The Time of the Mystery Men — PGL Copenhagen CS2 2024 Major

On June 30th 2023, NAVI turned over its core by benching Perfecto, Electronic and Npl. They acquired Aleksib from NIP, JL from Apeks and iM from GamerLegion. This was after a long streak of poor performances. An outcry from their Major win in Stockholm in 2021.

They kept s1mple and b1t for a creation of an international roster. Counter-Strike 2 launched and an unexpected twist happened. S1mple, Navi’s most treasured idol voiced his disapproval of CS2 and did not wish to play it until it was fixed. S1mple elected to take personal leave from the game on October 26th 2023.

Navi scrambled to find a new awper to replace the generational talent of S1mple. It would be incredibly difficult to find someone to fill the void of s1mple. After 5 days, they picked up w0nderful from Sprout.

In a few months, Navi went from retaining their Stockholm Major-winning core to a completely new set of mystery men in 3 months. B1t, the only player left remaining from the 2021 Major Winning Squad had to return to the promised land.

b1t — The Maverick

B1t and Maverick from Top Gun share a similar story. He was the first invited to the Navi Junior team in 2020. He replaced flamie in the senior team in 2021. He was known for his aggressive playstyle and his high headshot percentage.

Navi would go onto win the PGL Stockholm Major in 2021 with the highest headshot percentage in the tournament. Liquipedia has noted that b1t was the youngest player to ever win an Intel Grand Slam.

B1t found himself in a odd place with no s1mple, boombl4, electronic and Perfecto due to differing circumstances. He would also be communicating in English with his new roster comprising of Aleksib, jL, iM and w0nderful.

Navi had not been competitive at a Tier 1 level for almost 2 years as they continiously underachieved. The only deep run was their 2nd place at ESL Pro League 18 where they lost 3–0 to Mouz. The speculation started to rise that b1t wished to leave Navi and was on his way out.

However, he stayed on with Navi, the team that delivered his first taste of success and stuck it out with his new group of Mystery Men.

The Maverick would get to show his high octane playstyle once again as he starred in the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 Final where Navi defeated FaZe 2–1. He achieved the highest rating and ADR for the series and was immense on the final map of Inferno.

His performance brought relief to his new ingame leader, Aleksib.

Aleksib - The Outcast

Aleksib was a journeyman ingame leader when he joined Navi. Aleksib had been through a lot of teams on his journey from Havu, ENCE, OG, G2 and NIP. (Note: Aleksib does kind of look like Iceman from Top Gun…)

After the dramatic end to ENCE, he became the ingame leader who was just always that little bit too late. He was touted as being the future ingame leader. The one to lead the way for an era, a dynasty and a legend.

With a failed stint with OG, the glimmer was taken away from Aleksib. “Maybe, it was the team?”, some said. Aleksib joined G2 with legendary players such as Niko, Hunter, Jackz and the new prodigy awper, Monesy.

However, just as the G2 stint came, it ended and Aleksib was now disgraced. He was picked up as a scrambled replacement for Hampus in a falling NIP. It seemed that NIP could be a potential redemption for him. It started well but slowly started to unwind as NIP put up disappointing result after disappointing result.

Aleksib was benched once again as NIP reinstated hampus to be their Ingame Leader. It seemed like the world had moved on and Aleksib was no longer the future ingame leader that they had him to be. He was now an outcast.

However, fate would weave a different tale as a lifeline from Navi was thrown to the fallen ingame leader. Aleksib was offered a contract to lead an international roster of iM, jL, s1mple (replaced by w0nderful) and b1t. Aleksib couldn’t afford to say no. This would be his final shot to prove to the world that he is all that.

Navi’s first few tournaments were effectively a baptism by fire. The general CS populace didn’t think that this international roster would work and they proven correct with the initial results. A deep run in ESL Pro League Season 8 seemed to revitalise the charge but it never maintained the momentum.

However, a straight charge of 2–0 against his former side, G2 who dumped him unceremoniously was just a sign of things to come. They advanced straight to the Blast Spring Groups Stage. Their two star recruits iM and jL shined brightly in their odysessy for greatness.

Maybe redemption was soon to come for Aleksib…

iM — The Romanian New Hope

iM entered the scene in Nexus Gaming, a well-known Romanian Counter-Strike team featuring their national hero, Xellow. Xellow was the main star of the team. At an early age, Xellow was offered to join Hellraisers as their primary awper.

However, Xellow declined the offer and wished to nurture the Romanian CSGO scene. Xellow would have been the first Romanian to go to an international team.

