Two weeks before the VRS cut-off, 18 teams already have a place at PGL Major Singapore in HLTV’s forecast. NAVI are not one of them, but 100 Thieves’ collapse in Stockholm has made their road to Singapore wider, and it starts against G2 on Saturday.
NAVI have played at every Major since DreamHack Winter 2013. A month ago, after a winless StarLadder, that run looked in real danger. Now the numbers are moving their way again, and most of it is down to results they had nothing to do with.
The invites for Singapore are based on Valve’s Regional Standings on Monday 2 November. Europe has 18 places, and with two weeks to go, the race for the last of them has become a contest of single points.
Why 100 Thieves’ losses helped NAVI
VRS analyst Mischief, who runs the OpenVRS model, now puts NAVI’s chance of a Major place at about 67.7%, up from 51.6% in his model on Monday morning. The change came from two sources.
The first is 100 Thieves. At Stake Pulse Beat III in Stockholm they lost their semi-final to MIBR and the third-place decider to HEROIC. According to Mischief, 100 Thieves are the team most likely to finish 19th in Europe, one place outside the invites. Had they finished third, they would often have ended above NAVI and could push NAVI down to 19th even if NAVI won in Lisbon.
The second is HEROIC’s withdrawal from Relog Tesla. Luminosity can also end up 19th behind NAVI, and a win over HEROIC there would roughly have made the difference, Mischief writes. That option is now gone.
Mischief describes the European race as being “on a knife edge”. The average gap between 18th and 19th in his simulations is around eight points, and it can often be less than one.
The Lisbon question
NAVI have three events left before the cut-off, and two of them collide.
- PGL Masters Bucharest, 24 to 31 October, $1,250,000. NAVI’s last tier-one event before the cut-off.
- HyperX RETAKE Season 13 in Lisbon, 29 October to 1 November, a tier-two LAN that counts towards the VRS. NAVI registered through open sign-ups.
- IEM Beijing, 2 to 8 November, $1,250,000. NAVI are one of the 13 invited teams. It starts the day after the Lisbon final, so it does not count for the Major, but it does make a long Lisbon run awkward.
Until Monday, Mischief’s model assumed NAVI would put Beijing first and not play Lisbon to the end. Even a title in Lisbon after an early exit in Bucharest could leave them 10 to 15 points short in many simulations, which made the trip hard to justify. With 100 Thieves now further back, playing Lisbon to the end is far more likely to lift NAVI to 18th than to leave them 19th, so his model now assumes they will. That change is the main reason for the jump to 67.7%.
He adds one condition: if NAVI’s group in Lisbon is not full, “this changes the maths significantly”.
What each result in Bucharest means
Bucharest opens with a 16-team Swiss stage, where three wins take a team into the eight-team playoffs and three losses send it home. NAVI start against G2, who are already safe for Singapore.
G2vs
NAVIPGL Masters Bucharest, Swiss round one, Based on Mischief’s notes from Monday morning and VRS analyst Jesper “Udknud” Larsen’s table of what each team needs, the possible outcomes look like this:
- Top four: enough on its own. In Larsen’s table, a semi-final in Bucharest takes NAVI to 100% whatever everyone else does.
- Playoffs (three wins): a big step, but only a top-four finish makes it certain in Larsen’s table.
- 2-3: Mischief expects this to be good enough for NAVI to skip the end of Lisbon and focus on Beijing.
- 1-3: NAVI would need a deep run in Lisbon, and in Mischief’s words it “would still be close”.
- 0-3: in Mischief’s Monday morning model, the Major chance is then “most likely over”. His later update gives Lisbon more weight, so this is the scenario where the HyperX event matters most.
Larsen’s table, simulated on Sunday 18 October, shows 16 European teams that can still reach mathematical safety through their own results, but many of them need the same trophies. NAVI need a single result: a top-four finish in Bucharest.
The five players who will try to get it are Aleksib, iM, b1t, w0nderful and makazze.
The 18 teams already safe
In HLTV’s invite forecast, 18 of the 32 places are already taken, Dust2 Brasil reported on Monday.
Europe (10)
HEROICAmericas (6)
MIBR
Asia (2)
That leaves eight open places in Europe and six across the Americas and Asia. Ninjas in Pyjamas, at 98% after their Stake Pulse Beat III title, are the closest to joining the list.
The race for the last European places
Behind the safe group, Mischief’s Monday morning table split Europe into teams inside and outside the line. These are the teams fighting for the last places:
| # | Team | Major chance | Mischief’s notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 |  1win | 97.9% | Safe in almost all simulations |
| 13 |  PARIVISION | 76.8% | Avoid crashing out of 1win Private Club |
| 14 |  FaZe | 73.6% | Fourth or worse at DraculaN would hurt |
| 15 |  Nemiga | 71.2% | Ideally 2-3 or better in Bucharest, their only event |
| 16 |  B8 | 61.3% | A top three at Relog Tesla, their only event |
| 17 | NAVI | 51.6% | See above, since raised to about 67.7% |
| 18 |  Luminosity | 46.9% | Top three at both DraculaN and Relog Tesla |
| 19 | 100 Thieves | 40.8% | Likely a title at FiRe Last Chance |
| 20 |  magic | 33.4% | Second and third at 1win Private Club and Stake Ranked |
| 21 |  Alliance | 27.3% | Second and third across 1win Private Club and Relog Tesla |
| 22 | Inner Circle | 26.2% | Top two at Stake Ranked |
| 23 | BIG | 25.2% | Likely second at both 1win Private Club and Stake Ranked |
| 24 |  fnatic | 17.5% | Second and fourth at 1win Private Club and Stake Ranked |
Monday’s results have already moved the table. In Belgrade, PARIVISION beat magic 2-0 at 1win Private Club, and fnatic beat Liquid. HLTV’s simulation then had PARIVISION at 95.9%, magic down from 19.5% to 15.0% and fnatic up from 20% to 27%. BIG also won their opener against PRIVATE.
For 100 Thieves, everything rides on FiRe Last Chance from 29 October to 1 November. Mischief says a title would almost certainly send them through, while second place could be enough but often leaves them 19th.
Nemiga have the clearest task of all: a playoff place in Bucharest seals their Major spot. FaZe and Luminosity go straight into the DraculaN playoffs this week, and B8 have only Relog Tesla left.
What to watch this week
The race continues before Bucharest even starts. At 1win Private Club, PARIVISION play fnatic and BIG play The MongolZ in the upper-bracket semi-finals on Tuesday, while magic meet Liquid in the lower bracket. FaZe and Luminosity begin their DraculaN playoffs the same day.
Every win for a chasing team raises the bar NAVI have to clear. By the time they face G2 on Saturday, they will know exactly how much ground they still need to make up.
