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We continue to look at what's happening at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024. We're talking about Group D, where the second round of the top bracket is getting ready for Long Copeg.
We are interested in the match between Liquid and NaVi. The winner of the match will advance to the group stage of the tournament, while the loser will drop to the lower grid, where they will play against the winner of the BIG/Vp pairing.
Let's try to figure out who will be stronger in the Liquid - NaVi match and by its results will pass to the group stage.
Let's go.
NaVi's form
We open the NaVi vs Liquid match with an analysis of the form of the "born to win". In this match they will play the first number one with odds to win around 1.5.
NaVi have played a series of good tournaments while still in the previous squad. They placed high in almost every one.
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 BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024, NaVi Long Sogpegged with a solid win over BIG.
Mappool NaVi
The best NaVi map for 3 months is Inferno. The team played there 5 times with a win rate 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 are not playing.
Liquid's form
We continue the analysis of Liquid vs NaVi match with the analysis of Liquid's form. Here the American club is playing as the number two with odds to win around 2.1.
The American club had a pretty productive 2023 season. Played in a lot of tournaments, however high results were rare.
They started the year with a top-4 finish at IEM Katowice 2023, where they reached the top 4. Next was the equally good BLAST Premier: Spring American Showdown with a similar top-4, and then BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: American RMR followed by a top-3 and a trip to the main tournament of the year.
Unfortunately for Liquid, that's where their results ended. At BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, the team made it to the top 8 and that was their biggest achievement of the year.
After making it to the legends stage at the only Major tournament of the season, Liquid played at a lot of big events. These included IEM Dallas 2023 with a top-12 ranking, BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 with a top-9 ranking, and IEM Master Cologne with a top-12 ranking.
At the end of the season they played at Gamers8 2023, finishing in the top 16 and ESL Pro League Season 18, finishing in the top 20. Closed the year with a second place finish at BLAST Premier: Fall American Showdown 2023.
- Team Liquid roster: NAF, YEKINDAR, jks, ultimate, Twistzz.
A string of failures at major championships has caused major roster changes. Such that Liquid in 2024 can be called "Dream Team", but the status still has to be earned.
2024 began with qualifiers for the American RMR. They came out, which is not surprising. They also tried to qualify for IEM Chengdu 2024, but it was not successful: in the final of the qualifiers Ledge and M80.
Liquid took TOP-8 at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024, and then passed at IEM Dallas 2024, did not pass at PGL Copenhagen Major 2024, taking TOP-8 at home, and then TOP-16 at BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024 and TOP-6 at IEM Masters and TOP-6 Chengdu 2024. They also played at ESL Pro League Season 19, where they finished Top-8.
IEM Dallas 2024 Liquid started with a victory over CoL, but then - a completely unexpected defeat by 9z Team in the match for the play-offs. As a result, at IEM Dallas 2024 Liquid finished in the top 9-12 without making the playoffs.
At BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024, Liquid Long Sogpeg with a rather surprising win over Vp.
Mapple Team Liquid
Team Liquid's top 1 map in the last 3 months is Mirage. Liquid has a mind-blowing winrate of 92% with 13 games played.
They also played on Inferno, where they won 5 matches out of 7 games. Nuke is also in plus winrate, where the "ninjas" have 3 wins from 5 matches.
The most not favoured map for Team Liquid will be Vertigo. There they have 6 maps and only 1 win.
History of head-to-head meetings between NaVi and Liquid
The last time they played each other was at BLAST Major 2023.
Predicted result of Liquid vs NaVi at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024
In this match I expect a fairly even game. Despite NaVi's nominal advantage, Liquid is not as easy as it seemed before the Long Sogpeg of the tournament. I bet on one card from Liquid.
Bottom line: +1.5 on Liquid.