Top 1 CSGO team NaVi suffered major upsets back to back at BLAST Premier Spring Groups day 2. S1mple got shut down by MIBR and Astralis.
NaVi and s1mple finished top 1 in LANs in 2021. But, online CSGO is their bane.
The same was the case in mid to late 2020 and early 2021. Yet, NaVi performs exceptionally well in offline tournaments.
Also read: CSGO BLAST Premier Spring Groups: Day 3 overview and predictions.
At the same time, MIBR and Astralis exposed NaVi‘s biggest weakness, s1mple. NaVi cannot win if s1mple cannot perform.
The day started as usual with Group B Bo1 single-elimination matches. NaVi started the round with a loss.
MIBR beat NaVi in Round 1 of CSGO BLAST Premier Spring Groups day 2.
Over the course of the day, NaVi lost almost all eco or pistol rounds. Even though NaVi took an early lead, they could not keep up the momentum.
MIBR Tuurtle and brnz4n shut down NaVi’s push multiple times. Sasha was in a negative score the entire game.
Even with Dust God Perfecto on NaVi, they could not make it through. Eventually, they lost 16-12 to MIBR to drop to lower brackets.
Everyone on NaVi’s side was in a negative score. S1mple finished with K/D 16-21.
NaVi started the year with lower brackets. They had to now beat Astralis. Mirage would be the decider.
In 2021, Mirage was the third most-played map after Inferno and Nuke. Also, NaVi was the best team in Mirage.
Also read: 4 years ago today NA CSGO made a Major history.
Astralis pushed NaVi to 4th place for Group B seeding for Gauntlet next week.
Maybe not anymore. Even though s1mple carried this time, it was not enough. NaVi kept bleeding kills.
Also, the palace retake seemed an impossible task for NaVi on Mirage. Forcing overtime could not save NaVi.
Astralis blameF and k0nfig made cheeky plays and carried that game. Lucky got a 4k with mean Green AWP.
blameF scored 3k in the final round to win. NaVi lost to Astralis 19-17.
NaVi lost to Astralis with no player under 1 Rating, while Astralis had 3 players under 1.
This is 2020 all over again. NaVi cannot bring themselves to win online tournaments decisively.
Whatever the circumstances, NaVi needs to find a solution. They have a long way to go if they want to finish at the top.
Maybe, it was a one-off situation. But, we can not know with the limited sample size. Hopefully, NaVi and s1mple can find their winning ways back.
Hence, fingers crossed for Gauntlet next week.