This choice was massive in iM’s tale as there may have never been a Nexus if Xellow chose to pursue Glory. iM became a mainstay in Nexus even being replaced early on. He returned to the lineup in 2019.

Nexus always seemed to be that team that’d get close but not close enough. Nexus’s main goal was to be promoted to ESEA Premier.

The following season (ESEA Season 34), Nexus finished 4th after losing to the eventual champions, Saw. The Romanian Heroes, Xellow and iM leading the charge in vain losing 1–2.

Despite finishing 4th, they were eligible to participate in the ESEA Premier Relegation Tournament. A second chance to make their goal, a reality. During this period, Nexus were beginning to make inroads by winning a lot of online tournaments.

The only thing standing between them an ESEA Premier was the Unicorns of Love. They won 2–0 even winning on their worst map, Nuke. iM starring in a massive win for Romania. This would only be the beginning for iM.

iM continued to star in Nexus and was made an offer by GamerLegion. It was unknown at the time that he was going to GamerLegion. Nexus had only advised that he had been offered an spot.

Unlike Xellow before him, iM accepted the offer into GamerLegion. iM was the first Romanian Player to go to an international team.

Ok, I’m going to speed this up because I could go on about iM’s journey about carrying the entireity of Romania on his back. GamerLegion made the Europe RMR A for PGL Antwerp Majordefeating Fate 2–1 in the dead of night (for me casting at least!).

However, for the lone Romanian in a mostly Swedish core, they bombed out of the PGL Europe RMR A on 0–3.

For their next tilt at the Major in Rio, GamerLegion changed their roster significantly. iM and Isak were the only remaining members of the previous tilt at the major. GamerLegion were selected in European RMR A as some teams were unable to make it to Brazil.

This major was the rise of iM as GamerLegion made it to the major 3–2 after defeating G2 and B8 in quick succession. People were starting to take note of iM and GamerLegion after these massive victories. GamerLegion were going to their first major.

iM and GamerLegion started at 2–0 but with crushing close defeats to Cloud 9, Bad News Eagles and home favourites, Furia. They bowed out 3–2.

The next major rolled around iM and GamerLegion had a chance to get into Legends after cruising through the RMR at 3–1. However, Bad News Eagles got in their way once again and denied Legends.

iMs march was about to begin with an exhilarating reverse sweep from 0–2 to 3–2 eliminatiing Mouz, OG and Forze on the way.

At the legend’s stage, iM’s legend only grew as he lead GamerLegion to 3–1 to make the Champion’s stage. The first for himself and GamerLegion. The analysts were lauding his efforts at this stage.

iM’s colossial stand against Monte and Heroic earned GamerLegion their first major final. iM dominated Heroic in such a fashion that they were ready to name him the player of the tournament. GamerLegion lost narrowly to Vitality but iM was the standout player in that loss.

After the major, iM was offered to join Navi during Rostermania. This would be the first Romanian to join a Tier 1 team. iM took this offer and so starts another journey for the Romanian New Hope…

After a standout performance from his Lithuanian Legend counterpart, iM would become the first Romanian to win a Counter-Strike Major as Navi won PGL Major Copenhagen 2024.

The crowd waiting for iM at the Airport was a touching moment of how much this win meant to Romania.

jL — The Lithuanian Legend

jL was a rifler on various teams before joining the 2nd iteration of Mad Lions. The analysts weren’t paying too much attention to the Mad Lions and I don’t blame them.

It seemed like a doomed voyage after the initial roster acquired from Tricked imploded. Mad Lions wished to rebuild the roster around TMB which seemed out of left field at the time.

With their only tournament success coming from a deep run in a Dreamhack Open and promotion to ESEA Premier, the doomed voyage moniker seemed to be correct.

Mad Lions eventually exited CS:GO with no significant success to note leaving jL in the ex-Mad Lions mix. jL would soon be offered a contract to play for Apeks.

Apeks were trialling an international roster with shox, Styko, Nawwk and Jkaem. Apeks fell short of the Rio 2022 Major after being eliminated in the 4th Open Qualifier by GamerLegion. This lead to the development of the unknown rivalry between Apeks and GamerLegion who continued to lock horns at many events.

jL and Apeks recovered by winning ESEA Advanced by defeating Monte and advancing to ESEA Premier. Apeks had been stuck in Advanced for some time with full Norweign rosters. This was their first time in ESEA Premier.

