Match Prediction: Cloud9 - NaVi | CS2 (CS:GO)
BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023Welcome to EGamersWorld.
We continue to look at what's happening at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2023. We're still talking about the group stage, where the first matches are getting ready for Long Cog.
Among them is the top match between Cloud9 and NaVi. This match will be the debut match for the teams in Group A.
Let's try to figure out who will win this crucial match and earn the first victory on the way to the BLAST Premier: World Finals 2023.
Let's go.
Cloud9 Form.
Initiating the match analysis, let's delve into an assessment of Cloud9's recent performance. Notably, they are set to face the top-ranked side in this matchup, being positioned with odds to win at approximately 1.7 on key CS2 gambling sites.
C9 had a very good half year. "Cloud9 made it to the grand finals of ESL Pro League Season 17 and won the BLAST Premier: Spring European Showdown 2022.
In addition, the team won the commercial BB Playlist. Urbanistic. In April, C9 seriously stumbled: they lost two qualifications at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 and missed the only Major of the season.
Next up was a top-4 finish at IEM Rio 2023 and a win at Brazy Party. Before IEM Cologne 2023, C9 failed IEM Dallas 2023 (top-8) and BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2023 (top-8).
- Cloud9 line-up: H0bbit, electroNic, Ax1Le, BoombI4, Perfecto.
Before Gamers8 Cloud9 attended another major summer tournament - IEM Cologne 2023. The most prestigious event went well for Cloud9: not good, but not bad either.
A very difficult Long Corner in Cologne forced Cloud9 to mobilise all their resources in order not to drop out at the group stages, and these resources were enough until the first round of play-offs, where C9 were defeated by Vitality.
Next, C9 visited Gamers8, but even there everything was not so good. At the TOP-8 stage the team faced ENCE, and they were unable to do anything against the overclocked Finns. And that's how they ended up in the TOP-8.
In their debut match at EPL Season 18, Cloud9 played against Eternal Fire. The Turks, being a cheerful team on paper, failed to outplay C9 at least on one of the cards: the match ended with the score 2-0 (16-11 Vertigo, 16-12 Eternal Fire).
In the play-offs match C9 faced Complexity. Being the absolute favourite of the match, Cloud9 failed to give CoL a fight and lost 0-2.
Cloud9's failures didn't end there. After getting into the net of the last chance of EPL Season 18, Cloud9 lost 1-2 to Liquid in a rather lacklustre manner, thus failing to qualify for the play-offs of the prestigious tournament. At the end of EPL S18, C9 finished in the top 20, which, to put it mildly, is weak for a top-tier team, which C9 was labelled as by literally everyone.
However, before the IEM Sydney IEM Long Convergence, C9 managed to rehabilitate themselves a bit for their mediocre performance at the last TOP tournaments. C9 won the BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023, earning them a slot at the BLAST Autumn Finals.
Before competing at Thunderpick World Championship 2023, Cloud9 made an appearance at IEM Sydney 2023. It wasn't great there, as C9 failed to make it past the group stage, crashing out after losing to Complexity.
Thunderpick World Championship 2023 was C9's first tournament with BoombI4 officially as captain. It worked out pretty well: Cloud9 made it to the play-offs of the tournament and finished in the top 4, losing in the semi-finals to the future champions from FaZe with a 1-2 score.
Cloud9 mappool
The best map of C9 is Vertigo. There are 2 wins in 3 matches.
Next comes Inferno. On Inferno Cloud9 played 5 times, of which they won 3 matches.
Minus winrate on 4 maps at once: Ancient (42% wins in 7 matches), Overpass (33% wins in 3 matches), Anubis (3 matches, 33% wins), Mirage (2 matches, 0 wins).
NaVi Form
Let's move on to the analysis of NaVi's playing conditions. In this match, the Ukrainian club is playing as the number two, and the odds for their victory are at around 1.9.
NaVi played a series of good tournaments while still in the previous squad. In almost every one of them they took high places.
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 can be called 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.
At BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2023, w0nderful will make his debut in the "born to win" lineup.
NaVi Mappool
NaVi's best map in 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 is not playing.
History of head-to-head meetings between NaVi and C9
The last time the teams played each other was at IEM Katowice 2023. Then the victory was won by "born to win".
Predicted result of NaVi vs C9 at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2023
Given the huge changes in NaVi's roster due to S1mple's pause from competitive CS, it's hard to believe in their success with the new AWPer. The young member of the Yellow-Blacks is clearly going to have a difficult path of adaptation, while Cloud9 have already gone through a difficult period and look pretty good. So, logically, C9 will win here.
Bottom line: C9 wins.