There is a Lot of History And Pride Involved in This Series
That is going to be Heroic’s main objective in the playoffs, take down the favorite team to win it all and prevent them from winning two major titles in a row. Last year both of these teams made it into the PGL Major Stockholm playoffs, but there is one big difference between these two events, in Stockholm Heroic and NaVi ended up on opposite sides of the brackets.
Now Heroic will finally have the chance to take down the champions and claim the throne themselves because let’s face it, whoever wins this match has basically secured a spot in the grand finals.
This matchup has been building up so much tension throughout the tournament as they didn’t get to meet in the earlier stages, and they only had one opponent in common, G2 Esports, and both teams almost dropped their game against them. That’s right, G2 Esports, the team that didn’t even make it into the playoffs, almost defeated two of the favorite teams to win the whole thing.
Natus Vincere didn’t drop a single game during the legends stage, while Heroic failed to secure one of the first spots in the playoffs after being defeated by Team Spirit and ENCE. If Heroic wins over NaVi, they might just start their redemption arc as they have a chance to face ENCE in the semifinals.
Heroic Were The First Team to Qualify for The Major… Thanks To NaVi?
On April 18, Heroic became the first team to qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp, after taking down Natus Vincere, and it actually was in a fairly convincing manner. Who could’ve guessed that they would meet during the first round of the playoffs, I really think that it cannot get any better than that. And if we look at both of their runs, NaVi had a much easier time during the qualifier, until they met Heroic of course.
The Danish squad had to face ForZe in their first match of the qualifiers, and they didn’t have much trouble against them. Later on the same day, Heroic met Fnatic, who unfortunately couldn’t make it into the major, and as the cs-go odds indicated, the game was a walk in the park for Heroic. Up until this point, it was impossible to predict the winner of the Heroic vs NaVi series because both teams hadn’t faced any of the stronger rosters in the tournament.
One of the most interesting things about this encounter is that Heroic and NaVi met a couple of weeks prior to the qualifiers, and — to put it bluntly — NaVi obliterated Heroic without a second thought, and I’m not exaggerating, the didn’t give Heroic a single opening during those games. The 2 games ended with an aggregate of 32-12 and NaVi secured first place in the group. Unfortunately, they didn’t get to meet in the playoffs as Heroic got knocked out by Team Liquid during the first round.
Although Heroic ended up winning against NaVi in their next encounter, you have to admit that those were two very different circumstances. I’m willing to bet that Heroic took their series against NaVi in the Pro League more personally than the one in the qualifiers. Cadian now has to demonstrate that he is the superior player and that s1mple will just be another player for him to take down.
I think that this series is the one that holds the highest emotional value out of all the series in the quarterfinals, there is a lot of pride involved and it’s mostly because Cadian’s first major title has been long due. And besides that, taking NaVi down means that Heroic would have a chance to claim revenge against ENCE if they are able to win against the Copenhagen Flames.
NaVi is Looking to Win Back-to-Back Majors
It’s kind of weird to see how a lineup so strong that’s been together for quite a while now, has managed to win only 1 major. Now, don’t get me wrong, winning a major is a very big deal, but it’s really surprising to see a team of this caliber not have multiple titles already, although who knows, if they manage to win this one then we might be witnessing the start of NaVi’s legendary major win streak.
The main character of this story has to be Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, the 24-year-old Danish player that is one of the 5 players in the playoffs holding a major title, the other 4 being his teammates of course. Yeah, there isn’t any other player carrying a major title into the playoffs, and it’s a bit shocking.
Some people think that it’s easier to top-frag when you are playing on a bad team, the logic being that you would have the highest chance to score the kills, right? Well, according to that logic, s1mple would be the absolute best player in the entire world right now because this guy somehow manages to look extremely good even when he is playing next to some of the best players in the world.
S1mple’s case is a very interesting one because although he’s been considered the best CSGO betting sites player in the whole world for a while now, he’s only been able to win 1 major in his entire career. But what makes his story so amazing, is that analysts back in 2016 had somewhat of a consensus that s1mple’s incredible performance against the best teams in the world was either one of the craziest “youth spikes” ever, or he would keep on getting better and no one would be able to handle him in the future.
Now in 2022, it’s pretty clear which of those two things happened. S1mple is in a whole different league when compared to some of the greatest players in the history of CSGO, and let’s not forget that he is only 24-years-old so it’s pretty safe to say that we will have s1mple for a while, and even if he decides to retire in the near future, we couldn’t be more grateful for what s1mple has delivered to all the CSGO fans around the world.
Winning another major for s1mple would simply further solidify his legacy in the CSGO history books. I’m not saying that he needs to win more titles to demonstrate he is a good player, no, he already did that many years ago, but we all know how important it is for the players to conquer these events, as they don’t have many opportunities in their careers to do so, and many cs-go betting experts would agree with his.
Heroic vs Natus Vincere Game Information
- Date: Friday, May 20th, 2022
- Time: 2:00pm ET
- Live Stream: PGL – Twitch
Take a Look at the Other 2 Picks for This Week’s CSGO Matchups
Heroic vs Natus Vincere Predictions
As we mentioned before, Heroic and NaVi have faced each other a myriad of times, and both have been able to take down their counterparts. Their most recent encounter was during the qualifiers for this major and Heroic came out on top with a 2-1 score against NaVi, but believe me when I say that none of that matters for this match.
They’ll be playing in front of thousands of people and I never get tired of saying how this makes a huge impact on the players, whether it be positive or negative. Heroic comes into this match as the underdog, because as many of us know, NaVi are the strongest contenders for the title. I think that Heroic is more momentum-based than NaVi, and while that can work out in their favor most of the time, I don’t think that this match will be another case.
NaVi is one of the most solid lineups in the tournament and playing against them in front of a crowd might not be the best scenario for Heroic. I think that NaVi will do as expected and roll over Heroic, securing their first victory in the playoffs. This would be our last csgo odds for the quarterfinals, but stay tuned as we still have many more matches left in the major.
