When you talk about elite teams in Counter-Strike, who are you referring to? Is it the top ten? The top 5? Or the teams you consider to be the favourites for every event they attend?
If it’s the third option, then who does that list extend to? For us, it’s Spirit, Vitality, and NAVI.
2024’s team of the year, NAVI exceeded all expectations in the first year of CS2 as they won a Major, three other events, and made the final of many more, but three months into 2025, they now seem to be lagging behind their two closest competitors.
Staying on top is hard, getting back to the top is even harder
As we said, no one expected NAVI to succeed in the way they did in 2024. Sure, they were capable of winning an event, but no one thought they could go on to be a potentially dominant force in an incredibly competitive era.
However, they pulled it off, and they did so with solid tactics, teamplay, and team chemistry. All of that could begin to unravel now that championships are starting to get further away.
The most worrying thing is that NAVI no longer seems to even be getting close to winning tournaments. Last place at BLAST world Final 2024, 9th-12th at the Perfect World Shanghai Major, they may have achieved two top four finishes thus far in 2025, but those runs both ended in 2-0 defeats at the hands of Team Spirit.
There’s no question that NAVI are a level above the teams below them, but there is a question forming about how far away from the teams above them they are.
As long as it remains a question for the plebs online, that question will never be a problem. But as soon as it starts to form in the mind of the NAVI players, that’s when it can start to cause damage.
Winning at Pro League, regardless of its studio setting, can prevent that question from being asked, as well as the questions that may then be asked about whether their roster is the right fit.
Confidence is key
Given their recent results, the longer NAVI goes without winning a title, the harder it’s going to get. Say what you will about Pro League and its studio setting, but winning and winning against its tough field will still do a lot for their confidence.
It’s why skipping these PGL tournaments makes no sense. Ignore the fact that they’re iM’s home events and that skipping them gives them time to practice and prepare for the events they do accept invites to and think about what winning one could do for their confidence.
The PGL events are a perfect playground for NAVI to regain their confidence, to remember what it feels like to lift a trophy and put themselves back on top. Not taking part in them is a mistake for that reason, but that makes events like Pro League all the more important.
It might be in a studio, but that won’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Beating Spirit, or Vitality, even teams slightly below the chain in the shape of G2, MOUZ, and The MongolZ, those wins are always legitimate, no matter the setting. Knowing you can beat them is the important part.
Sure, a win at Pro League may be spoken ill of by the aforementioned plebs, but those plebs will always be far away from the mood inside the camp. All it took was one event win to be the catalyst for NAVI’s confidence to sky rocket them to the top, winning another could see them return to a style and level of success built for consistency far greater than teams who rely upon stars could ever dream of.
