Ukraine's NAVI reaches IEM Beijing esports semifinals after beating Russian team
After losing the first map, Mirage, NAVI turned the match around with wins on Inferno and Ancient, HLTV reported the result.
One of the standout players was 21-year-old sniper Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov, who delivered consistent performances across all three maps. The semifinal spot extends NAVI's strong finish to the season.
The team has now reached the playoffs for the second tournament in a row, after a string of early exits.
NAVI took a risk with its map picks, choosing Mirage first — the weakest map in its seven-map pool. The Ukrainian team lost its pick 14–16.
But NAVI bounced back, winning the next two maps:
The comeback took the match to a deciding third map. PARIVISION's Jame Ali and Ivan "zweih" Gogin played key roles in keeping their team in the fight.
On Inferno, NAVI lost the first four rounds. But strong play from w0nderful, along with key contributions from captain Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen and Drin "makazze" Shaqiri, helped the team take control. NAVI won the map 13–9 to tie the series.
Ancient decided the match. NAVI played aggressively on defense, and Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi made a crucial play in a tense second half. He took out two opponents during an attack on the B site, helping NAVI close out the map 13–10.
NAVI won the series 2–1 and secured a place among the top four teams at IEM Beijing.
Analysts named two Ukrainian players as NAVI's top performers overall:
NAVI will face Mongolian team The MongolZ in the IEM Beijing 2026 semifinals on November 7. The tournament runs in Beijing from November 2 to 8, with a total prize pool of 1.25 million US dollars.
NAVI's next tournament starts on November 24 in Singapore. It will be a Major, the season's most prestigious competition.
In 2011, the Ukrainian esports team Natus Vincere (NAVI) became the first-ever champions of The International, the biggest tournament in the world of Dota 2. In 2021, NAVI's CS team won the PGL Major Stockholm.
NAVI also became the first esports team to win three major Counter-Strike tournaments in a single year: the World Cyber Games 2010, Intel Extreme Masters, and Electronic Sports World Cup.
The Ukrainian team also won the first-ever Counter-Strike 2 championship, held in Copenhagen. NAVI received 500,000 US dollars in prize money, along with spots at the BLAST Premier World Final and Esports World Cup 2024.
On May 18, the Ukrainian team Natus Vincere (NAVI) won the IEM Atlanta 2026 grand final in Counter-Strike 2, beating German team GamerLegion.
NAVI also won the Intel Extreme Masters Rio 2024 tournament in Counter-Strike 2, with a 250,000 US dollar prize pool.
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7 of November 2026