Apeks continued to flounder with poor online results and de ja vu could have started setting in with jL. He had seen this before with Mad Lions. With back to back losses to Monte, it seemed like Monte had got their revenge.

However, their shining diamond for their legend would be their 1st Place in the RMR Closed Qualifier for the Paris Major. This came after Shox was replaced by Kyxsan who took over ingame leading duties. Kyxsan seemed to be the catalyst that could turn Apeks around.

Similar to iM, jL’s performances weren’t legendary yet. For the Paris Major, jL starred alongside jkaem as Apeks made the Paris Major winning comfortably against B8 (2–0).

jL had made comments to call him jLegend before the Challengers Stage. Analysts and critics alike thought this was a case of an overinflated ego. They didn’t believe that Apeks would qualify.

Apeks would go on to make an incredible run at the Paris Major going 3–1 in the Challengers Stage. Apeks would sneak through the Legends stage at 3–2. jL was interviewed later quoting “call me jLegend”.

During this time, Jkaem was overshadowing jL’s success with the higher rating, frags and ADR but everyone believed that Jkaem and jL complemented each other greatly.

Their time in the champions stage was short lived after taking down a languishing Team Liquid. They were eliminated by eventual champions, Vitality. jL’s tournament was quite underwhelming but his presence as a player was growing.

Apeks followed up their Paris success by winning ESL Challenger over the much lauded Donk and his Spirit Academy. Apeks managed to win 3–2 coming back from a map deficit.

While Nawwk stole the show, jL still chipped in with his own efforts to stay positive and built himself as a consistent rifler. jL would never get to go to ESL Pro League under Apeks.

jL would be rumoured to join Navi before it was officially announced as he had stopped playing for Apeks. He would be replaced by Cacanito. Navi picked up jL in an extreme Rostermania makeover for Navi.

And they say the rest is history, jL made the major once again and to continue the jLegend legacy. He didn’t only just continue it, he engraved it for the rest of time.

With Navi’s major victory, jL won the Most Valuable Player award with 83 ADR, 1.22 Rating and 72.8% KAST ratio for the entire tournament.

A complete all-star performance from a player who previously had continues to play 2nd fiddle to either Jkaem or Nawwk in Apeks.

Maybe Apeks finally got one over Gamerlegion as their star had outeclipsed Gamerlegion’s star (iM). It doesn’t matter to jL, he has finally shut up all his critics for good.

From their kid wonders in their respective regions, they’ve evolved into the legends that they are now.

w0nderful — The Kid Wonder

w0nderful has been through so many teams and he is only 19! I was surprised to see that he had been through 5 teams with the longest stint being with Spirit for a year.

He has been a notable awper in his own right but wasn’t able to find a long-term spot in a team. He rode through Project X, Hellraisers and lastly Team Spirit.

Team Spirit seemed to be a happy home for him as many similar young prospects. Team Spirit seemed to be the place where potential was bursting from the seams (quite literally — even their academy team was amazing!).

Team Spirit would shock Cloud 9 and obtain a direct invite to Legends Stage. They would also sneak into the Champion Stage 3–2 with Spirit’s entire squad impressing the world.

However, a small detour would crash the parade. An ESIC Whistleblower, Yarabeau would accuse w0nderful of match-fixing after being interviewed by Richard Lewis. After a rigourous couple of days, it was evident that there was no evidence of this and w0nderful would be able to play.

Their first match was against Heroic where they crumbled under pressure and sent home. The allegations had sunk any momentum that spirit had. However, there was one redeeming aspect and that is for our kid wonder, w0nderful.

w0nderful had single handly kept Spirit in the game with impressive performances. This kid had a very bright future.

This would be w0nderful’s final game with Team Spirit as the roster itself was soon picked apart during Rostermania. w0nderful would never make it back to the roster as Artfrost from Spirit Academy would replace him.

Team Spirit also benched s1ren and Patsi who made their respective ways for the new king, Donk and zontix. w0nderful found himself without a roster yet again.

Team Spirit were looking to the future and wished to promote Spirit Academy who were making significant inroads and potentially better than their current roster.

Sprout were looking for a new awper and they were targeting Artfrost or w0nderful. Spirit locked in Artfrost and Sprout locked in w0nderful.

w0nderful only spent 3 months in Sprout before the shocking news rocked Navi. S1mple had quit CS2 and benched himself due to personal reasons which left Navi scrambling for an Awper. Navi fortuantely knew of an Ukranian Awper who impressed at the previous major. And that was w0nderful.

w0nderful had barely been in the team for a couple of months and it seemed like he was right at home at Navi. w0nderful never missed a beat. The only sting in their side was an early exit from Katowice at the hands of Falcons.

