Welcome to EGamersWorld.
The ESL Pro League Season 20 playoffs are heating up. We are at the stage of quarter-finals, where the fate of the top 4 ESL Pro League Season 20 is determined.
NaVi and Team Spirit are among the contenders for the next round. The top match will determine the participant of the semifinals, who will play against the winner of the pairing of G2 Esports and Liquid.
Let's try to understand how the NaVi - Team Spirit match will end and who will make it to the semifinals.
Let's go.
NaVi uniforms
Let's open the NaVi vs Team Spirit showdown with an analysis of NaVi's form. In this match they will play as favourites with odds of 1.8.
NaVi have played a series of good tournaments while still in the previous squad. In almost every one, they have placed high.
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 became 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 the 3rd map. In the re-match with BIG they were stronger again, confidently shutting down the German club with a score of 2-0. However, they failed to move further into the top 6 at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024.
At the ESL Pro League Season 20 NAVI became the winners of Group A, passing Lynn Vision, NiP and Eternal Fire without much trouble.
NaVi Mappool
NaVi's best 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 is not playing.
Team Spirit uniforms
We continue the match analysis with the analysis of Team Spirit's form. In this match they will play as an outsider with odds to win at around 1.9.
The 2023 season has been a busy one for Spirit. The Serbian club has played wherever they can, but they have not been able to produce any significant results.
They started the previous season with an appearance at IEM Master Katowice 2023, where they finished in the top 12. Then there was the local CCT Central Europe Malta Finals 2023, where they finished in the top 6.
One of the biggest tournaments of the 2023 season for Spirit was ESL Pro League Season 17, where the Dragons finished in TOP-28. They tried to make it to the Major in Paris, but again all in vain.
From the middle and up to the end of the year Spirit played at local events of small calibre. And they were quite successful, it is worth mentioning: TOP-1 at CCT North Europe Series #6, TOP-2 at CCT Online Finals #2, victory at Dunav Party LAN and Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #2.
- Team Spirit roster: chopper, zont1x, sh1ro, donk, magixx.
At the end of the year, they won the BB Dacha. In 2024 BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024 was the first big event of the Dragons. Spirit played frankly poorly there: they finished in the top 16 at their debut BLAST Championship, advancing to the Spring Showdown.
At IEM Katowice 2024 Spirit started their performance at the Play-In stage. There they beat Apeks 13-0 without a chance, and then confidently (except for 2 maps) beat MongolZ 2-0, thus qualifying for the group stage. The group stage was not a problem for Spirit either: after giving up only 1 map to NaVi, they easily made it to the play-offs by beating CoL and FaZe Clan 2-0. The IEM Katowice 2024 play-offs confirmed Spirit's dominance, as they easily shut down Falcons (2-0) and it was even easier against FaZe in the grand finals (3-0).
After the triumph at Katowice 2024, Spirit made it to PGL CS2 Copenhagen Major 2024, where they managed to reach the play-offs, but Ledge and FaZe Clan in the first round of the main stage. In doing so, Spirit finished in the top 8.
Spirit had a kind of successful performance at BB Dacha, but a 0-3 loss to MOUZ in the grand finals spoilt things a bit.
At IEM Dallas 2024 Team Spirit had a very easy time in the group stage, not giving up a single map in the B basket. However, they didn't manage to beat everyone in the play-offs: Vitality intervened at the TOP-4 stage and knocked Spirit out of the tournament.
Later Spirit won the BLAST Premier: Spring Final 2024. And then came a string of poor performances, including Top 8 and Top 16 at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2024.
ESL Pro League Season 20 Team Spirit started with Group B, where they defeated Ledge and MIBR in the second round of the top set and after falling below, they had no trouble beating The MongolZ and 3DMAX to advance to the play-offs, where they defeated FURIA 2-0 in their first match.
Team Spirit Mapple
The best map of Team Spirit is Vertigo, where the Brazilians played 5 times and won in 3 maps. Next comes Mirage, with 7 games and 4-3 statistics.
The neutral choice for Team Spirit will be Nuke and Ancient. The Brazilians have 6 maps there and the score is 3-3 on each.
The worst is Overpass (2-3) and Inferno (1-2).
History of head-to-head meetings between Team Spirit and NaVi
In the season 2024 the teams have played each other 4 times and all 4 matches went to Spirit.
Predicted result of NaVi vs Spirit at ESL Pro League Season 20
In this match I expect a beautiful Counter-Strike 2 and equal struggle from the two teams. As for me, the most logical option is a full-fledged Bo3.
Bottom line: total +2.5.
