Natus Vincere are one of the most storied organizations in Counter-Strike. They are the only team that has earned the right to attend every single Major in Valve’s history of overseeing the events. That’s 24 Majors without missing a single one dating back to 2013. That’s a better attendance record than any player, coach, or broadcast talent. Despite holding that record, it’s not a secret in the second season of 2026 that Navi is not reaching the same heights or even maintaining the same floor that they have in year’s past. Even though Navi are extremely likely to make the upcoming Singapore Major (96% as of the time of writing this via HLTV’s Singapore Major Ranking), a change seems more likely by the end of the year than staying the course.
I have seen enough of this current Navi roster. It’s been 5 months since they last won a trophy, but the more we dive into the context of it, the weaker it seems. Yes, they did beat Vitality en route to their commanding 3-0 win over GamerLegion in the grand finals, but that was an IEM Atlanta where every other Top 10 team barring themselves and Vitality attended the more competitive PGL Astana which ran concurrently. Since then it’s been 5 consecutive tournaments of failing to reach the quarterfinals, including zero playoff runs.
That being said, I will argue that there is no single fix for this Navi team. B1ad3 is one of the most brilliant tactical minds in Counter-Strike who has won 13 S-Tier Lan trophies, including 2 Majors with 2 entirely different cores of players. In fact, his first S-Tier LAN trophy in 2019 contained none of the same players as his most recent 2026 trophy (flamie was playing back then, not b1t). AleksiB raised an ENCE team to relevancy and outlasted all of his teammates on that team, culminating in his PGL Copenhagen Major victory in 2024 with Navi and is still considered one of the brightest IGLs today. iM has proven a strong secondary voice who aids in coordinating the action. makazze is a budding talent who would rank among the top 15 riflers in 2026 even though he has had a dip in form. b1t is a mercurial anchor and lurker who can be the X-factor in some of Navi’s biggest wins. Finally, w0ndeful on any given day is likely the best or 2nd best player for Navi.
Regardless of all of their strengths, I figured it would be fun to theorycraft what replacing each of the 6 core members of Navi’s roster would look like. I’ll be giving one suggestion with varying degrees of reasonability and efficacy per member of Navi and what this replacement would accomplish for the team.
-iM, +Staehr
This would be a huge injection of firepower for a Navi which has been struggling on that front for the year. Even when Astralis is losing, Staehr can frequently put up numbers in aggressive positions. iM’s greatest weakness is his lack of mechanical ability in head to head duels. iM’s smarts and communications are difficult to replace, but with the variety of IGLs and coaches that Staehr has played under, he’s gone through various iterations of playstyles and should be able to slot in with less growing pains than the ordinary entry fragger.
Regarding positions, these 2 have a lot of overlap as aggressive pack riflers on T-side and rotation players on CT-side. Cache, Anubis, and Ancient see them playing the same or similar positions. The benefit of picking up Staehr is that he’s played all of the rifle positions you could name on a map so it even lends some flexibility to the team.
-AleksiB, +iM as IGL
This move does not involve a specific player replacement because the world is Navi’s oyster if they decide that they want to appoint iM to the captain role. As we’ve seen from team communications in various tournaments, iM is already heavily contributing to the mid-round calling for Navi, oftentimes entirely dictating the next plan and coordinating macro actions. Given AleksiB’s difficult anchor positions across most of the maps (B on Mirage, A on Nuke), you’d be looking at players like HeavyGod, dem0n, zont1x, or even Tauson. This would give the team a more consistent individual performer, but it would come at the cost of losing your lead caller.
To entertain the idea of a new IGL coming in to replace AleksiB, my short-list would be Twistzz and Gizmy. With Twistzz, you’ll be playing a modern brand of CS where your caller can produce on the fragging front as well. Leaning into Gizmy would sacrifice some of Twistzz’s killing ability to enlist a captain who has his own way to deal with mid-rounds, but it’s been a vision that has proven effective at the Tier1.5/Tier2 level of opposition.
-b1t, +frozen
The list of players who are capable of replacing b1t is extremely slim so much so that the replacement I listed could even be a downgrade. frozen has been stuck in ELO hell for the past year with FaZe. The main concerns with b1t lately lie outside of the server. The temptation to jump ship seems ever present and in the likelihood that TeSeS is given the boot from Falcons, b1t would be the most likely replacement given b1t’s ability and friendship with m0NESY who just extended his professional engagement with Falcons until 2030.
The other issue with b1t is that there does seem to be a strong frustration from him in the Navi losses. frozen, on the other hand, has been a consummate professional while donning the FaZe jersey. There has been little public frustration vented on his end and he’s keeping a high level while the team has sunk to the depths of local European LANs to stay afloat in the volatile VRS circuit.
-makazze, +insani
This one is most outlandish so far, but HLTV has reported that insani’s deal with MIBR ends at the end of 2026. insani has been an massive statistical outlier while playing for MIBR, practically smurfing in every tournament where MIBR dips down beneath Tier 1 for some easy VRS points and he continues to hold his own even when MIBR get the occasional call up to a bigger event. Everyone would want to see insani join a better team and the Brazilian player has already paved the way for himself by continuing to flourish on a team which has made the jump to speaking English for the past 9 months. The door is open to a major upgrade for insani.
-w0nderful, +molodoy
Let me start by saying that there are only 4 AWPers that are definitively better than w0nderful: ZywOo, m0NESY, and sh1ro. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, if molodoy is really on the way out of Furia, then Navi would be a fitting landing place. Even though the timing lines up here, w0nderful has proven the most consistent player on Navi for 2026. He’s frequently topping the charts and this would more so signal a stylistic change for Navi on the AWPing front than a well-rounded one.
molodoy is simply more aggressive than w0nderful. He isn’t better in the mid-late round and he certainly isn’t better on the rifle. w0nderful clears him in both of those categories which is why I see this the most far-fetched. molodoy may have a better overall Rating this year, but that’s before you look into when they face the best opposition where w0ndeful bests him.
-B1ad3, +Zeus
Now this would be a vibe shift. Zeus hasn’t interacted with professional Counter-чStrike for 5 years now. But damn he could lead a team. A proven captain with his PGL Major Krakow victory and a clear leader of men, this would be a big morale swing for Navi.
However, after a little honeymoon I’d expect Navi would find that these motivational speeches are not backed by significant tactical depth. Zeus could get himself up to speed with modern Counter-Strike and perhaps offer a different perspective on how Navi should play, but we’re looking for changes that are going to improve Navi now, not after a brutal teething period.
