A first look at the new NAVI

Having navigated their first event as a team, it's time to see where Natus Vincere's bold new direction is taking them.

Natus Vincere made the dramatic decision in the off-season to move away from their core brand identity, bringing in a selection of European talent and giving up their status as the premier Russian-speaking squad in the world. As such, Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen, Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan and Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius had to endure more scrutiny than they otherwise would have, and hitting the ground running in Copenhagen at BLAST Premier Fall Groups was of vital importance.

A map victory over HEROIC, a series win over G2 and a spot in the Royal Arena for the Fall Final was a strong start for Aleksib and company in their first outing as a team, and there was plenty to get excited about whilst watching this revolutionized Natus Vincere play. It was not all plain sailing of course, and there were some notable rough spots that will need to be smoothed out if this team is to sit as far up the world rankings as consistently as Natus Vincere have become used to over the years.

With a T side that is firing on all cylinders, a CT side that definitely needs some work, and a home map that was a coin flip at best, Natus Vincere are far from the finished product. So how did the new supporting cast for superstar Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev set up in their opening matches, what did they do well, and what did they do poorly?

The recipe for success

On the Terrorist side, the roles have panned out pretty much in line with what we predicted would be the case in our pre-BLAST stat check. jL and Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy operate as lurkers working the extremities of the map, while jL serves as the more aggressive of the two. iM shoulders the responsibility of the brawl-heavy T-side roles and forms part of the pack, alongside the main roamer, Aleksib, and the AWPer, s1mple.

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The stat check predictions also hold true on the Counter-Terrorist side. iM got to keep virtually all of his favoured positions, acting as the big site rifler and rotator. b1t generally pairs with iM on the big site to serve as the anchor player, except on Nuke, where he plays in Ramp, and Overpass, where he plays in Monster. jL and Aleksib pair up on the small site, where the former anchors more often than not. The exceptions are Mirage, where jL plays Short and Aleksib anchors, and Nuke, where jL plays on A and Aleksib plays Outside.

If we were to generalize, iM gets the star rifle roles and positions likely to be involved in early gunfights, while jL and b1t operate in lurk roles on T and anchor roles on CT. Aleksib is the mover and shaker on both halves of the map, roaming on T and rotating on CT, whilst s1mple of course takes up AWPing duties.

It's worth noting that iM, despite getting many roles and positions that would traditionally be attributed to a star rifler, is doing a lot of aggressive work. Rather than sending Aleksib out as the first member of the pack and allowing iM to trade, the Romanian is instead often relying on his IGL to throw supportive grenades so that he can do the hard work of entrying the bombsites. He isn't quite filling the same role on offensive halves as he did on GamerLegion, where Nicolas "⁠Keoz⁠" Dgus would do much of the dirty entry work.

NAVI's most fruitful battlegrounds

Natus Vincere’s early choice for a home map, at least for Fall Groups, was Mirage. It was their choice in all of the series they played bar the one against Astralis, in which the Danes banned the map first rotation. In that instance, Natus Vincere turned to Nuke as their choice. Despite showing confidence in their Mirage, it wasn’t exactly a roaring success for the international lineup, as they went 2-2 on the map.

Their two losses did come against HEROIC, arguably the best team in the world, while their two wins came against BIG and G2, hardly squads inspiring great deals of confidence at the moment. Also, in both of those victories, they squeaked by 16-14. It will be interesting to see if Natus Vincere’s propensity to pick Mirage will continue or if it was a selection based on the fact that it is one of the simpler maps to play, and a map everyone has plenty of reps on.

As for bans, Natus Vincere opted to remove Vertigo first in every series they played, and went for Anubis as their second ban. This would suggest that Vertigo will continue to serve as the squad’s perma-ban — they only ever played the map once back in 2019 — and that Anubis is the map they are least confident on outside of their perma-ban. No team tried to test Natus Vincere's Anubis by picking the map at Fall Groups, so watch out during IEM Cologne to see if anyone takes the plunge and tests the new squad on the map.

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Inferno was where Natus Vincere displayed the most prowess on. They defeated G2 and HEROIC on it, 16-14. Both are very proficient Inferno teams that sport 70%+ win rates on the map for 2023. At this stage it may very well be worth Natus Vincere leaving it in the pool, but not picking it, as it is a popular selection amongst many of the top teams.

