you everyone for support #navination

— Sasha (@s1mpleO) August 1, 2023

Na’Vi’s IEM Cologne run

Natus Vincere entered IEM Cologne after a good result at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups, where they qualified for BLAST Premier: Fall Final after finishing 4^th – 6^th. But at IEM Cologne, with 24 teams in the race and just three playoffs spots per group, getting a good result is much harder.

Na’Vi started the tournament in group B and was defeated by MOUZ in the very first match of the upper bracket. The scores were quite decisive: 16-9 on Ancient and 16-12 on Overpass. Unfortunately for the Ukrainian team, Mihai “iM” Ivan had a bad match and was completely neutralized by the enemy side. His K-D score was abysmal: 23-36.

The next match was played against OG and Na’Vi had a much better performance. The battle was difficult to win and the scores were close: 16-13 on Anubis, 11-16 on Inferno, and 16-10 on Ancient. The man who carried Na’Vi was not simply but Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy. The rest of the crew performed well and had around 50 kills on average.

Na’Vi’s greatest victory at IEM Cologne was against FaZe Clan. The scores were 16-6 on Mirage and 19-17 on Overpass. Na’Vi could have ended the second map without going into Overtime but FaZe won round 30 thanks to a brilliant maneuver.

S1mple shined in this match and it was obvious that he has extensive experience against FaZe. He knows the players well and understands exactly what he needs to do to create an advantage for his side. His individual stats for this match were very impressive: 55K – 29D and a rating 2.0 of 1.50.

Unfortunately for Na’Vi, their run ended in the lower bracket Final, which was lost against Astralis (1-2). Once again, s1mple was in great form but the rest of the roster didn’t help him enough. This might change at the next event.

Header: Natus Vincere