After winning a major earlier this year, it cannot be denied that NAVI has become one of the easy picks to win in the Esports World Cup. The squad has proven itself to be a promising contender now more than ever, and finishing at the top over G2 Esports clearly sends a strong message as to how they hope to dominate the rest of the year.

The team had some struggles in their initial games before showing up with a dominant stretch for the whole tournament. Many people didn’t people believe that NAVI could win big, but it cannot be denied that their previous performances didn’t show a spike in confidence considering that they didn’t perform at a high level.

Now that the team has won the Esports World Cup, it seems that NAVI has silenced its critics with a promising victory that sets them as contenders moving forward. For now, it is easy to say that NAVI has imposed its will on the big stage as a top-five team in CS2, and they have done it in convincing fashion.

Proving the Critics Wrong

NAVI didn’t have any traction to begin their campaign in the Esports World Cup. Sure, the team won the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, it was a tight victory that had them battling to the final round – and they even lost more rounds than they won in that campaign. After weak performances in both the IEM Dallas 2024 and the BLAST Premiere: Spring Final, it proved to be quite the stretch for them to win.

Their campaign in the Esports World Cup was a storied climb to the top. NAVI defeated two massive favorites in FaZe Clan and MOUZ – who were both big winners in the top CS2 tournaments in the past few months. They didn’t hold back in their campaign as they went on to take on G2 Esports, which happened to be NAVI in-game leader Aleksib’s former team.

Every player of NAVI stepped up in a big way in the Final, and it proved to be a storied campaign for the team as Aleksib’s smart play-calling played a huge role in taking down the contenders. The NAVI IGL extended his winning streak against his former team with seven games in a row.

What’s Next For NAVI?

NAVI takes home the lion’s share of the prize pool at $400,000 for the first-place cash prize. The victory marks the club as the first team to win CS2 in the Esports World Cup. NAVI is now is expected to continue their winning pace in the next set of tournaments, starting with the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2024 next week and IEM Cologne this August.

With the win, NAVI Climbs is in third place in the Esports World Cup Club Championship, scoring 1,110 points as of the time of writing. They earned 110 points for a lowly finish in the Call of Duty: Warzone and were awarded 1,000 points for winning the CS2 championship. There are still a total of three tournaments where NAVI still has a sure slot to play in, which means that the team has a chance to climb to the top of the rankings as well.

For now, the focus of the team is to stay on the winning track, and it is expected that they will also prepare well en route to the ESL Pro League: Season 20 in September.