Should Natus Vincere find themselves a more consistent pick than Mirage, or improve their Mirage, having a powerful Inferno will present problems for teams vetoing against Natus Vincere. The international squad also played a strong Overpass game against Astralis, although with only a single game to go on, we have to rely on the eye test when gauging their strength on it.

Aleksib’s squad experienced mixed fortunes on some of the other maps they played, going 1-1 on Nuke and Ancient. Nuke was the map they picked against Astralis and they won it convincingly, 16-6, predicated on a fantastic 10-round offensive return. They also showed a strong T side against HEROIC, but a thoroughly underwhelming defensive half ended in a 12-16 defeat against the Danes. Similarly, a poor CT side lost them Ancient against Astralis in the opening series, but their defense was much improved in a 16-11 win against BIG.

s1mple admitted in a post-match interview that Natus Vincere hadn't practiced Ancient ahead of Fall Groups, saying the Astralis game was the first time they had tried to play it. Clearly, the event served as a glorified bootcamp in some sense for Natus Vincere, and so it is unsurprising that they improved as the tournament progressed.

Essentially, Natus Vincere’s map pool for BLAST was exactly as one might expect for a brand-new side, one that showed promise on a few maps but was understandably inconsistent. The biggest boon is the fact that no map seemed to be an utter disaster, any map they lost on they also showed the ability to win on, and so there is no blindingly obvious weakness to target for the immediate future (bar their untested Anubis). Combining statistical evidence with the eye test, their Overpass, Inferno, and Nuke will be their best bets moving forward, whilst their Mirage in particular needs work if it is to remain their home map.

Terrorizing the field on offense

Natus Vincere sported one of the most potent T sides on display in Copenhagen, racking up a 52.7% win percentage on offensive halves, which puts them fourth among the 12 teams in attendance. They were a slick and effective unit on offense, adopting a playstyle very much in line with classic Natus Vincere teams and one synonymous with Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy.

Defaults were more often than not the name of the game and Natus Vincere methodically took map control, allowing Aleksib the information required to then try and read the defensive setup. iM usually made contact first, creating the space required for jL and s1mple to activate later in rounds to great success.

NAVI's executes were very potent. Utility usage created the space and time needed to get kills and take bombsites. One such example came in round five of the Overpass game against Astralis, in which Natus Vincere set iM for a clean double entry into the B site with some excellent flashbangs.

Even in 4v5 situations Natus Vincere were very strong (38.5% win rate, third-in-event), which was a testament to one thing in particular: The ability to find gaps in the opposition's defense. Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke referenced Aleksib's uncanny ability to read the opponent in his interview with HLTV at BLAST, and it seems this ability was on display throughout the tournament.

One such instance of Natus Vincere slipping the defensive net came in round five on the Nuke game against Astralis. Having lost jL in Lobby, Natus Vincere threw a selection of utility in yard, but not the full wall of smokes. Leaving sight lines open allowed them to see how the defense reacted and they took advantage of Astralis’ passive hold, exploiting the correct gap towards Hell and Lockers, creeping into said gap, and cracking open the defense. Then, in a 3v3 scenario, they made the correct call to head down to Lower rather than heading to the upper site, which eventually resulted in a round win from a man-down scenario.

In general, the majority of the Natus Vincere squad seemed to thrive within their T-side structure. Take s1mple, for example. The Ukrainian AWPer produced powerful T-side performances that earned him a 1.20 rating across the event, the highest for any AWPer on T side bar Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, and a huge improvement on his average for the year (1.12 prior to Fall Groups). It wasn’t a tournament performance up to the levels that s1mple hit over 2021 and 2022, but we saw flashes of that level, and they came more often as the tournament wore on.

The other bright spots individually were jL and b1t on the T side as both of them put up better numbers than their averages for the year thus far. The very structured and methodical nature of Natus Vincere’s T sides helped both jL and b1t shine, the former because it presented him opportunities to take initiative in mid-rounds, and the latter because it allowed him to focus on his crosshair and utilize his immense first-bullet accuracy.

Aleksib was the one player who seemed to thrive most on the CT side, where his 1.07 rating during Fall Groups dwarfed his average for the year. The Finn stepped up in terms of his individual fragging contributions in his rotator positions, and his move to a much more active defensive position on Nuke, Outside, also helped boost his numbers.

