History 2009: Formation In October 2009, Murat "Arbalet" Zhumashevich declared the creation of an esports organization during the Intel Extreme Masters tournament being held in
Dubai. He was to provide the finances required to run the organization and also provide a place for players to train in, while starix, a
Counter-Strike professional player, took up the duty of creating a lineup for the organization. On 17 December 2009, Natus Vincere, at the time with the name of Arbalet UA, was formed, based around their Counter-Strike team, which consisted of players Ivan "Edward" Sukharev, Yegor "markeloff" Markelov, Sergey "starix" Ischuk, Arsenij "ceh9" Trunozhenko and Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko, with ZeroGravity taking the position of manager. The abbreviation Na'Vi was inspired by the film
Avatar, with its full form being decided by the fans through a competition.
2010: Multiple championships After a poor performance at the Arbalet Cup CIS 2010 (4th place), Markeloff, the team's top player, decided to skip the next big tournament, ASUS Winter 2010, so that the team could prepare for the Arbalet Cup and the Ukrainian qualifications for the ESWC. In the middle of May 2010, Na'Vi took 2nd place in the prestigious Arbalet Cup Europe 2010 in
Stockholm, losing to
Fnatic in the finals and earning $10,000 in prize money. Na'Vi finally gained victory at ESWC Ukraine. In the final part of the ESWC, the team hit the highest seeding, along with
SK Gaming, Fnatic, and
mTw.dk. On 4 July 2010, Natus Vincere achieved the highest accolade in the history of Ukrainian e-Sports, winning the ESWC (which previously could not be reached by any CIS team), defeating
SK Gaming in the finals: 16:5 (de_train) and 16:4 (de_inferno). During the tournament Na'Vi passed through the group stage thanks to fortune, but got outplayed by Fnatic and mTw.dk in the playoffs. After being victorious in the world championship, Natus Vincere announced their participation in 2 more tournaments—Arbalet Cup
Dallas and GameGune 2010 (
Bilbao). On 18 July 2010, Na'Vi won Arbalet Cup Dallas beating
Mousesports in the final match: 19:15 (de_dust2), 16:12 (de_inferno). After receiving $25,000, Na'Vi took the first place in quantity of prize money earned by European teams that year. Na'Vi took 3rd place in GameGune 2010 and
Intel Extreme Masters Shanghai. On 15 August, Na'Vi won the Ukrainian qualifications for the
2010 World Cyber Games and received a paid voucher to the finals in
Los Angeles from 30 September to 3 October 2010. The next tournament for Na'Vi was ASUS Summer 2010, to which the team received a direct invitation. This tournament became first in the ASUS Open series, which was held at
Kyiv gaming center "Kyiv CyberSport Arena". In the semi-finals Na'Vi lost to Kazakh team
k23 and as a result took the 3rd place. On 4 October 2010, Natus Vincere became the World Cyber Games world champions by defeating Danish team
mTw.dk in the finals. This victory made Na'Vi the first team in the world which had managed to hold the three most prestigious championship titles at once (IEM, ESWC, WCG). At the end of October 2010, ESL TV commentator Bakr "KinGSaicx" Fadl proclaimed that
SK Gaming was going to invite the Ukrainian team to take place of its Swedish squad, but the manager of Natus Vincere declined this information. In early November 2010 Natus Vincere took part in the World e-Sports Masters tournament (WEM 2010), which annually gathers the best teams from all over the world in the Chinese city of
Hangzhou. Among the eight participants of the tournament, Na’Vi took 4th place as well as $7,500. From the 25th to the 27 November 2010, in the Swedish city of Jönköping the largest LAN party in the world took place—
DreamHack Winter 2010. To go to this tournament, Natus Vincere had to skip a major Russian tournament, ASUS Autumn 2010, since it was coinciding with DreamHack's dates. After finishing the group stage Na'Vi consistently outplayed teams puta, Fnatic,
Frag Executors, and
mTw.dk in the finals, winning the tournament. During the four playoff matches the Ukrainians lost only one time to Fnatic on the new map—de_mirage. "Starix" (Serhiy Ischuk) received the tournament's MVP award. After winning
DreamHack Winter 2010, the team established a new record: winning $220,000 in one year. The previous record belonged to Swedish team Fnatic, who earned $189,000 in 2009 (before that, the record was held by Swedish team
SK Gaming with earnings of $183,000 in 2003). In 2010, popular website HLTV.org had made rankings for the 20 best
Counter-Strike players. Yegor "markeloff" Markelov was 1st place, Sergey "Starix" Ischuk 4th, Ioann "Edward" Sukharev 5th, and the captain of Na'Vi, Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko had 19th place, as well as "The best captain of the year".
2011 On 5 March 2011, Na'Vi defended their position in
Hannover as the champions of the
Intel Extreme Masters and earned $35,000. They defeated Polish team
Frag Executors in the finals: 16:12 (de_train) and 16:10 (de_dust2). $4,550 of the prize money was deducted (13% of the total) as a penalty for breaking the rules.
2015 Na'Vi reached the finals of
DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 where they were beat 0–2 by
Team EnVyUs. Na'Vi won
Intel Extreme Masters Season X - San Jose after beating
Team SoloMid (Now
Astralis) in the grand finals 2–0.
2016 Na'Vi had a successful year in 2016, starting with their victory over
Luminosity Gaming (now
MiBR) at DreamHack Leipzig 2016 on 22 January. They followed up with a 3rd–4th place finish at the
Intel Extreme Masters Season X – World Championship and a second-place finish at
MLG Columbus 2016, where they lost to Luminosity in the finals. On 17 April, they placed second at DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016. Later, on 22 May, Na'Vi secured a second-place finish at the StarLadder i-League Invitational #1, losing to
Virtus.pro in the finals. They achieved a 5th–8th place finish at
ESL One Cologne 2016 and a 3rd–4th place finish at
ELeague Season 1 on 29 July 2. On 4 August,
Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev joined the active roster, replacing Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko. Finally, on 22 September, Na'Vi became the champions of
ESL One: New York 2016, defeating Virtus.pro in the finals.
