Cloud9 vs. NAVI: A reignited rivalry with a Major trophy on the line

The IEM Rio Major is officially on the home straight. What started as a 24-team event has slowly been whittled down over the course of two stages and just eight teams remain in the running. Those rosters now make their way to the sold-out Jeunesse Arena, where they will do battle in front of the raucous crowd in a bid to become an esteemed part of Counter-Strike lore: Major champions.

The $1,250,000 tournament in Brazil has already been a ruthless and cut-throat competition. The reigning Major champions of FaZe were sent packing with a 0-3 record. Ninjas in Pyjamas suffered the same fate, bowing out of the biggest event of the season without a win to their name, while Vitality‘s time in Brazil was cut short with a disappointing 1-3 showing of their own. Another team touted as one of the potential candidates for the trophy, Liquid, were more competitive, but they went 2-3 before being eliminated. The fact remains that there are only two favourites left standing as the Major reaches its closing stage: Natus Vincere and Cloud9.

The two teams enter the IEM Rio Major playoffs as the only squads within the top five, the other three lineups all being ousted from the competition before the top-eight stage of play. As such, the two quintets are the frontrunners to take home the coveted Major championship. While the competition will undoubtedly remain fierce between the teams in the playoff bracket, Natus Vincere and Cloud9 are in prime position to get the job done, even if their paths to the knockout stage have been more laboured than first imagined, which had them both staring down the barrel of elimination at various points.

Natus Vincere are one of the most experienced rosters in the game; they have triumphed at a plethora of Big Events — from the $2,000,000 PGL Stockholm Major and their Intel Grand Slam run to the most recent BLAST Premier Spring Final. They also field some of the most lethal players on the market in Oleksandr “⁠s1mple⁠” Kostyliev and Denis “⁠electroNic⁠” Sharipov, and there are few teams that can match Natus Vincere‘s overwhelming firepower.

What’s more, playing in front of an ecstatic audience is something that feels like second nature to the Ukrainian-majority roster. Their quarter-final clash versus FURIA will be one of the most difficult starts possible given it will be a game against a team that will have the entire weight of the crowd behind them, but Natus Vincere‘s almost unparalleled experience is enough to carry them through and earn their organisation its second Major trophy.

Cloud9 also have a claim to the throne at the Major in Brazil. Vladislav “⁠nafany⁠” Gorshkov and company have recovered since their opening day shambles, where they went 0-2 with shocking losses to fnatic and Grayhound, by cruising into the playoffs with a 3-0 record in the Legends Stage.

While question marks remain over the side’s abilities in a LAN environment, Dmitry “⁠sh1ro⁠” Sokolov has been on another level, carrying his side on his back through their miraculous comebacks with a 1.40 rating. The Russian sniper’s ability to continue his remarkable form is vital in getting Cloud9 over the line, and it’s sh1ro who the team is relying on to get them all the way to the Major final.

The two teams have locked horns in the server repeatedly for a long period of time. It’s a rivalry that dates back all the way to the online era, when both Natus Vincere and Cloud9 exchanged blows and took the crown as the best team in the world at different points.

The Russian roster took home the gold at IEM Katowice 2021 whilst playing under the Gambit tag. The quintet defeated Natus Vincere, who were the No. 1 team in the world at the time, in the quarter-finals en route to their event win. This battle for supremacy continued into the summer, with nafany and co. also being crowned victors at the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2021, once again taking down Natus Vincere, this time in the grand final, in a battle between the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked teams.

This successful run from Gambit slowed as the world slowly returned to normality in the summer. Natus Vincere came into their own once on their native LAN environment, winning the first offline event since the start of the coronavirus pandemic at IEM Cologne 2021 — Gambit finished 5th-6th. In the same vein, Natus Vincere picked up their first Major championship at the PGL Stockholm Major, doing so after a commanding run, which ended with a hard-fought grand final versus G2. While Gambit didn’t flop at the biggest LAN event of the last two years, finishing 3-4th, they were handily defeated by Natus Vincere in the semi-finals, 8-16 and 3-16.

These results following the return to LAN summed up the feud between the two teams that had encapsulated the Counter-Strike world. nafany‘s troops were tuned in online but struggled to hit the same peaks when it mattered on LAN. Natus Vincere, meanwhile, thrive in the high-pressure scenarios of LAN, putting up some of their most dominant performances, like at the Major in Sweden, when on the stage. It’s something that Cloud9 has acknowledged and actively worked on in the year since their 2021 battle for dominance, with nafany going on to say at the RMR that, “the team from early 2021 and right now [2022] are two different teams.” The squad have garnered some much-needed experience in the past year, even winning IEM Dallas earlier this year, and it could be this that spearheads a title-winning Major run from the Russian roster. It would also silence all the critics, who had claimed that Cloud9 fail to show up on LAN, only performing admirably at online events.

The bracket for the playoffs swings heavily in the favour of both Cloud9 and Natus Vincere. sh1ro‘s expert performances have powered his side all the way to the Champions Stage, and their most recent bout through the Legends Stage was flawless — even if the scores were close.

Natus Vincere, on the other hand, have struggled to assert themselves all tournament long. Their results have been hard-fought, while their performance has been a shadow of what people have come to expect from the fourth-best team.

With this, the fortunes look more and more skewed into Cloud9‘s favour. They have the easier bracket on paper, going up against MOUZ to start, a game which should go the way of the Russians in theory. On the flip side, Natus Vincere have to kick off their playoff campaign with a game against the home-town heroes of FURIA.

Couple this with their shaky form going through the Major thus far, and it’s not so far-fetched to envision a world in which Cloud9 pick up the title in lieu of Natus Vincere. It would be a win which would gift their organisation its second Major trophy, and one that would add another layer to a CIS rivalry which has been occurring for the best part of two years.

But it would be a mistake to believe we have seen NAVI’s peak form already. s1mple and company have proven time and time again that they can grow with the tournament and have the edge in experience under pressure, so if they reach as far as the grand final, all bets will be off.