iM

Mihai “iM” Ivan spent five years in the European second tier before anyone at the top of Counter-Strike gave him a chance. When it finally came, he took it quickly: a Major final with GamerLegion in 2023, a move to NAVI the same summer and a Major title in Copenhagen less than a year later.

The aggressive rifler from Bucharest is the first Romanian to win a Major and the first Romanian to make HLTV’s list of the 20 best players of the year, which he did in both 2024 and 2025.

Player profile

• Name: Mihai Ivan
• Born: July 29, 1999, in Bucharest
• Nationality: Romanian
• Role: Rifler (entry and space-taker)
• Team: NAVI (since June 30, 2023)
• Former teams: Nexus Gaming (2018, 2019 to 2021), SinnerS Gaming (2018), GamerLegion (2021 to 2023)
• Major title: PGL Major Copenhagen 2024

Years in the Romanian scene

iM played his first Counter-Strike in 1.6, mostly fun mods, and only took the game seriously after Global Offensive came out. He picked it up at the turn of 2013, went from Silver to Global Elite in about a year and then moved on to FACEIT, he told HLTV in 2024. From 2015, he played with local mix teams in qualifiers for regional competitions.

Romania’s best team, Nexus Gaming, first signed him in January 2018. It took three attempts before it worked. He was dropped after a few months, which he later called “fully fair” because he was nervous and playing badly, and he was dropped again in a later roster change that he did not think was fair. After two months, Nexus called him back for the third time.

From late 2019, he grew into one of the team’s two stars alongside AWPer Adrian “XELLOW” Guță. In 2020, iM played more than 200 maps with a 1.15 rating, and GamerLegion coach Ashley “ash” Battye began to follow him. iM turned down GamerLegion’s first offer in 2020, but said yes straight away when the team came back for him in April 2021.

The GamerLegion grind and the Paris Major

The first year in an international team was more of the same tier-two circuit. iM’s first taste of the Major qualifiers came in April 2022, at the European RMR for the PGL Major Antwerp, and it ended with three straight losses in Bucharest, the city where he was born. Later that year, a rebuilt GamerLegion with Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand and siuhy qualified for the IEM Rio Major 2022, iM’s first Major, where they went out in the opening stage.

The breakthrough came in May 2023 at the BLAST.tv Paris Major. GamerLegion lost their first two matches, came back to reach the Legends Stage and then beat Monte in the quarter-finals and HEROIC in the semi-finals. Before the final, iM was ahead of ZywOo in the race for the event’s MVP award with a 1.44 rating. Vitality won the final 2-0, but the run changed his career. After the first win against Monte, he told BLAST that “on every peek, I just owned everyone.”

He knew the Major was his chance. He described the feeling to HLTV the following year.

So many times I had good tournaments when I was in Nexus and GamerLegion, but no one was calling me. I was a bit tilted seeing people going through and having their chances, and I didn’t have a chance, and after the Paris Major I was so happy. I was like, ‘bro, if now there is no offer, there will never be one.’

The call from NAVI

Several offers came, and one of them surprised him. NAVI had never fielded an English-speaking roster, but the organization signed iM on June 30, 2023, as part of a summer rebuild that also brought in in-game leader Aleksib and jL. In the new lineup, he joined s1mple and Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi.

I was fully shocked when NAVI called me. I was expecting international teams, obviously, because I couldn’t speak Russian.

The step up was hard. iM averaged a 0.96 rating in his first three events with NAVI, and he later described 11 to 12 hours of practice a day and a new way of thinking about the game after years of tier-two Counter-Strike. He found his level towards the end of 2023, starting with a 1.10 rating as NAVI finished second at ESL Pro League Season 18. In October 2023, s1mple stepped away and w0nderful took his place.

First Romanian Major winner

NAVI did not arrive at the PGL Major Copenhagen in March 2024 as favourites, and iM was struggling individually. He averaged 0.78 in the Elimination Stage, and his stats became a talking point. After the quarter-final win over Eternal Fire, he answered the criticism in an interview with HLTV: “Imagine, if we win the Major now, and I’m the last guy on the scoreboard, no one cares.”