2017 On 10 March, team coach starix stepped down from his role in the team. He is replaced by team analyst Andrey "Andi" Prokhorov. On 28 July, Denis "seized" Kostin and
Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács stepped down from Natus Vincere. On 9 August, Mykhailo "Kane" Blagin was brought in and seized and Zeus returned. On 6 November, Na'Vi brought in Denis "electronic" Sharipov in place of seized who stepped down from the roster.
2018 On 8 July, Na'Vi ended up winning
ESL One Cologne 2018 over BIG 3–1.
2019 On 9 September, Na'Vi announced that Zeus would retire after
BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019. He retired on 14 September. On 20 September, Na'Vi acquired
GuardiaN from
FaZe Clan and Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy joined as a coach. GuardiaN later stepped down and was replaced by
Perfecto.
2021 On 12 September, Na'Vi became the 3rd team ever to complete the Intel Grand Slam after winning
IEM Katowice 2020,
IEM Cologne 2021,
DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 and
ESL Pro League Season 14. On 7 November they won their first
CS:GO Major,
PGL Stockholm 2021, defeating
G2 Esports 2–0. Team Na'Vi placed 1st at
BLAST Premier Fall Final 2021 and BLAST Premier World Final 2021. Na'Vi also cooperated with
Hator, producer of gamers oriented computer equipment, in coorganizing esport events in 22 cities of Ukraine.
2022 They proceeded to qualify for the Blast Spring Final and made it to the playoffs of IEM Katowice 2022, being favored to win the event. On 1 March 2022, following the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, Natus Vincere cut ties with their holding company, Russian esports conglomerate ESForce, saying that the company "publicly denies the horror that is now happening in Ukraine." Na'Vi CEO Yevhen Zolotarov stated his hope "that we are going to keep this roster and that the Russia-based players are going to relocate." After qualifying to the Legends stage for the
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 through the Europe Regional Major Rankings they proceeded to go 3–0 in that stage, beating G2, BIG, and NIP. They defeated Heroic 2–1 in the quarterfinals and ENCE 2–0 in the semifinals for their fifth major finals appearance. FaZe Clan won 2–0 for their first major victory. On 28 May, Boombl4 was removed from the active roster. The organization said his removal was "related to high reputational risks for the club, and it is not the result of his game." Na'Vi COO Oleksii "xaoc" Kucherov said that the other two Russian players, electronic and Perfecto, were relocating. Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev was brought in as a replacement for Boombl4 for Blast Premier Spring Final in Lisbon, and electronic became IGL. His continued play for Na'Vi "depends on his performance in the upcoming tournament". Na'Vi went on to win the event, beating Team Vitality in a dominant 2–0 in the final. Following this success, sdy continued being the fifth player for IEM Cologne. While FaZe and Na'Vi had been the only teams occupying the HLTV #1 spot during the 2022 season, IEM Cologne 2022 had many viable contenders. Many teams had a so-called "stand-in buff" during 2022, where many teams had success after introducing a stand-in or new player. Whether or not Na'Vi could continue after their success with their new player and IGL was uncertain. FaZe had dipped in form after the Antwerp Major, ENCE has been a playoff contender but had not lifted trophies, Cloud9 had won IEM Dallas and BIG had won Roobet Cup. The quarter-finals were filled with unexpected contenders but the semifinal contenders were occupied by the top 2 teams, FaZe and Na'Vi. Both teams won 2–0 in the semifinals to set up the grand final to "decide who the number one team is". In a very close 2–3 finish, FaZe came out on top. The second half of 2022 started with Blast Premier Fall Groups 2022. NAVI Junior AWPer headtr1ck stood in for s1mple for the group stage, who could not be in Copenhagen for personal reasons. They lost the opening game to Complexity but won successfully went through the lower bracket to win their group. They then qualified for the Blast Fall Final with a 2–0 victory over Vitality.
2023 NAVI qualified to the
Legends Stage of the
Blast Paris Major 2023, where they failed to make it to the playoffs after being eliminated by FaZe Clan. On 30 June, NAVI announced a new international roster made up of Finnish in-game leader Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen, Lithuanian Justinas "jL" Lekavičius, and Romanian Mihai "iM" Ivan playing alongside s1mPle and b1t, following the benchings of npl, Perfecto and electronic. Npl transferred to Ukrainian organization B8 on 9 July. On 14 July,
Cloud9 confirmed the signings of Perfecto and electronic. On 26 October, s1mple announced his intention to take a break from competitive play. His place on the active roster was replaced by Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov on 31 October.
2024 On 19 February, it was announced that s1mple had returned to professional
Counter-Strike, with a one-month loan to Saudi Arabian organization Team Falcons. On 31 March, NAVI won the first CS2 Major Championship tournament, beating
FaZe Clan 2-1 in the finals of the
PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024. Justinas "jL" Lekavičius was named the Most Valuable Player. Following their major win, NAVI finished 9th-12th at ESL Pro League Season 19 and IEM Dallas 2024. They proceeded to appear at six consecutive grand finals, winning 3 of the events: BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024, losing to Team Spirit 1-3; Esports World Cup 2024, beating G2 2-1; IEM Cologne 2024, losing to Vitality 1-3; ESL Pro League Season 20, beating
Eternal Fire 3-2; BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024, losing to G2 1-3; and IEM Rio 2024, beating MOUZ 3-1. NAVI was named the HLTV Team of the Year of 2024.
Current roster ==
Dota division==