Natus Vincere

History

2009: Formation

In October 2009, Murat "Arbalet" Zhumashevich declared the creation of an esports organization during the Intel Extreme Masters tournament being held in Dubai. He was to provide the finances required to run the organization and also provide a place for players to train in, while starix, a Counter-Strike professional player, took up the duty of creating a lineup for the organization. On 17 December 2009, Natus Vincere, at the time with the name of Arbalet UA, was formed, based around their Counter-Strike team, which consisted of players Ivan "Edward" Sukharev, Yegor "markeloff" Markelov, Sergey "starix" Ischuk, Arsenij "ceh9" Trunozhenko and Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko, with ZeroGravity taking the position of manager. The abbreviation Na'Vi was inspired by the film Avatar, with its full form being decided by the fans through a competition.

2010: Multiple championships

After a poor performance at the Arbalet Cup CIS 2010 (4th place), Markeloff, the team's top player, decided to skip the next big tournament, ASUS Winter 2010, so that the team could prepare for the Arbalet Cup and the Ukrainian qualifications for the ESWC. In the middle of May 2010, Na'Vi took 2nd place in the prestigious Arbalet Cup Europe 2010 in Stockholm, losing to Fnatic in the finals and earning $10,000 in prize money. Na'Vi finally gained victory at ESWC Ukraine.

In the final part of the ESWC, the team hit the highest seeding, along with SK Gaming, Fnatic, and mTw.dk. On 4 July 2010, Natus Vincere achieved the highest accolade in the history of Ukrainian e-Sports, winning the ESWC (which previously could not be reached by any CIS team), defeating SK Gaming in the finals: 16:5 (de_train) and 16:4 (de_inferno). During the tournament Na'Vi passed through the group stage thanks to fortune, but outplayed Fnatic and mTw.dk in the playoffs.

After being victorious in the world championship, Natus Vincere announced their participation in 2 more tournaments—Arbalet Cup Dallas and GameGune 2010 (Bilbao). On 18 July 2010, Na'Vi won Arbalet Cup Dallas beating Mousesports in the final match: 19:15 (de_dust2), 16:12 (de_inferno). After receiving $25,000, Na'Vi took the first place in quantity of prize money earned by European teams that year. Na'Vi took 3rd place in GameGune 2010 and Intel Extreme Masters Shanghai.

On 15 August, Na'Vi won the Ukrainian qualifications for the 2010 World Cyber Games and received a paid voucher to the finals in Los Angeles from 30 September to 3 October 2010.

The next tournament for Na'Vi was ASUS Summer 2010, to which the team received a direct invitation. This tournament became first in the ASUS Open series, which was held at Kyiv gaming center "Kyiv CyberSport Arena". In the semi-finals Na'Vi lost to Kazakh team k23 and as a result took the 3rd place.

On 4 October 2010 Natus Vincere became the World Cyber Games world champions by defeating Danish team mTw.dk in the finals. This victory made Na'Vi the first team in the world which had managed to hold the three most prestigious championship titles at once (IEM, ESWC, WCG). At the end of October 2010, ESL TV commentator Bakr "KinGSaicx" Fadl proclaimed that SK Gaming was going to invite the Ukrainian team to take place of its Swedish squad, but the manager of Natus Vincere declined this information.

In early November 2010 Natus Vincere took part in the World e-Sports Masters tournament (WEM 2010), which annually gathers the best teams from all over the world in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. Among the eight participants of the tournament, Na’Vi took 4th place as well as $7,500.

From the 25th to the 27 November 2010 in the Swedish city of Jönköping the largest LAN party in the world took place—DreamHack Winter 2010. To go to this tournament, Natus Vincere had to skip a major Russian tournament, ASUS Autumn 2010, since it was coinciding with DreamHack's dates. After finishing the group stage Na'Vi consistently outplayed teams puta, Fnatic, Frag Executors, and mTw.dk in the finals, winning the tournament. During the four playoff matches the Ukrainians lost only one time to Fnatic on the new map—de_mirage. "Starix" (Serhiy Ischuk) received the tournament's MVP award.

After winning DreamHack Winter 2010, the team established a new record: winning $220,000 in one year. The previous record belonged to Swedish team Fnatic, who earned $189,000 in 2009 (before that, the record was held by Swedish team SK Gaming with earnings of $183,000 in 2003).

In 2010, popular website HLTV.org had made rankings for the 20 best Counter-Strike players. Yegor "markeloff" Markelov was 1st place, Sergey "Starix" Ischuk 4th, Ioann "Edward" Sukharev 5th, and the captain of Na'Vi, Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko had 19th place, as well as "The best captain of the year".

