EnVyUs vs Na'Vi [BO3 Online]
Tournament/League: Counter Pit League
Maps: TBA
Odds when this was posted: 66-34 In Favour of NV
Recent Results :
EnVyUs JUST won GamesCom with a 4-0 overall sweep against TSM throughout the tourney and ending the tourney winning 3 maps in a row against the Danish titans. EnVyUs only dropped a singular map throughout the tourney and that was to Mouz on Train. NV's total record was 8-1, beating Mouz thrice, CLG once, and TSM 4 times. Having said all of that, I was personally only impressed in 2 of those 9 maps. Yes they had a 8-1 record in the tournament, yes they beat arguably the best team in the world 4 times, but let's look at specifics shall we. Honestly speaking, the community is 50% (If not more) responsible for this tournament victory, I don't say this to belittle the achievement of the new NV lineup winning their 1st big tournament, I state this as my objective opinion. The reason for this is that the only map NV ever played at this event that didn't benefit them significantly was Train again Mouz, and look what happened there? They got destroyed and utterly shut down on T side. The 4 times they played TSM, they played twice on Cobble, TSM's worst map BY FAR, TSM are a 6 map team and don't play Cobble at all. Beating TSM on Cobble as a Tier-1 team yourself is the equivalent of beating Na'Vi on Cache, nothing to brag about. The other 2 maps they played were Cache, (Arguably TSM's 2nd worst map, and NV's best/2nd best map) and Inferno. 1 of the 2 maps I was impressed by NV was the Cache game against TSM. All of NV's players looked on point and had no trouble demolishing TSM 12-3 on T side and 16-3 overall. The Inferno victory I give them a lot less credit for. Throughout the tournament, NV's Inferno looked VERY sub par. They played 3 teams on Inferno, CLG, Mouz and TSM. In the cases of CLG and Mouz, Inferno is that 1 map neither 1 of them play whatsoever. And yet in those 2 games, and the TSM game, NV looked quite lost on T side. In the CLG game in particular, NV only won 1 singular gun round on T side of Inferno and would have probably lost the map if not for 3 ecos, 1 of which being an amazing 1v2 at A site by Kio when he had no armor. Overall, I'm not saying NV didn't deserve to win this title, they did. You can only beat what is put in front of you and NV did exactly what they needed to do to come away with this title. All I'm saying is the tournament could NOT have gone ANY better for them (In the final against TSM, the 3 remaining maps were Mirage, Overpass and Train, all of which IMO TSM would have crushed them on) and that's why you should take this result with a grain of salt and not be too quick to think NV are suddenly a Top 2 team again. If NV show up to Cologne and demolish everyone there and take home the title (Which I doubt) then yes, they will be. Until then, they don't have the results to merit that.
Na'Vi on the other hand played most recently at the Cevo Season 7 Lan Finals where they lost to VP 1-3 in a BO5 grand finals. During the tournament, the only sets they lost were to VP 0-2 and 1-3. This doesn't come as a surprise because VP is like the TSM to Na'Vi's Fnatic, kinda like their personal kryptonite. VP are AMAZING and shutting down Guardian and making sure he doesn't have his normal game impact. Having said this, Na'Vi were 1 4v1 clutch lost (Pasha is a god) away from potentially winning the Grand finals. Before the semi-final game against Mouz, Na'Vi looked visibly...wrong. While playing in several of the Group stage bo3's Na'Vi looked like they had internal team issues. However, those seemed to have been fixed in the semi's but looked like they started creeping back in during the finals. If indeed they started to have internal issues, I have full belief that a leader as stern as Zues would have settled them by now in preparation for Cologne.
