NAVI’s IEM Melbourne woes show their demons aren’t going anywhere

After being the dominant team for the vast majority of 2024, it has been a massive shock to the system watching NAVI throughout 2025. They have played largely uninspiring Counter-Strike, further harmed by the fact that their individual form is pretty woeful.

IEM Melbourne 2025 was a chance for NAVI to shift the narrative. Beyond Vitality, the slate of competition is pretty rough, so a respectable placing isn’t out of the question. Although based on what I’ve seen from the team so far, I wouldn’t bet on the demons haunting the current team going anywhere anytime soon.

Mirage collapse vs. Falcons shows NAVI’s mental is broken

One map to the good, and 11:3 up on your map pick of Mirage. NAVI couldn’t have dreamt of a better situation to find themselves in against Falcons – just two rounds away from the IEM Melbourne 2025 Playoffs. So did they do it? Of course not. Falcons won 10 rounds in a row to complete a near-impossible comeback, then beat them to a pulp on the map three decider.

It was a complete mental collapse, taking hold slowly as Falcons’ score crept up on NAVI. Players stopped making the right decisions and began to play as individuals rather than as a team. They became the NAVI we’ve seen throughout the rest of 2025.

At that point in the game, NAVI had shown they could go toe-to-toe with Falcons individually. This wasn’t a skill issue, even with the likes of NiKo and m0NESY on the other side of the server. The fact that their collapse was so sudden and so sharp shows they just don’t have the mental game of an elite team right now, putting a massive ceiling on their level.

NAVI can still change the narrative, but don’t bet on it

It’s important to note that NAVI are still in IEM Melbourne 2025, and looking at the teams in the Lower Bracket (FlyQuest, MIBR, and Liquid), I’d hope they still have enough quality to reach the Playoffs. They could make me look very silly by going on to win the event, but frankly, I wouldn’t bet on it.

The reality is that even a Quarter-Final Playoff run would be light years away from where NAVI want to be at the moment. A good result for how they’re playing currently? Perhaps, but it won’t exactly change the hearts and minds of those who think NAVI need some form of roster change to freshen things up a little.

Of NAVI players at IEM Melbourne 2025, w0nderful has a 1.00 rating, while jL has a 0.98. For both, this is worse than IGL Aleksib, who is sitting at 1.03. For three map wins and two losses, that’s simply not good enough from two players you have trusted to be the stars of the lineup. It’s a problem that has plagued the team for the last few months, and unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem to be getting better. I’m certainly not going to delude myself into thinking that NAVI could possibly change the narrative around their current form with stars putting up numbers like this.