After winning the championship at IEM Katowice 2020, Na`Vi climbed to the top of the HLTV rankings and was hailed by many as the strongest lineup in the history of this organization. However, the sweet days of “The Golden Dragon” did not last long as they left their fans extremely disappointed after two losses to weaker opponents, North and BIG, at ESL Pro League Season 11 (EPL S11).
It seemed that Na`Vi would have a miserable EPL season, but they surprisingly bounced back strongly with two consecutive victories against forZe and Complexity, giving them a chance to advance if they could defeat fnatic on the last match day of the group stage. Of course, when given control over their fate, the members of Na`Vi became completely serious and convincingly defeated Fnatic with a 2-0 score after two maps, Overpass and Dust2. All five members of Na`Vi returned to their peak form seen at IEM Katowice 2020 during this victory.
The surprises did not stop there. After the simultaneous matches concluded, the top position in Group B belonged to… Na`Vi, granting them a direct ticket to the next round, while the two teams below, fnatic and forZe, had to compete in the play-in round. The main reason was that BIG (the team that had defeated Na`Vi) lost to forZe and was eliminated, allowing Na`Vi to top the group due to their head-to-head record (Na`Vi directly defeated both of these opponents).
It seems that BIG could not compete under optimal conditions against forZe as they encountered issues with their internet connection (high ping). After the match, xsepower (forZe) and syrsoN (BIG) had a heated exchange on Twitter regarding this issue:
xsepower: I love the feeling of winning a match and then seeing the opponent complain about ping issues, hahaha.
syrsoN: Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to play with 200 ping on a Swedish server? And I also had to play the first map with 120 ping and 5% loss, stop being such a kid.
xsepower: Hey, I also had to play Mirage with 75+ ping. I just want to say that your mocking when we wanted to change the server was not cool. Overall, don’t take my tweet too seriously, it was just a fleeting emotion.
In general, with ESL Pro League Season 11 moving to online play, most teams have not been able to maintain their best competitive state and often face internet issues. Na`Vi themselves had to play with 200 ping for half a map against North, which somewhat erased their advantage in that match. However, regardless of the reasons, the matches concluded with Na`Vi at the top and BIG eliminated bitterly. Meanwhile, in Group A, Astralis easily secured the top spot, while Vitality and NiP shared the 2nd and 3rd positions and will have to play in the play-in. ESL Pro League Season 11 will continue with Groups C and D to find the final representatives advancing to the next round, and viewers can follow Vietnamese commentary of this tournament on the channel youtube.com/500bros.