The date is March the 5th 2011. Daniil “Zeus” Teslenko leads Natus Vincere (NaVi) to their fourth Counter Strike 1.6 major in 1 year. An achievement that hasn’t been, and most likely will never be replicated. But the success doesn’t last forever. Natus Vincere never manages to win another major in 1.6 and the game itself doesn’t last for much longer.
Difficult beginnings
In November of 2012 the entire NaVi squad switches over to CS:GO. Zeus and the rest of his team had come to the realization that the game they had spent countless hours to try and master wasn’t going to have a future. But the new game is not very kind to them. For about 8 months, NaVi tries to make it work with the legendary 1.6 lineup without much success. In July of 2013, the biggest star on the team, legendary 1.6 AWP’er Markeloff leaves the team. He is soon followed by fellow star player Edward, and together they join the CIS superteam Astana Dragons. Zeus is now left with fellow teammates Starix and Ceh9, who are both struggling to reach the level of play they managed to attain in the old game. The future is not looking bright for Zeus and NaVi. They are now forced to look elsewhere for talent, who are able to fill the shoes of two of their biggest names. The choice falls on Seized and Kibaken, who are both unproven on the big stage. Unsurprisingly, this roster change does not lead to immediate success.The first CS:GO major, DreamHack Winter 2013 results in a last-place finish for the former 4-time World Champions.
Shortly after the major, NaVi realizes that another change is necessary. Longtime member, Ceh9, and newcomer Kibaken are removed from the team, while former member Edward, and future CS:GO superstar, GuardiaN join. With the team built around the AWP of GuardiaN, trophies are finally on the horizon for NaVi. While the success doesn’t come immediately, Zeus & co finally win their first CS:GO trophy in May of 2014. On home soil in Kiev, NaVi manages to finish ahead of 3 of the best teams in the world, Titan, major champions Virtus.Pro and the CS:GO masters, NiP.
The goal of a world champion
While winning a tournament was a great step in the right direction, being a 4-time world champion comes with bigger expectations. Unlike 1.6, CS:GO has official world championships, the Valve CS:GO majors. Winning a major is the ultimate goal for every CS:GO player. Up to this point, Zeus hadn’t had much success in the majors, finishing last place in both of them. At the following majors, the results would improve. At ESL One Cologne 2014, Zeus and NaVi would reach top 8 for the first time in their history. This result got even better at Dreamhack Winter 2014, as the team reached top 4. But while top 4 might be enough for some, it’s not the goal that Zeus and his team are looking to accomplish. After being defeated in the quarterfinals by EnVyUs, at the following major, it was time for a roster change once again. Starix, another member of the legendary 1.6 lineup, steps down after continuously underperforming and becomes the coach of the team. He was replaced by the new up-and-coming star, Flamie. If Flamie was able to reach his full potential, Zeus would finally have a lineup capable of winning a major.
No longer the leader
With Flamie in the lineup, NaVi manages to win multiple trophies, taking victories at StarSeries XIII and ESWC 2015. But the major tells a different story. NaVi are yet again defeated in the quarterfinals by EnVyUs. Although this time, their reaction after the major is different. They don’t go as far as replacing a player, but instead, they internally replace their in-game leader.
Throughout his time at NaVi, Zeus had always been the in-game leader, but in September of 2015, he has to give up his preferred role. Instead, the role is taken up by former his former teammate, and now coach of the team, Starix. In what is perhaps a bittersweet moment for Zeus, NaVi reaches their first major final at Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca 2015. Starix has managed to unlock Flamie and combined with GuardiaN making a good case for being the best player in the world, they look like a team ready to take home the major trophy. But once again, they are stopped by the Frenchmen, EnVyUs.
In the following months, NaVi are playing the best they have ever played in CS:GO. Constantly finishing top 2 and taking home multiple trophies, only the very best teams in the world can stop them. Coming into the first major of 2016, Zeus & NaVi were looking like one of the favorites to take the tournament. The group stages were a piece of cake for NaVi, and they go through with a 2–0 score. The playoffs were drawn, and we were looking at what could be a dream match in the semifinal. If NaVi and Fnatic won their respective quarterfinals, we were going to see the two best teams in the world clash in the semifinals. NaVi does their part and easily defeat NiP 2–0. But their rivals Fnatic could not get the job done. Partially due to an injury to their star player Olofmeister, former 3-time major champions Fnatic are defeated 2–0 by Astralis. With their biggest competitors out of the tournament, nobody should be able to stop NaVi. Business is taken care of by NaVi in the semifinals, as they defeat Astralis 2–0. Now only the Brazilians of Luminosity Gaming, who had no big trophies to their name, stood in the way of Zeus and his teammates. All the spectators in the arena and the record-setting audience on the stream were expecting an epic display of skill and tactics, as these teams had shown us in the past. But what we all got to see was completely different. Prior to the tournament, GuardiaN, the superstar AWP’er of NaVi had sustained a wrist injury. In the final, he had to play with a sensitivity 3 times higher than usual. The rest of the team could not fill the shoes of one of the best players in the world and as a result, they were defeated in the final of the major for the second time in a row.
