Intel Grand Slam Season 5 started on April 17, 2023. That’s the date when FaZe Clan won the 4th IGS. Since then, not a single team has managed to win four titles during a window of 10 consecutive tournaments, including one of the following three: IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne, or an ESL Major.
At the moment, both Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan have two victories. Team Vitality, G2 Esports, MOUZ, and Team Spirit have one. However, Na’Vi still have eight remaining chances, while FaZe Clan only have two of them.
Vitality have seven and G2 have six, but based on their recent results, they’re unlikely to win three of their next 6-7 tournaments.
Natus Vincere’s Current Form
At the start of 2024, Na’Vi was faced with big challenges and a lot of uncertainty. The team’s best player, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, had decided to take a break just several months before. He was replaced by a 17-year-old named Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov, who has since become a formidable AWPer.
On top of this, most of Na’Vi’s roster had changed in June 2023 and the team ended the year without a single trophy. The question on everyone’s mind was pretty clear: will the organization descend into mediocrity without its star player?
The answer came at the end of March, when Natus Vincere won the PGL Major in Copenhagen. Several failures followed this big success but pretty soon, Na’Vi started to dominate the professional scene.
Between June and October, they played in six consecutive Grand Finals of S-tier events, winning three of them, including the most recent one, IEM Rio 2024.
This performance is certainly enough to guarantee that the current Na’Vi roster will remain unchanged until the end of next year, unless the players themselves choose to step down and search for other opportunities. But why would they?
