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We continue to follow the action at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024. We're The International is in Group D, where we're nearing the end.
The first to leave the race for the Fall Final in Group D were Vp. Now it's the turn of NaVi - BIG to find out which of them is more worthy to go to the final match of their basket, where Liquid are already.
We'll see who will be stronger in the BIG vs NaVi match and advance to the next round of Group D, and at the same time to the Play-In BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024.
Let's go.
NaVi's form
Let's open the NaVi vs BIG match with an analysis of NaVi's form. "Born to Win" will play as the number one, as they did in the first match of Group D against the same BIG: in this match they play as the number one with odds to win around 1.1.
On the Long Season, while still in the previous squad, they played a series of good tournaments. They placed high in almost every one.
They started with a top 6 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023. Then top-3 at IEM Katowice 2023 and a similar result at ESL Pro League Season 17.
NaVi took BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR A without any problems and qualified for the Major in Paris. Before the only Major of the season, Natus Vincere took the top 4 at the IEM Masters Rio 2023.
The Paris tournament turned out to be a failure for NaVi. Top-11 is hardly a decent result for a team of Natus Vincere's status.
- NaVi roster: w0nderful, b1t, Aleksib, jL, iM.
Before the Long Conner IEM Cologne NaVi made a global Reshuffle, translating the roster into English. In addition to electroNic, Perfecto and npl who left, jL with Apeks, iM with GamerLegion and Aleksib, who previously played for Ninjas in Pyjamas, joined the team.
With the new lineup, NaVi made their debut at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023. "Born to Win" managed to earn a place in the autumn finals by finishing in the top 4-6.
At IEM Cologne 2023 Natus Vincere played two matches. First, they lost to MOUZ with a score of 0-2, and then defeated OG in Bo3. At the end of the top championship NaVi reached the top 8, which is a good result for the then renewed roster.
Then there were a number of appearances at major events with very good results. NaVi entered the top 8 at Gamers8 and took the top 2 at ESL Pro Legue Season 18.
The key tournament of the season for "yellow-black" can be called IEM Sydney 2023. There NaVi for the first time in a long time played without their main headliner S1mple, whose place was temporarily taken by coach B1ad3. Andrew tried, but NaVi could not jump above the top-12.
After S1mple left the active roster, NaVi started the game with w0nderful. He made his debut for the Yellow-Blacks at BLAST Premier: World Final 2023. Natus Vincere played him very well, reaching the top 4. In the match for the Grand Final Ledgeili future tournament champions and the best team in the world Vitality.
The year 2024 started with high notes - they were the best at PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European Qualifier A. However, further on, the performance slipped a bit and NaVi took the top-12 at ESL Pro League Season 19 and IEM Dallas 2024, as well as the top-2 at BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024.
Esports World Cup 2024 NaVi Long Competed with a solid 2-0 win over FURIA. Entering the play-offs, the "born to win" fell to FaZe Clan in the first round. NaVi were again stronger than FaZe, but this time they won with the score 2-0. Then there was a rather difficult match against MOUZ, where NaVi lost on the first map with the score 1-13, but then they got together and made it to the grand final. In the final match they played against G2 Esports, where they won 2-1, thus winning their second prestigious tournament of the year.
At the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 NaVi Long Competed with a confident victory over BIG. But against Liquid "born to win" did not fare well, losing in a dramatic situation without defuse kits on map 3.
NaVi Mappool
The best NaVi map for 3 months is Inferno. The team played there 5 times with a winrate of 60 per cent.
On Mirage, Ancient. Nuker, Overpass and Anubis NaVi has 50% wins. On Ancient and Nuke the team played 4 matches each, on the others - 2.
Vertigo are not playing.
BIG Form
We continue the analysis of the match BIG vs NaVi with the analysis of BIG's form. In this match the German club will play as the number two with odds to win at around 5.8.
In the 2023 season, BIG participated in a lot of championships, but there were not many decent results. They started top-9 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2023, and went on to top-16 at IEM Extreme Masters Katowice 2023.
There was also an appearance at ESL Pro League Season 17 with a top-20 there. The failures partially managed to cap off the Top-4 at the Elis Invitational Winter 2023, where the team reached the Top-4.
In the middle of the year, the Germans failed to qualify for BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, finishing top-11 at RMR Europe and then top-3 at qualification. In the second half of the year they started playing CCT Series championships, where it is worth noting CCT Online Finals #1, with TOP-4, CCT West Europe Series $4 with TOP-2.
