The reigning champions of Counter-Strike 2 at the Esports World Cup, NAVI, have been eliminated in the opening round of 2025’s edition of the tournament. The current number one team, Spirit, was also eliminated, falling 2-1 to HEROIC.
A not so w0nderful performance from NAVI Image Credit: BLAST Open
NAVI Crash Out in Last Place
NAVI fell 2-1 to the French team 3DMAX in the opening game of the Esports World Cup CS2 event, becoming the first victims of one of the most brutal formats on the Counter-Strike circuit.
The Esports World Cup features a rare single-elimination bracket in an esport that typically favours Swiss or GSL for its Group Stages. NAVI won their second trophy of 2024 in last year’s event, taking down FURIA, FaZe, and MOUZ before defeating G2 in the final to lift the trophy.
However, despite an opening map win against 3DMAX, in the form of a 13-10 victory on Ancient, NAVI failed to keep momentum as the series progressed.
Newcomer Drin “makazze” Shaqiri shone on Ancient. However, much maligned Ukrainian AWPer Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov did little to change naysayers’ minds with subpar performances on both Inferno and Nuke, which NAVI lost 13-9 and 13-11 respectively.
NAVI has struggled to replicate its 2024 success this year. This loss will cut deep, given the fact that they were up 9-4 on Inferno and looked set for a routine 2-0 victory. A combined 19 kills out of Bryan “Maka” Canda and Alexandra “bodyy” Pianaro helped 3DMAX clinch an eight-round winning streak and begin the reverse-sweep.
Team Spirit Fall after Back-to-Back Event Victories
The biggest shock of the day came later when Team Spirit, the winners of both IEM Cologne 2025 and BLAST Bounty Season 2, lost to a team outside of the top five for the first time all year, falling 2-1 to HEROIC.
zont1x could have made his last appearance for Team Spirit. Image Credit: BLAST Open
Star man Danil “donk” Kryshkovets had an uncharacteristically quiet game, as he was out-fragged by teammate Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov.
HEROIC responded to a 13-5 drubbing on Ancient with a 13-3 domination of Nuke and a close 16-14 victory on Mirage to close out the series.
New Spirit signing Ivan “zweih” Gogin particularly struggled, as did their IGL Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov, as HEROIC stars Simon “yxngstxr” Boije and Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich starred to bring their team the upset.
The performance from tn1R adds extra weight to the conversation surrounding his proposed move to Spirit to replace Myroslaw “zont1x” Plakhotia after the World Cup.
FaZe and Astralis Join the Casualties
Those two games weren’t the only upsets on the opening day, FaZe Clan collapsed against Aurora after convincingly winning map one.
Both Havard “rain” Nygaard and Heljvis “broky” Saukants struggled, adding further credence to the murmurs that they will soon need to be replaced if FaZe hopes to make it back to the top.
Astralis also lost 2-1 to TYLOO, but given the recent match history between the two teams, it feels unfair on TYLOO to call that one a true upset.