Alexey OverDrive Biryukov praised NAVI's shape after their crushing victory over Cloud9.

It's a typical NAVI story: a week goes by, and another team wants to win in front of us. Everyone is in good shape and good psychological state. <…> Now, NAVI automatically becomes favorites everywhere.

Alexey OverDrive Biryukov

How can we evaluate the NAVI shape?

Yesterday Natus Vincere finished their debut match at IEM Katowice and showed an excellent performance. The team beat Cloud9 with a score of 2-0, despite that C9 literally dared their opponents in the Play-In. But what about the "black and yellow" with a personal performance?

Having looked at personal statistics, you can see that Denis electroNic Sharipov, who showed an average rating of 7.3, finally joined. And this is precisely what Natus Vincere lacked. After all, Ilya Perfecto Zalutski and Andrii npl Kuharskyi couldn't show such a good performance.

Throughout the second half of the year, electroNic had problems with personal statistics because he took on the role of captain. However, the player feels much more comfortable this season, which led to NAVI's victory yesterday. In conclusion, NAVI needs three players with good performance to win.

Related: Only two players have attended every IEM Katowice - the story of one of the most prestigious CS:GO tournaments

What else does NAVI lack?

Despite this, npl still couldn't show a high-level game. His rating in the match against Cloud9 was 5.9, which isn't a great result. NAVI had enough electroNic, Aleksandr s1mple Kostylev, and Valery b1t Vakhovsky to defeat Cloud9, but at some point, the team will also need npl.

Now npl is the key player of NAVI, and if the newcomer can adapt to tier-1, no one will be able to stop the team.

When will NAVI play?

Natus Vincere advanced to the semifinals of Group A. Their opponent will be Liquid. The match will be held today at 9:30 PM Moscow time. All information about IEM Katowice is available on the tournament page.