Back to the S-Tier tournaments with BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 with Top-9, and then Top-24 at IEM Cologne 2023.
- BIG lineup: tabseN, Krimbo, prosus, syrsoN, JDC.
Before the ESL Pro League Season 18 Long Convergence, the team played at Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #1 with TOP-2. There was also a top-8 at CCT East Europe Series #7 and a win at CCT Europe Series #7.
At ESL Pro League Season 18 they debuted with a match against Monte. The Ukrainian club fought honourably, but in the end they were defeated by Ledgeil with the score 1-2, putting BIG in the semi-finals of Group B at ESL Pro League Season 18.
In the previous match, BIG made perhaps the biggest sensation of the tournament. The Germans defeated Heroic, sending them to the bottom of the group.
Next, BIG played another big European club - ENCE. The Finns failed to win (1-2), but BIG made it to the play-offs, straight into the second round. That's where their ESL Pro League Season 18 journey came to an end.
BIG Ledge and Eternal Fire in the second round of play-offs with the score 0-2. Thus, the Germans took the EPL S18 top-12.
In the match before that, BIG played against 9INE. The Germans defeated their visions quite easily, closing the match with a score of 2-0.
Afterwards, BIG outplayed ENCE and advanced to the finals of BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023. However, BIG were not enough for the final as C9 won 2-0.
Prior to the Roobet Cup 2023, BIG played two CCT tournaments. It was CCT North Europe Series #8 and CCT East Europe Series #3. They finished in the top 16 at the latter, but won the North European tournament, beating Spirit 2-0 in the grand final.
The Roobet Cup 2023 ended quite well for BIG. The team finished in the top 8, and repeated that result at Thunderpick World Championship 2023. They also played at CCT Online FInals #4, where they finished in the top 3.
In the first match at CCT Online Finals #5 BIG played Zero Tenacity. "The Germans proved to be stronger, easily defeating ZT. In the next game BIG met Guild Eagles and were stronger, and very confidently - 2-0. Next, BIG faced 9 Pandas and once again the Germans were no match for them. A confident 2-0 against the Pandas led them to the final of the upper grid. There they slammed Aurora without much difficulty and later repeated it in the grand final of the tournament.
BIG started the tournament with a rather lacklustre loss against Vp, but followed it up with a colourful and hard fought win against Heroic. Even more colourful was the victory over Cloud9 in the lower finals match, where BIG shut out the "titular" Americans 2-0. However, it was not possible to come out of their group victorious and Vp repeated their debut success. Next, BIG fought Astralis in the match for the BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2024, but they failed there as well.
They played at IEM Katowice 2024, where they finished only in the top 20. Before playing at ESL Pro League Season 19, the team visited BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown, where they finished top-8, Skyesports Masters 2023, where they reached top-4 and Thunderpick World Championship 2024 with top-4.
At the ESL Pro League Season 19 BIG got into the group D and qualified there by passing the "middle grid". However, they didn't manage to play long at ESL Pro League Season 19: TOP-16. Before the BLAST Premier, the team played a number of "smaller" tournaments, including IEM Dallas 2024 (TOP-8), YaLLa Compass 2024 (TOP-12) and CCT Season 2 European Series #5 (TOP-8).
At BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 Long Co-angled with a 0-2 from NaVi. But in the next series, against Virtus.pro, BIG pleasantly surprised, shutting out a more titular opponent with a 2-1 score.
BIG Mapple
BIG has 3 of the best maps in their arsenal. They are Overpass, Vertigo and Anubis with 5 matches and 3 wins on each.
The most played map is Ancient. BIG have played 14 matches there and have a 57% win rate.
The most unlucky map is Inferno with 2 wins and 2 losses. The worst map is Mirage (9 matches, 33% wins).
History of head-to-head meetings between NaVi and BIG
This will be the second series against BIG at this tournament and the 4th series in 2024. So far the score is 3-0 in favour of NaVi.
Predicted result of BIG vs NaVi at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024
Everything in this matchup points to NaVi's success. They've run over BIG before and did so confidently, but it's unclear how the loss to Liquid affected them. BIG, on the other hand, were very happy in the lower grid match against Vp, and it seems that they can clinch one card. That's what I'll bet on.
Bottom line: +1.5 on BIG.
