For the first time in nine years, the black-and-yellow flag will not be flown in the Cathedral of Counter-Strike, after NAVI’s shock exit at the IEM Cologne 2023 group stage on Tuesday.
NAVI were playing their second event since they started a rebuilding initiated with Electronic and Perfecto’s departure in the off-season. However, despite the high hopes on the team to do well at IEM Cologne, based on their history of dominating the German tournament since around 2014 by a roster led by Zeus, they flopped hard.
NAVI has played at the LANXESS Arena since then, but for the 2023 edition, losses to MOUZ and Astralis will force them to watch the rest of the tournament from home.
After initially losing to a recently rebuilt MOUZ line in the group stage, NAVI had to go a long way in the group stage. Wins against OG and FaZe Clan brought them back on track with the possibility of making it to Cologne’s playoff stage.
However, it was Astralis who stopped the team from reaching that familiar group forcing three overtime to become spoilers on Ancient. S1mple led the team to fight back on Nuke until Christian “Buzz” Andersen chose Overpass as the place to shine as a rising star.
Christian “Buzz” Andersen made a ridiculous 31 kills and an immense 2.02 rating on HLTV to help Astralis to the LANXESS Arena in what is more or less revenge against NAVI for last year’s knockout in the semifinals.
The 16-12 victory will pair Astralis against Heroic at the top six Cologne on Friday, Aug. 4. While NAVI may have to rethink its rebuild, especially after another struggle in last fortnight’s BLAST Premier Fall Groups.
Meanwhile, IEM Cologne playoffs kick off this Friday, Aug. 2, while NAVI’s next appearance may be at the million-dollar Gamers8 2023 tournament in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 16.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
