Na'Vi suffer early elimination in Turkey, Heroic lives on

Na'Vi's humiliating early departure came at the hands of a new Heroic with the same impressive upset potential as the previous CS:GO roster.

An opening game loss to a new Serbian-infused G2 Esports put the CIS titans into the lower bracket, one best-of-three loss away from elimination.

Despite a 0% winrate on the map, Na'Vi picked Train against the Danes Heroic who had suffered defeat at the hands of AVANGAR.

Four out of five Na'Vi players finished the first map on a 1.18 rating or above, including a 1.33 for Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev. However, multiple rounds lost to time running out helped to gift a ten round streak to Heroic's CT side in the first half. Clawing it back and taking the lead, Na'Vi's recovery was stifled as Heroic simply edged them out in the closing rounds to a 16-14 finish.

Nuke as the second map was Heroic's choice and a solid CT start, with neither full buys nor Deagles working out for Na'Vi in the opening rounds.

The 1v2 above for s1mple against cadiaN and stavn put the first on the board, but a quick round from Heroic prevented any momentum building while dashing Na'Vi's economic growth.

As Na'Vi's struggles continued, 5 rounds won gave them a fighting chance if they stepped up on CT side and could take the second pistol round.

Two headshots allow s1mple to ensure Na'Vi retake the B site after the plant and win the all-important pistol, but the triple Krieg buy enabled by the previous round's plant allowed Heroic to strike back and win 16th round.

Heroic racked up three rounds in a row before Na'Vi answered back and shut down an attempted A rush.

The chaotic last second plant saw a save come in for the CTs and gave Heroic their 14th round, with the 15th coming as Na'Vi once again saved with limited money and a pair of rifles carried over to try make it to overtime.

Flamie's initial FAMAS kill was converted to two more and the round itself thanks to the scavenged Krieg, and a full buy that followed brought the scoreline to 15-9 in the first back-to-back rounds for Na'Vi in the half.

Close rounds went in Na'Vi's favour but a pistol rush onto A saw a promising retake fail for Na'Vi and the final scoreline was 16-11.

Heroic will next face Evil Geniuses in the next round of the lower bracket.

The StarSeries i-League Season 8 action continues on the official StarLadder Twitch channel throughout the rest of this week, with Renegades, Vitality, NiP and G2 already through in the upper bracket.