He would never know that his next tournament would be his first step on his path to glory.

The Path to Glory — Winning the Major

Navi also recruited some incredible supporting cast to assist their legendary coach, blad3. They picked flashie from CLG Red as an analyst and most importantly, Xirreth from ENCE/CLG Red as a performance manager.

These two are incredible people in their own respective fields and show incredible knowledge about the game and people themselves.

Navi booked themselves a legend spot after going 3–1 in the RMRs with only losing to Virtus Pro. As they were the 2nd highest rated team out of Faze and Koi, they received the legends spot.

Navi found themselves with a good start after knocking off G2 and Mongolz. They were one Bo3 win away from the Royal Arena. The pain was truly felt after two back to back Bo3 losses to a donk-led Spirit and Cloud 9.

It seemed like Navi were going to fall short after such an amazing start.

It was quite apt that their final Bo3 was against pain which they disposed off with jLegend starring. Two close games that could have gone either way and Navi were able to win 13–10, 13–9 to get to the Royal Arena.

Their first game would be against the Turkish side, Eternal Fire. This was their first major and unfortuantely, Navi was the rain on their parade. Navi closely won their map pick 16–13 before sending Eternal Fire home on Inferno 13–9.

It would be their kid wonder, w0nderful who carried the series to allow Navi to reach the quarter-final. Not even the heroics from Calyx, Xantares and their new young talent, Wicadia could save them.

Their next match would be a grudge match for Aleksib. Facing off against his ex-team G2 who had benched him. Facing off against old teammates such as Niko and Hunter. The benching that lead to his downward spiral before being offered a lifeline by Navi.

Navi won G2’s map pick of Anubis and Aleksib looked likely to enact revenge onto G2. However, m0nesy saw things differently and tied it up at 1–1 against Navi.

It now came up to the brave pick of Ancient which was a counterpick to punish Navi. And well, it couldn’t have got more worse for poor Hooxi as Navi led by a jL masterclass assisted in the revenge and redemption that Aleksib had yearned for. Atleast, Niko didn’t miss an easy deagle shot this time.

With the 2–1 win over G2, he proved the Aleksib wasn’t the problem, G2 were. Navi were now in their first Major Final since Stockholm. If Navi won the major, it would make blad3, the first coach to lead two different cores to major glory.

Navi would face FaZe Clan in the final. Karrigan in his home arena with a large Danish crowd obeying his every stroke. Karrigan plays the crowd like a composer plays an orchestra. Every swish of his baton brings out a glorious tune to his future coronation as the King of Denmark.

FaZe were the team to beat after they dismantled the heavy favourites, Team Spirit. The mystery men of Navi had a job to do and that was to prevent the coronation of King Karrigan.

They all had their own personal goals to unite for a single cause. b1t wished to show that his first major was no fluke.

Aleksib wished to redeem himself and prove to the world that he was the ingame leader.

iM wished to be the first Romanian Player to win a Major.

jL wished to write himself into the history books as a major winner as jLegend.

w0nderful wished to prove himself as the true replacement to s1mple.

Navi struck first with a win on Faze’s map pick of Ancient 13–9 and b1t was immense for the Maverick that he is. It stunned the crowd, the king’s coronation wasn’t going as planned.

However, Karrigan led by ropz and frozen demolished Navi’s map pick of Mirage. Karrigan was ruthless. There was only one goal on his mind, the crown. No stone unturned, no leg unswept as he continued his reign of terror across Navi. Navi didn’t even let out a whimper.

Navi were crushed as they went to the third map of Inferno. G2 previously had a choice between Ancient/Inferno against Navi and picked Ancient. This became a source of contention where people stated that if G2 picked Inferno, Navi wouldn’t be in the grand final.

They blamed Hooxi (wrongly) as TaZ came out later and stated that it was him who picked Ancient.

Navi came out on Inferno and boy, did they bring an inferno to King Karrigan’s corronation. b1t, jL and w0nderful rallied Navi and delivered an absolutely devastating T side to Faze. A 9–3 lead at the half. Once again, Faze were on the cusp of losing it all.

The devastation continued with jL and b1t pulling Faze apart. Faze looked lost, Karrigan stunned. He saw his dream slipping away from him. There was nothing he could do. Navi clinched the Major by winning 13–3 from Inferno. jL winning the MVP and Navi lifted up the trophy.