Team notes :
EnVyUs : The dynamic of this team is abit weird. Let me start with the guy with the least problems, Apex. As I said in my NV vs TSM analysis, Apex played his best CS while under the leadership of Happy and it seems like that was no coincidence. IMO Apex was BY FAR the best player on NV throughout Gamescom. There were matches that Happy may have topped the scoreboard, but the sheer impact of every single 1 of Apex's entry frags was immense and were the driving factor for NV being able to claim this title. Apex has no problem with his role in the team, he was a dedicated entry fragger in Titan and he's still a dedicated entry fragger now in NV. Happy was probably the 2nd best player in the tournament for NV, topping the scoreboard pretty much every single game alongside Apex. Happy continues to be the lurker of the team and occasional still AWP's over KennyS or is the 2nd AWPer in a double AWP setup, no changes here at all. NBK was always the most underrated player in the old NV lineup IMO. NBK is probably the highest skilled support player in the world alongside Krimzz and could easily by a 2nd or 3rd fragger on a top-10 team in the current scene. However, NBK has no problem supporting his teammates and really making his team better with his selflessness. 5 months ago, KennyS was the best AWPer in the world. Because of that, he bought the AWP pretty much every single round and tried to hard carry Titan to a title (which he never did, but hell was it a valiant effort). Now, if anyone out there still tries to argue that he is the best AWPer in the world, my reply to them would be "Go back to HLTV and Twitch chat". It simply isn't even close to being the truth. At Gamescom, whenever KennyS would struggle and wiff shots (which wasn't a very rare occurrence), Happy would pick up the AWP and KennyS would be relegated to a rifle. This isn't necessarily a bad thing because Kenny is insanely talented with a rifle. Hell, if you ask me, KennyS played better with an M4 in hand overall throughout Gamescom than when he had an AWP. If Kenny doesn't mind Happy taking over the AWP role sometimes, and doesn't have an ego clash with him (RIP SHOX), there won't be a problem here. The person that this change hurt the most was by far Kio. Right now, as I sit here at 3.46 am writing this LONG ASS analysis, I am hard pressed to remember a game in which Kio didn't bottom frag during Gamescom. Kio was the dedicated "I'm running in and 1st bullet headshotting the guy on site making Twitch chat spam VAC" guy for NV. Now, that role has been taken up by Apex, and he's doing a hell of a job with it. I assume Kio is supposed to take over shox's role as 2nd entry but I just don't know if Kio is best used doing that. Only time will tell.
Overall, if you take the level of play that these 5, Smithzz and Shox played at while last wearing an NV jersey, and took away the internal issues, the old lineup is better.
In basic terms, KennyS >>>>> Smithzz, Shox >>>>>>>> Kio and Apex = if not > a LITTLE Kio.
It'll take someone (From the looks of it, Apex) to enter Godmode for this lineup to prove itself as an all time great lineup, like the old NV lineup did.
Na'Vi : Everyone knows how Na'Vi plays so there's no way this will be as long as the notes for NV. Na'Vi rely on Guardian to lock down spots on the map on CT and find entries on T. 1 of the reasons Na'Vi is notoriously a slow T side team is because they are looking for picks with Guardian. Other than that, Na'Vi are an extremely good team at executing strategies on T side. Zues is no doubt top 2 (if not 1) in the world at being a tactical IGL.
Matchup :
In recent history, since the uprising of Na'Vi, this matchup has been pretty even, if not slightly 55/45 sided towards Na'Vi. But honestly this doesn't matter that much cause of the NV roster change. As the rosters are now, I personally think this is a very favourable matchup for Na'Vi. The main reason of that ties to something I mentioned earlier which was that you can't at this moment objectively say that KennyS is the best AWPer in the world. This is because the best AWPer in the world will be staring at KennyS across the scope of a big green gun this is match. Guardian. If Guardian out AWP's Kenny in this match, and I do expect that to happen, then NV will be hard pressed to find rounds on the T side of execution heavy maps which they have already showed they are very poor at.
As for maps, this is how I expect the Veto to go :
Na'Vi Bans Cache (1000%) EnVy Bans Overpass (50/50 with Mirage) Na'Vi Picks Mirage (50/50 with Overpass depending on NV's ban) EnVy Picks Inferno [Honestly the best choice for EnVy would be to pick Dust2 as I see that being a FAIRLY easy map for them to win, BUT Happy is very cocky that EnVy is the best team in the on Inferno (Which they aren't)]. Na'Vi Bans Dust2 (Pretty much 100% If EnVy don't pick it) EnVy Bans Train (Yeaaaa that Mouz game was pretty awful) 3rd map Cobblestone
According to this Veto, Na'Vi 70/30 Favoured on Mirage, 58/42 Favoured on Cobble and 55/45 Favoured on Inferno just because EnVy's T side looked atrocious each of the 3 times they played it, their CT was super strong but Na'Vi should be able to pick up rounds with good executions which CLG and Mouz don't have and TSM didn't seem to be doing.
My Odds: 63/37 In Favour of Na'Vi
Prediction: 2-0 Na'Vi with a high possibility of 2-1 Na'Vi
Risk: High. The reason I still put the risk at high is because of the team issues Na'Vi seemed to have at Cevo. My 63/37 are not accounting for any possible lingering inter member issues, please keep this in mind.
Betting advice: Medium on Na'Vi. Personally I'll probably be placing 1 Max and 1 High bet (Total around 550) on Na'Vi because current lounge odds are skewed AF. Also I always bet high against teams that just won a LAN event (It's worked the last 4 times, all were Underdog wins too).