The last major CS2 tournament of the year is approaching the playoffs. The quarterfinal match between NAVI and G2 at BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 will draw a lot of attention. Bo3.gg reached out to commentator Fedir “KvaN” Zakharov, with 8 years of experience, to assess the chances of these two fiery teams.

Team Form

NAVI's matches against ENCE, which are rumored to undergo major lineup changes, and Vitality showed that there are several reasons for concern regarding their gameplay. Perhaps the team hasn't fully warmed up yet, but it wasn't a disaster with a comeback from 1:10 on Ancient. Fortunately, “Born to Win” responded with a comeback on the decider themselves. The team should address this case with a psychologist. At the very least, Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov confidently showed himself against ENCE, including winning a clutch.

As for G2, they exceeded expectations after a mediocre result at CCT Online Finals 5. In Abu Dhabi, the roster shone in a different light – here both Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov and Nikola “NiKo” Kovac turned on 100%, putting up a fight against FaZe.

READ MORE: mezii became the best player of the group stage at BLAST Premier: World Final 2023

Map Pool

The fact that NAVI doesn't play Vertigo works in their favor. The Ukrainian club has chances to compete on Anubis, Mirage, Nuke, and even Ancient if they promptly correct the mistakes from the match against ENCE.

G2 will be ready to reduce NAVI's chances of victory on Inferno to zero. With other maps, the advantage is not as obvious, so we can expect close scores.

Prediction

KvaN is confident that the statistics of G2's captain do not hinder the achievements of the international five, and nexa played better than expected.

The G2 vs FaZe game demonstrated that even with HooXi having a KD of 0.5, it's possible to compete with top teams. nexa, in turn, pleasantly surprised. Regarding the matchup against NAVI – G2 is likely to win on Inferno, and in the best case, NAVI will get the other two maps with 50/50 chances. Morally, NAVI should be helped by the tough victory against ENCE. Overall, I think G2 is the favorite of this pair. 

Fedir “KvaN” Zakharov

BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 is taking place from December 13 to 17 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The teams are competing for a prize pool of $1 million. Follow the news, schedule, and results of the tournament at the link.

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