CS:GO: 5 Reasons Why Na`Vi Made The Right Move Choosing B1T Over Flamie

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CS:GO: 5 Reasons Why Na`Vi Made The Right Move Choosing B1T Over Flamie

We take a look at 5 solid reasons why Na`Vi made the right choice in B1T.


Some people think that Na`Vi decision to bench Egor “flamie” Vasilyev was not the best, or at least, they made it at the wrong time. But even Natus`Vincere have mentioned it might possibly be a temporary move, but there's more than a few reasons why Vasilyev might not make it back into the active roster.

1. B1T is hungry to win and motivated

Valeriy “B1T” Vakhovskiy is only 18 years old, he's just started his way in professional esports. But Vakhovskiy has been working incredibly hard to prove himself. During the last year B1T improved greatly. He’s almost a complete tier-1 player by now.
B1T is in charge and it will help not only him but also the team in general.

2. B1T fits Na`Vi’s playstyle much better than flamie

In fact, from the moment Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko departed, flamie's quality of game has slowly started to degrade. As Natus`Vincere transferred the in-game leader duties to Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov, their playstyle changed.

As a result, flamie's lost some of his confidence in the current structure of Natus Vincere. The way Na`Vi have been playing, assumes some amount of freedom for players during the game. They tend to play with general calls and gameplan with small amounts of micro midround calls. Zeus had a more micro-management system, which was more comfortable for flamie. In the current, slightly blurry, playstyle Vasilyev sometimes felt lost during the rounds and couldn’t show enough flexibility. It's not that flamie is a bad player, but like many players, he depends on the particular in-game leader he plays with.

3. flamie has lost internal rivalry

Perhaps one of the most important points, B1T played his very first match for the main roster of Natus`Vincere January 20. Since then, almost three months have passed, during which flamie, from an outsiders point of view, failed to motivate himself and step up in this competition.
Instead, his performance in key rounds and positions became more unstable which led to B1T’s arrival, first for Overpass and Mirage, and eventually to the temporary change on all maps now.

This might be considered rude to point out, but it’s a weird situation. Even if internal rivalry is different to a competition versus other teams in general, the main point is still the same. CS:GO is a competitive esport and rivalry is the basis for that. Unlike B1T, flamie has lost some of the motivation he needs to keep up with his peers.

4. B1T probably signed a way smaller contract

While the size of the contract might not be a very important factor in Na`Vi's considerations, it is a small bonus for the organization.

5. B1T has a huge room to improve

Vakhovskiy has an exciting future ahead of him. Maybe he won’t become a star player like Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev or Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. But he's on his way to becoming a stable tier-1 player – for sure. His role and duties in Natus`Vincere differ widely from Denis “electronic” Sharipov and s1mple’s. All Natus`Vincere need for now from B1T is stability, but he hasn't reached his ceiling yet.

The next couple of events will show how it goes, but, if B1T doesn’t roughly fail his performance, it's hard to see flamie coming back to Natus Vincere’s active lineup.

Slava Britvin
Slava "innersh1ne" Britvin is a CS:GO analyst and esports journalist. He currently performs as an analyst for FaZe Clan & as a partnered author of CS.MONEY at ESTNN. You can learn more about Slava on our About page. Twitter @innersh1necsgo.