Troublesome defensive halves

At a glance, iM's raw output is the most noticeable concern. The Romanian rifler came into the team off the back of a Paris Major performance that was up to par with the greats of the game like ZywOo, Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač and s1mple, but his 0.99-rated Fall Groups performance was a far cry from that level. The rifler simply couldn’t find a way to consistently perform map-to-map — his ratings varied wildly from 0.47 to 1.66. iM only really posted three maps worthy of the billing of a star rifler, and he was virtually entirely absent from the first series against HEROIC and the qualification bout against G2.

The caveat is that, as mentioned previously, iM has been tasked with doing a lot of grunt work on T sides, which will certainly hamper his raw statistical output. Despite not quite being set up to frag out the way he was on GamerLegion, he has been performing his entry role to decent success (0.13 opening kills per round, joint-third-in-event) and is performing his duties a space creator, although perhaps more raw fragging was expected out of the Romanian.

His poor return on the counter-terrorist side of the equation is less forgivable, particularly as iM is tasked with rifling on the big site and serving as a rotator. When you are filling the star CT roles, like connector on Mirage, you need to put up raw numbers, and this is something iM simply wasn't able to do in his first outing in a Natus Vincere jersey. Perhaps he does not need to put up star numbers in his T-side role, but he certainly does on defense.

Natus Vincere’s weak defensive halves were certainly the other cause for concern. For a lineup seemingly brimming with mechanical ability and skill, a 46.3% defensive win rate is really poor, better only than OG and Complexity’s defensive efforts. This was the result of three problems.

The first problem was jL wasn’t quite able to succeed consistently in his role as a mid-round aggressor on CT halves. Often he was tasked with pushing for information or for a cheeky kill, intended more often than not to allow Aleksib to rotate, and he repeatedly failed in his duties. Second, the percentage of their deaths that were traded on CT sides was very low, the lowest in the event. This ties very closely with the point about jL's info pushes, as an inability to trade makes jL's deaths in these scenarios far more punishing than they might otherwise. Lastly, Natus Vincere were woeful in 5v4 scenarios on defense, their 63.2% win rate in such situations better only than Complexity.

One overarching factor contributed hugely to all three problems mentioned above: Natus Vincere could not coordinate as effectively on CT sides. Rather than taking the initiative, as one does on terrorist sides, the counter-terrorists are largely forced to react to their opponents. As such, Natus Vincere could not rely on drilled defaults, instead needing to react on the fly and coordinate their manoeuvres. The at times poor coordination cost jL his life when attempting to aggress in mid-rounds, cost the team in man-advantage scenarios, and resulted in their woefully poor traded percentage.

Natus Vincere’s flash assist numbers were among the highest for T side and among the lowest for CT side. A similar story is told by the percentage of their deaths that were traded on each side: They sported the lowest traded percentage on CT side (16.7%), but one of the better percentages on T side (21.9%).

The potential is there

Natus Vincere still require some smoothing around the edges if they are to cement themselves as an elite squad, of that there is no doubt. Not all of their new signings have quite found their niche on both halves of the map yet, particularly iM, and their CT side is lacking in the potency a team of their calibre should be offering.

There were, however, shining bright spots in their play. Some of the players were settling into their new roles and positions with delightful efficiency, and their offensive halves were, at times, a sight to behold. There is definitely evidence to suggest that this new-look Natus Vincere lineup could get the team back to winning trophies in the near future, of that there is no doubt.

The most obvious downside, at least when looking on as a bystander, is their lack of coordination in key moments. The language barrier the team is overcoming is well documented — the entire squad are now communicating in a non-native language, and the struggles of b1t to learn English have been talked about plenty, too. These communication struggles could cause some of their occasional difficulties with coordination, and as this improves so should their underwhelming CT sides.

Perhaps the most promising factor for Natus Vincere is the fact that they improved game by game. Their CT sides became less shaky as the event wore on, they went from losing 0-2 to HEROIC to running them close in a 1-2 defeat, and they followed up a disastrous Ancient bout against Astralis with a much-improved showing on the same map against BIG. With each game the Natus Vincere train built up speed, and should this trend continue in Cologne, expect them to put together a deep run.