Natus Vincere defeated 3DMAX in the 2-2 decider at ESL Pro League Season 23 to progress to the playoffs at the Annexet Arena in Stockholm.
The result was a welcome win as NAVI defeated the French roster 2-1 by dominantly winning Ancient 13-5 to seal the series. They also swept 3DMAX aside 13-5 on the French roster’s pick of Dust 2.
There is only one major issue. NAVI lost their map pick… again. It is something that has become a consistent trend of 2026 for the roster, which was once lauded as the most tactically adept team in Tier 1.
NAVI’s abject map pick record
Of the 15 series NAVI has played this year, they have won their own map pick only five times. Given that your own map pick is meant to favour you, a win percentage of 33.3% on your own map pick would usually be indicative of a lower-ranked team playing an event against superior opposition.
Instead, NAVI is a Tier-1 team, and there’s little doubt about it either. Victory against 3DMAX means that they have two playoff berths this year in four events in 2026, losing in the single-elimination online stage of BLAST Bounty and missing out on the Kraków playoffs after a 2-1 defeat to eventual Grand Finalists FURIA.
The fact that NAVI is still managing to be competitive without a home map to draw upon is anomalous, this time in a positive way. It’s not all doom and gloom for NAVI, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows either, to put it mildly. Without a home map as a floor, they can seemingly still be playoff gatekeepers, but not playoff contenders.
A closer look at NAVI’s map pick problem – A story of decline
So, how does NAVI fix its issue? Let’s take a closer look at NAVI’s 2026 map picks to see what’s going wrong:
- Nuke: 13-11 loss vs Monte
- Anubis: 19-16 loss vs Parivision
- Mirage: 16-14 loss vs Spirit
- Mirage: 13-7 loss vs FURIA
- Mirage: 13-6 win vs Astralis
- Mirage: 13-7 loss vs MOUZ
- Mirage: 13-9 loss vs Aurora
- Nuke: 13-7 loss vs The MongolZ
- Ancient: 13-9 win vs G2
- Ancient: 13-10 win vs MOUZ
- Inferno: 13-1 win vs Inferno
- Mirage: 13-5 loss vs G2
- Inferno: 13-7 win vs B8
- Mirage: 13-10 loss vs Legacy
- Inferno: 13-5 loss vs 3DMAX
The most obvious thing that stands out amongst these losses is how often NAVI are picking Mirage. They have picked it seven times in 2026, and have won one of those maps – a 13-6 win against Astralis – a winrate of 14%.
Including when they do not pick the map, they have a slightly better record of 25%. It goes without saying that picking a map you have a 25% winrate on is not typical, nor is it advised.
The collapse of Mirage is not to be underestimated for NAVI, not just in 2026, but as a general trend of decline from their 2024 success.
In 2024, it was the backbone of their success, as they racked up 12 wins in a row on the map between June and August 2024. NAVI won four trophies in 2024, including the Major, enjoying a streak of six Grand Finals in seven events in the process.
During that period, stretching from BLAST’s London Spring Finals to IEM Rio, NAVI won 16 out of 19 contests on the map, a win rate of 84.2%.
Now, Vitality is dominating Counter-Strike, with a similar foundation of success on Dust 2. They have the knowledge that, going into most series, they essentially have a 1-0 lead.
However, even by the end of 2024, NAVI’s Mirage had collapsed. They had been studied; they were being read on T-side. Gone were the days when they had teams looking the wrong way or rotating to the wrong places. Without those tactical advantages, the roster’s inherent weakness in firepower became more of an issue.
Additionally, Valeriy ‘b1t’ Vakhovskiy’s opening moves were being countered in his CT-position on Balcony, making a key piece of NAVI’s defence inert.
Losses to Astralis, MOUZ, FaZe, Spirit, and Heroic saw them lose four of their last six times on the map in 2024, signalling the end of NAVI’s era of success.
In 2025, NAVI seemingly lost confidence in the map as the year went on. They nomadically roamed from map to map, struggling to build a strong map pool with their individuals. Gradually, they moved away from Mirage to Nuke, and finally towards Train, which they cemented as their home map at the Budapest Major.
NAVI played Train five times at the Major, losing only to Vitality. In the process, NAVI played their tactically most perfect Counter-Strike of the year, in a demolition of an in-form FURIA roster, winning 13-3 and completely outclassing the Brazilian roster.
