CS:GO Shadow analysis – How BIG won against NaVi

BIG won against NaVi in the group phase of the ESL Pro League Season XI 2-0. How did the German squad manage to beat the currently best team in the world on Dust 2?

After BIG had completely surprisingly wiped the floor with the CIS Squad on Nuke, the second map of the Best of three was Dust 2. Known to be a goal-heavy map, Navi seemed to have a good chance with Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. At a certain point, this went well, but the performance of the rest of the team was too weak.

Weaknesses of BIG on the T-side

With 10:5 Navi won her CT side very clearly. S1mple already had 23 kills at the end of the half. Of the five rounds BIG won, few were clear.

An exception was the eleventh round, where BIG strongly alluded to A-Lang. S1mple, who held the position alone from the car, had to be rescued with a smoke from Titian “tiziaN” Feldbusch’s Molotov. From there, he could not support his teammate Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov on the A-spot, who was taken out of the game.

At the same time, Florian “syrsoN” Rische maintained the center. So three players of NaVi were knocked out at the same time. Because of the smoke on short, they did not know precisely how many players of BIG were actually in the middle.

Due to the pressure on long, s1mple was forced to rotate on the spot. The Germans intercepted him, and the spot was free. Youngster Nils “k1to” Gruhne picked Egor “flamie” Vasilev at the CT-Cross. NaVi won the round without much resistance. SyrsoN played a decisive role in this strategy, even without getting a kill.

If BIG had tried to isolate s1mple more often like this, the T-Side would have been more successful. However, this was hardly the case, so we continue with the CT side.

BIG’s CT-Side: Textbook

Not enough that BIG was already 10:5 behind at this point. The black-yellow ones also won the second pistol round and could extend their lead. Eight laps behind.

But in the first real gun round, BIG showed the first potential for a catch-up. SyrsoN stood on the catwalk and fell directly into CT-Spawn after the first contact. Since tiziaN couldn’t hear anything on B, four players were directly near the A-Site to stop NaVis Go.

In the rotation, two players of the CIS team were intercepted. In the 4v2 superiority, BIG then easily managed to capture B Spot and disarm the bomb.

Meta: Center open

The rest of the CT side was relatively similar. What is also noticeable: When Big assumed that NaVi would go into an eco or half-buy round, they left the middle open. So there was one more player available on the busy B-side. So NaVi B-Side could not rush-out, and Ecowins were prevented.

BIG played the rest of the match down solidly. Except for a few rounds where s1mple turned up the heat, they were able to keep their opponents in check very well. This resulted in a 15:15 – Overtime stand.

A-Long: a weak point for NaVi

In the first overtime, BIG was able to win two CT-laps by a narrow margin. Another one on the T-Side was enough to cause second overtime.

Seemingly warmly played, BIG could finally claim two T-rounds for himself. Interestingly, the strategy was the same as in the first won T-round at the beginning of the game.

The only difference is who does the kills: İsmailcan “XANTARES” Dörtkardeş drew attention in the middle and got three opponents.

BIG also won the second round over A-Lang. NaVi noticed this gap in coverage afterwards and the Germans lost the last T-round. So they started into the CT side with one round advantage.

Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz gets the overtime

So BIG still had to win two rounds. And in two rounds, tabseN got three kills each, which decided the match.

In the last round, NaVi decided to play via Catwalk A-Spot, because the tunnel player fell and BIG had a lot of map control. TabseN, who wanted to defend from A-Spot, smoked Catwalk and jumped on the wooden boxes towards Kurz. From this off-angle, he could get an easy pick.

But NaVi decided to use an offensive Kurz smoke that obscured his view. Instead of checking the spot, they walk past tabseN.

Despite the enormous pressure, he mastered the situation: He let Boombl4 and flamie run by and waited for the bomb to drop. Three clean frags later, the CIS squad was decimated to one player, and the match was won.

Despite 54 kills from s1mple, BIG got the game 2:0, and even though some aspects of their game on Dust 2 were not perfect, the tactical component seems to be slowly getting back in tune. Therefore the players hit the most important shots—a very good performance of the German team.