Many laughed at the comment at the time, but NAVI went on to beat G2 in the semi-final and FaZe 2-1 in the final. iM finished the event with a 0.85 rating, the lowest of his year, and became the first Romanian to win a Major. Less than a year after losing the final in Paris, he was a Major champion.

NAVI’s finals streak and a first MVP

The rest of 2024 was the best year of his career. NAVI won the Esports World Cup in July, reached the final at IEM Cologne in August and won ESL Pro League Season 20 in September. iM earned EVP mentions from HLTV at both Cologne and Pro League, with ratings of 1.23 and 1.22.

In October, NAVI beat MOUZ 3-1 in the final of IEM Rio 2024, coming back from 2-10 on the fourth map, and iM was named MVP for the first time in his career. He told HLTV that he had “instant goosebumps” when he heard the news, and that individual awards were never his aim.

To be honest, I’m not that guy who’s going for MVPs and stuff like this, I like to play more for the team.

It was NAVI’s fourth title of 2024. HLTV ranked iM 16th in its top 20 for the year, making him the first Romanian on the list. The year also had a darker side: he said he received more abuse online than any player he had seen, including messages under his girlfriend’s photos on Instagram.

A new role next to makazze

NAVI could not repeat their 2024 form in 2025. They reached the playoffs at the BLAST.tv Austin Major but lost 2-0 to Vitality in the quarter-finals. After the match, iM told Pley that the result was “not NAVI standard, far from it.”

That summer, NAVI replaced jL with the academy player Drin “makazze” Shaqiri, who took over many of the aggressive positions iM used to play. iM became more passive and had to learn new spots, as he explained to HLTV.

Justik was more vocal in terms of cheering for you, and then makazze is very aggressive. He just goes in, he maybe says a few words, and that’s it. Because he likes to go first, it’s hard to compare them.

He adapted well. iM won EVP awards at ESL Pro League Season 22 and the StarLadder Budapest Major, where NAVI reached the semi-finals, and NAVI won StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2025. HLTV ranked him 19th for 2025, his second top 20 finish in a row.

Titles again in 2026

In February 2026, iM played a tournament in his home country when NAVI finished fifth to eighth at PGL Cluj-Napoca. A month later, NAVI won ESL Pro League Season 23, their first S-tier title since IEM Rio 2024, and in May they added IEM Atlanta 2026. At the IEM Cologne Major in June, NAVI missed the playoffs and finished ninth to eleventh.

Biggest results

• PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: 1st
• Esports World Cup 2024: 1st
• ESL Pro League Season 20: 1st
• IEM Rio 2024: 1st (MVP)
• ESL Pro League Season 23: 1st
• IEM Atlanta 2026: 1st
• StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2025: 1st
• BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: 2nd (with GamerLegion)
• IEM Cologne 2024: 2nd

Major record

Individual awards

• HLTV top 20: 16th (2024), 19th (2025)
• HLTV MVP: IEM Rio 2024
• HLTV EVP: IEM Cologne 2024, ESL Pro League Season 20, ESL Pro League Season 22, StarLadder Budapest Major 2025

Settings and gear

These are iM’s settings as listed by ProSettings.net, last updated on October 8, 2026. Pro players change their setup from time to time, so check the source for the latest version.

His crosshair is a small, static green cross without a dot or outline: length 4, thickness 1, gap 3 and colour 20, 255, 0, according to ProSettings.net.

Trivia

• He was born in Bucharest, and his first RMR in 2022 was played in his home city. He only had to travel about ten minutes from home to the team hotel, he told HLTV.
• Nexus Gaming dropped him twice before the third spell finally worked.
• Before joining NAVI, he could not speak Russian, and he had expected offers only from international teams.
• He reached two Major finals in a row with two different teams: Paris 2023 with GamerLegion and Copenhagen 2024 with NAVI.
• He is the first Romanian to win a Major and the first Romanian in HLTV’s top 20.

FAQ