Finally, NAVI could call a map its own. After about a year of struggling to adjust to losing their advantage on Mirage, NAVI could imagine a world where they had an advantage in the veto again.
…Then Train was removed after Budapest
We can clearly see the ramifications of that decision in the early part of the year, picking Mirage five series in a row and only winning one of them. NAVI desperately went back to a familiar relationship, aware that it wasn’t quite the same as it used to be.
NAVI moving away from Mirage – Is it working?
While NAVI were undoubtedly hurt more than most by the map pool change, is that an excuse to still be struggling with the issue in March?
For 99% of teams, the answer should clearly be no, but for NAVI, the issue is more philosophical. The team’s success on the map stemmed not from outgunning the opposition but winning in a specific way, which spread the responsibility amongst players who lack firepower relative to other Tier-1 lineups.
For NAVI, clinging on to Mirage may not only be just clinging on to past success, but also the dream that their firepower deficiency may be overcome by collective action. In order to win elsewhere, NAVI requires more individual responsibility, and (crucially) more headshots.
We can clearly see NAVI moving away from Mirage as the year has gone on, picking it just twice in the last eight series. Inferno and Ancient have largely deposed it, but why those maps? In a reverse of philosophy, it all comes down to individuals.
For Ancient, Drin ‘makazze’ Shaqiri is clearly the focal point of NAVI’s attempt to shift to the map. The Kosovar was part of a NAVI Junior who successfully climbed from nowhere to high Tier-2 off the back of hundreds of reps on the map.
NAVI’s current game plan revolves around setting up makazze for opening success in mid. Once mid control is established, Ancient’s map dynamics are such that you can effectively go anywhere on the map.
Fans will remember the Budapest Major semi-final against FaZe, where makazze time and time again provided multikills in mid to split FaZe’s defence. Having an entry with that ability is rare. It makes sense that NAVI is seeking to use him.
For a player who still looks uncomfortable on other maps, displaying questionable decision-making on maps like Dust 2 and Nuke, Ancient may provide makazze with that level of familiarity that prevents overthinking or rookie mistakes.
On Inferno, NAVI fans will know that b1t is a specialist on the map, displaying far more consistency on it relative to the rest of the map pool. In 2025, b1t averaged a 1.13 HLTV rating on the map; in 2024, a startling 1.34.
While NAVI may be moving in the right direction, away from Mirage, they still have a gaping issue. As a team, they’re not particularly good at Ancient or Inferno, hence why their map pick win percentage in 2026 is still 50% even when excluding Mirage. While makazze may be comfortable on Ancient, the team as a whole clearly is not, especially when makazze’s opening gambit fails.
To add to that, a lot of the top teams are very good at Inferno, much better than NAVI at the moment in terms of controlling Banana, judging rotations, and setting up fakes, which mislead the opposition. Their Inferno is where they are as a team: good enough, but not elite.
There seems to be a disconnect, then, between where NAVI’s firepower can shine and where they are collectively comfortable. This disconnect likely resulted in NAVI returning to Mirage for their series against Legacy and G2, despite the team’s struggling record there.
If Navi stops picking Mirage completely, will it lead to success?
The departure from the map may lead to NAVI getting to more playoffs in 2026, but as far as winning an event… That’s extremely unlikely.
This map pool has left them without a map that they can consistently have an advantage on. Instead, they have more onus on individual players to deliver, but NAVI doesn’t have the individual players to bowl over Vitality, MOUZ, Falcons, Spirit, etc.
2025 has shown NAVI that they cannot win the same way any longer. Andrii ‘B1ad3’ Horodenskyi’s coaching could only take the roster so far in what was an improving scene, with several teams making changes to catch up to Vitality’s historically high level.
NAVI’s map pool shift already signifies that they are exploring new ways of winning, a way that relies on individual skill more than their previous collective responsibility model. But with that new way of winning, you need players who can step up and make a difference in big moments.
NAVI simply must look to boost their firepower with compatible pieces if one of Counter-Strike’s most storied organisations wishes to win again.
Who would you like to see in NAVI? You can discuss that, and more, on our Discord Server!
For more Pro League Season 23 news, you can see how FaZe were eliminated from the competition here.
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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