Image via Ubisoft
It’s difficult to be an European League fan at this year’s SI, especially if you’re French. However, Team BDS isn’t the only European side withproblems as Natus Vincere are on the verge of another group-stage disaster, unless something changes.
Natus Vincere’s first match in the venue was a hard pill to swallow. Oxygen Esports left their opponents little time to breathe. The North American roster smashed the Europeans with a 7-2 victory on Bank, which was followed by a 7-1 victory on Consulate.
Wednesday was no exception as Natus Vincere faced the Mexico Major champions Team oNe. Despite making an early statement with a 7-4 victory on Oregon, the Brazilian side they faced produced a comeback by taking Kafe and Villa.
“To a certain stand we showed what we can do,” said Nathan “Nathan” Sharp. The squad believes the quality is there and that, if they manage to fix their mistakes, the best is yet to come.
“We fell off because when we lost one round, that turned into three or four rounds lost because of the same problem, and we gradually got worse,” added Jack “Doki” Robertson.
Natus Vincere are down the bottom of the standings with just two games to play, one of these being against DWG KIA, who are considered to be one of the main favorites to take the hammer home. Not only that, but the Koreans are yet to lose a map, much less a match.
“There are many teams in this event that play very differently from each other, everyday you play against a different type of Siege and it’s really hard to prepare for it,” said Doki.
The team showed a lack of adaptation, according to Rickard “Secretly” Olofsson. “It is really hard to adapt to it in general, because of how chaotic the play-style is.”
On top of that, Natus Vincere – and almost any roster in the venue – lacks Brazilian synergy, something Team oNe, FaZe Clan, or Ninjas in Pyjamas admitted Secretly. All these rosters have gone through almost everything on Siege, and knew each other since the very beginning. The team’s cores have been together for years, and that’s a huge advantage.
“Brazilian players have great synergy with each other, mainly because they have played together for years and years,” admitted Secretly.
“Catching up to that and replicating that is an incredibly hard task specially for European teams who are way more rigid and set into strategy, so I feel like most teams have kept doing their thing,” he added.
Finally, Secretly gave his own version of the secret behind APAC’s good results in this year’s SI, as he thinks “APAC is probably the closest region in terms of replicating the play-style just because of how much they play with the gun-skill.”
Natus Vincere’s next match could be pivotal as the team will face MIBR on Feb. 11 at 10 am CET. If the team doesn’t win against the Brazilians, they will have to defeat DWG KIA in order to avoid being kicked out – the same as Mexico – in the group stage.