Replaceable
The next major, ESL One Cologne 2016, looked like it could be the last one for Zeus in NaVi. They took a step backward and were defeated in the quarterfinals by Team Liquid. But more importantly, they were defeated by Ukrainian superstar, s1mple. For a while, it had looked inevitable that s1mple had to join NaVi. Afterall, how could the best player in the CIS region not be on the best CIS team? After his performance against NaVi, they absolutely had to recruit him.The choice became to replace Zeus. Since he was no longer the in-game leader his value to the team had dropped drastically. Now he was just an average rifler, whose main role was to set up the rest of his team. On October 12th of 2016, Zeus was removed from the team.
“I am not going to give up before I win a motherfucking major”
Only a few months prior, Zeus had made what is now a very famous tweet. In the tweet, he declared that he would not give up before he won another major. But now that he was no longer in NaVi, that statement looked like it was very far away from becoming a reality. One part of it was in fact true, Zeus did not give up. On the same day it was announced that he had been removed from NaVi, it was also announced that he had joined Gambit Gaming. Now Zeus had the chance to take up his old role of in-game leader. While it didn’t take long for Zeus to take his team to tournament victories, they weren’t exactly the caliber of competition that Zeus had hoped to win. While winning Dreamhack Winter 2016 sounds great on paper, considering the history of the tournament, it doesn’t look great when you realize that your opponent in the final is the, for the most part unimpressive, Renegades. At the ELEAGUE Major in 2017, Gambit managed to reach top 8, an impressive feat for a team of their caliber and reputation. But as Zeus had declared, he was not gonna give up until he won a major. Even after reaching top 8 at a major with Gambit, the statement still looked ridiculous in hindsight. While Gambit certainly had some talented players, they did not look like a team capable of winning a major event.
Achieving the impossible goal
Going into the next major, PGL Krakow 2017, things didn’t exactly look much better going into the event. Reputable rankings such as Thorin’s CS:GO ranking and HLTV.org’s ranking did not even have Gambit as a top 5 team going into the event. HLTV even had them ranked all the way down at 14th. But what nobody knew was that we were about to witness one of the strangest events in CS:GO history. The group stages were filled with upsets, including Gambit themselves going 3–0 and reaching the quarterfinals. Once the playoffs were drawn, it looked inevitable that the quarter-final between Astralis and SK Gaming, two of the biggest favorites going into the event, would decide the winner of the tournament. Zeus had a different plan in mind. After defeating Fnatic in the quarterfinals, Gambit would have to go up against Astralis, who had convincingly defeated the tournament favorites, SK Gaming. Surprisingly, Gambit managed to take game 1 on Overpass but was defeated on their own map choice, Inferno. Everything now came down to game 3 on Train. On the other side of the bracket, either Virtus.Pro or Immortals awaited in the final. Both looked like winnable matchups, making the 3rd game against Astralis all the more important. Gambit managed to have a good CT-side, but in the 2nd half, on the T-side they were struggling. After numerous Astralis round wins in a row, the score is 13–12. Gambit takes a timeout. Only the Gambit team knows exactly what Zeus said in the timeout, but everyone else saw the result of the following rounds. Astralis didn’t manage to get a single round after the timeout and the final score is 16–12 in the favor of Gambit. Zeus and his team had achieved one of the biggest upsets in CS:GO history. In the final, another surprise awaited Gambit. Their opponents, Immortals had made a run to the final that nobody expected. For the first time in the playoffs, Gambit were now the favorites. But it’s wasn’t easy going for Gambit, as they lost the first map 16–4. Zeus was looking at yet another 2nd place finish. The trophy was about to be taken away right in front of his eyes once again. Although this time, the story had a different ending. The entire team steps up on the following 2 maps, and Gambit becomes the major champion. Zeus has accomplished his goal. Gambit becomes the first CIS team to win a major, something not even Zeus’ previous team could accomplish. Over 5 years after making history in 1.6, Zeus has made history once again.
The boss is back
After a result like that, everyone was excited to see what the next step would be for Gambit. Could they replicate their success? Unfortunately, we never got to see it. Due to disagreements within the team, Zeus and the coach Kane leaves the organization. Luckily for both, Zeus’ former team were ready to welcome him back with open arms. NaVi didn’t manage to have a lot of success during Zeus’ time in Gambit. A change to the rules by Valve had meant that Starix could no longer lead the team, resulting in Seized having to take up the role. A role that he was completely unfamiliar with. While they had some initial success, winning ESL One: New York 2016, they never managed to reach the finals of a big event since. As a result, nearly a year after their last tournament victory, NaVi decided to bring Zeus back to lead the team, along with coach Kane. Afterall, leadership was exactly what NaVi lacked. With s1mple playing at an almost inhuman level and with the leadership of Zeus, it looked like NaVi were ready to step up their game as a whole. The results, however, tell a different story. Since Zeus has rejoined the team, they haven’t even been able to reach the semifinals of a tournament. Even with s1mple being among the absolute best players in the world, they cannot get the job done. Roster changes are looking inevitable. This time though, Zeus is not on the chopping block. The team is counting on him to lead them to victory.
In July of 2017, Zeus accomplished his goal. He became the major champion. Now he faces another huge challenge. A challenge I suspect he wanted to overcome ever since the first CS:GO major in 2013. Reaching the ultimate goal with the team that made him famous. Winning a major with Natus Vincere. The team that for many years has had the reputation of being the frontrunner in the CIS region. Right now they are far away from a big result. Perhaps as far away as Gambit were when Zeus first joined. But if Zeus can do it, he will make history once again. So far, that is what his career has been all about.