2011

On 5 March 2011 Na'Vi defended their position in Hannover as the champions of the Intel Extreme Masters and earned $35,000. They defeated Polish team Frag Executors in the finals: 16:12 (de_train) and 16:10 (de_dust2). $4,550 of the prize money was deducted (13% of the total) as a penalty for breaking the rules.

2015

Na'Vi reached the finals of DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 where they were beat 0-2 by Team EnVyUs. Na'Vi won Intel Extreme Masters Season X - San Jose after beating Team SoloMid (Now Astralis) in the grand finals 2–0.^[]

2016

Na'Vi started off the year by winning DreamHack Leipzig 2016 2–0 over Luminosity Gaming (Now MiBR) on 22 January. Na'Vi placed 3rd-4th at the Intel Extreme Masters Season X – World Championship. On 3 April, Na'Vi placed second at MLG Columbus 2016, losing 0–2 to Luminosity in the finals.

Shortly after on 17 April the team placed second at DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016. Na'Vi got second at the StarLadder i-League Invitational #1 after losing to Virtus.pro in the finals on 22 May.

Na'Vi placed 5-8th at ESL One Cologne 2016. On 29 July, the team placed 3rd-4th at ELeague Season 1.

On 4 August, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev replaced Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko on the active roster.

On 2 September, Na'Vi became the champions of ESL One: New York 2016, defeating Virtus.pro in the finals.

2017

On 10 March, team coach starix stepped down from his role in the team. He is replaced by team analyst Andrey "Andi" Prokhorov.

On 28 July, Denis "Seized" Kostin and Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács stepped down from Natus Vincere.

On 9 August, Mykhailo "Kane" Blagin was brought in and Seized and Zeus returned.

On 6 November, Na'Vi brought in Denis "Electronic" Sharipov in place of Seized who stepped down from the roster.

2018

On 8 July, Na'Vi ended up winning ESL One Cologne 2018 over BIG 3-1 for its first Intel Grand Slam win.

2019

On 9 September, Na'Vi announced that Zeus would retire after BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019. He retired on 14 September.

On 20 September, Na'Vi acquired GuardiaN from FaZe Clan and Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy joined as a coach. Guardian later stepped down and was replaced by Perfecto.

2021

On 12 September, Na'Vi closed out 3rd season of the Intel Grand Slam after winning IEM Katowice 2020, IEM Cologne 2021, DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 and ESL Pro League Season 14. On 7 November they won their first CS:GO Major, PGL Stockholm 2021, defeating G2 Esports 2–0. Team Na'Vi gained 1st places at BLAST Premier World Final 2021 and BLAST Premier Fall Final 2021. Na'Vi also cooperated with Hator, producer of gamers oriented computer equipment, in coorganizing esport events in 22 cities of Ukraine.

2022

They proceeded to qualify for the Blast Spring Final and made it to the playoffs of IEM Katowice 2022, being favored to win the event. Playoffs started on the 25th of February, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. They faced G2 in the semifinals, with Navi's two Ukrainian players b1t and s1mple adorning Ukrainian flags. G2 won 2-0, in a loss mostly blamed on the mental impact of the invasion. s1mple tweeted about his home city of Kyiv, "My city is shelled r fck n".

Following IEM Katowice 2022, the team relocated to the Polish Kinguin Esports Performance Center free of charge.

On March 28, NAVI CEO Yevhen Zolotarov stated his hope "that we are going to keep this roster and that the Russia-based players are going to relocate."

On March 30, ESL Pro League Group D started without Boombl4, due to him being ill with COVID-19. They went 5-0 in the group stage and secured a spot in the quarter-finals, where they lost 2-0 to FaZe Clan.

After qualifying to the Legends stage for the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 through the Europe Regional Major Rankings they proceeded to go 3-0 in that stage, beating G2, BIG, and NIP. They defeated Heroic 2-1 in the quarterfinals and ENCE 2-0 in the semifinals for their fifth major finals appearance. FaZe Clan won 2-0 for their first major victory.

On May 28, Boombl4 was removed from the active roster. The organization said his removal was "related to high reputational risks for the club, and it is not the result of his game.". Navi COO Oleksii "xaoc" Kucherov said that the other two Russian players, electronic and Perfecto, were relocating.

Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev was brought in as a replacement for Boombl4 for Blast Premier Spring Final in Lisbon. His continued play for Navi " depends on his performance in the upcoming tournament". Natus Vincere went on to win the event, beating Team Vitality in a dominant 2-0 in the final. Following this success, sdy continued being the fifth player for IEM Cologne.