Balance is the key to victory. Breakdown of the FaZe vs. Natus Vincere match / BLAST Pro Series Miami

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Unexpectedly for many, including myself, FaZe Clan won the last BLAST Pro Series Miami. Even if this tournament shouldn’t be considered as serious as others, this victory for the “galacticos” may be psychologically important. FaZe started the group phase with a defeat and a draw – but 3 following victories opened their path to the final. Any defeat could have left the European team behind the final match, but FaZe managed it. First of all with themselves. We will analyze one of these three matches, namely an encounter with Natus Vincere, which FaZe won with a score of 16:10 on the Overpass.

The general course of the game

The score of 16:10 seems not very close, but in fact, despite the first half concluding with a score of 11:4, FaZe could had encountered a lot more problems in the defense. The competent game on the defense against “galacticos” and missteps from Natus Vincere also helped. Na`Vi had a chance comeback to the match to the last, but one unfortunate decision from Na`Vi and one competent one from FaZe eventually removed all questions about the winner.

Pistol rounds

Both pistol rounds added points to the FaZe piggy bank. The Europeans started the game in defense, reinforced B site and left Guardian as a solo player in the toilets. Despite the fact that Natus Vincere decided to go slowly to A, they did not succeed thanks to the perfect game of Ladislav. He just did what he had to do, but did so perfectly – he stood neatly, collected information and moved into the depth of the patient A, not forgetting to check whether Na`Vi was going to A. While the teammates were moving to A, GuardiaN gave the first kill and then traded- but crucially he had won enough time. The second pistol round turned out to be much simpler – FaZe used a fast B-site execute; Na`Vi did not hold them.
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Na`Vi lost both post pistol rounds, but more importantly, the pistol rounds reflected more general points.

GuardiaN – The Perfect Entry Fragger

In a specific game, of course. For the Slovak, the game began with an entry frag during pistol round. In total for the game, he made 4 opening kills with zero lost duels. 100% effective. Important point: one of the four frags fell on a key round – the fourth. The victory in it allowed FaZe to break Na`Vi’s economy and break ahead to a 5:1 score.

FaZe weren’t shy with fast attacks

Unlike Natus Vincere; and this is the second conclusion of the pistol rounds. For their half, Na`Vi had exactly 0 well-organized fast  B-executes FaZe was also in no hurry and proceeded cautiously, but in the two most important rounds, they launched a B assault – the second pistol and the final round. Both times were a success. To describe in common: FaZe were moderately cautious on their attack, and Na`Vi were too slow in the entire game.

FaZe competently alternated rounds in the defense

During the first half FaZe defended very carefully – and this worked out against the slow play of Natus Vincere. The “galacticos” avoided many unnecessary deaths. We can note the weak game FaZe on the long, according to the default, most rounds they ignored this position. But several times FaZe turned on long. For example, the first rounds were for FaZe without an active long, but in the sixth the Europeans made an early double lunge. Yes, they found no one, but the information was collected. Potentially, if Na`Vi played a slow default through the control of connector and fountain, they would probably be surprised rain and NiKo. Later, long was either controlled by the GuardiaN with the AWP, or it was carefully viewed from the site.

Na`Vi dealt with the problem of entri-frags

At least in a particular game, there was such a feeling. During the last year, Natus Vincere’s main problem on Overpass was an endless 4 × 5 rounds. Even winning a map, Na`Vi were loosing often heavily by first kills: -3, -5. A good example of this is the Na`Vi – Fnatic match at ESL One Cologne 2018. Na`Vi beat Fnatic on Overpass with a score of 16:12, but lost 13:15 on the first kills. Over time, Natus Vincere identified this problem and began working on it. This mainly concerns patience. Na`Vi stopped making early single and pair attacks on a massive scale, reducing their number to a minimum, began to play more closed. For clarity, the actions of Electronic while a score was 14:6 (against pistols!):
elec peek
He Checked, threw a grenade, jumped, took a closed position. 5-6 months ago Na`Vi would take more aggressive actions. In this regard, they are great. But it is interesting that as soon as Natus Vincere tried to play aggressively with the score 10:14, the round was lost, despite the advantage gained during the trade

Na`Vi lost several rounds they had in a pocket

If for the second half of the questions at least – Na`Vi played well in defense – then 4 rounds in the attack on Overpass is not at all a lot. Na`Vi could have taken much more points in the first half, but they gave away three winning situations – they lost 4×3 rounds twice, 3×2 once. At the same time, Natus Vincere were ruined by an over-careful game. *** The match between Na`Vi and FaZe in Miami has turned out not only interesting and close, but also decent in tactical terms. FaZe showed excellent defense, which, given the difficulties of our team in the attack, turned into a weighty advantage in a total of 15 rounds. At the same time, the efforts of Natus Vincere to return to the game were stopped by the aggressive game of FaZe at the right moments. GG WP
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