Nafany – one of the best captains in CS:GO history

Vladislav Nafany Gorshkov - is the captain of the Best team of the world 2021, the IEM Katowice Champion, and the Blast Spring Finals Champion, and many consider him one of the most gifted in-game leaders of CS:GO. Only a few people knew about him two years ago, but today he is world-renowned. For such a period, he went from novice captain to the leader of the best team in the world. Let's figure out a short review of his professional way together with Cyber-sport.io.

Early Career

When Nafany upped five levels on Faceit, he wanted to try playing in tournaments. Then Vladislav found a team to participate in this Starladder league, he realized it was serious. The team played games and prepared for tournaments. Those were Nafany's first steps in big cybersport. Together with Sh1ro, they won tournaments, but that was not enough. Their team became increasingly noticed in various championships, and the players were accused of cheating. 

Doubts about the honesty of the guys fell away after their victory in the championship of Russia in 2018. With Sh1ro, they joined the roster Vyalie Pitoni. The team performed exceptionally well. The peak of that squad was the match against Vitality on the Dreamhack, which the Pitoni lost. 

First Succes

At the beginning of 2019, the player successfully passed the test at Gambit youngsters. Even though he already had experience being an in-game leader, the first captain of that squad was Sh1ro, but soon Dima was relieved of these duties, and the captain became Nafany. As Vladislav admits, his knowledge of the game was relatively poor then, and his tactics were limited to trivial point flushes. Groove and F_1n did a lot of work with the player to turn him into an excellent captain.

Gambit youngsters started to show results right away. They went to Denmark to participate in the Copenhagen Games, where they beat the Pronax team. Later, they went to New York, where they won their first LAN title and simultaneously held the finals of ESL in New York. The guys were watching the matches from the stadium and couldn't have imagined that in less than two years, they would be participating in the championships of that level. And not just take part but win regularly. 

At the beginning of 2020, the team hesitated a bit, but by the summer made good progress. In July, hobbit joined Gambit eSports. It was initially planned that he would be the new in-game leader. With this combination, Gambit played for two weeks and decided to go back to the old format. And Hobbit became the so-called assistant of the captain. 

Era of Gambit

But we know exactly what happened in 2021. Gambit became the best team in the world, and no matter what they said, they launched their era. Contribution for this success goes to all players, coaching staff, and organization, but without a good captain, any team, even with the most vital players, is doomed to failure. It's incredible how Nafany has transformed into one of the best captains in the CIS and the world in two years. He is only twenty years old, and his shooting is also good. 

His rating is always higher than one, which means he brings a lot of impact to the team and sometimes can take the leading role. Nafany constantly says that he and his team want to win every tournament. Online or LAN format does not matter, and in Cologne, Gambit proved that they could play in any environment. In general, the player is relatively modest about the success of Gambit and says that now they have to work even more challenging. 

Emotions

The only thing the athlete needs to work on is his emotionality. He's admitted on many occasions that he can get emotional. Fury in sports is good, but unnecessary emotions can seriously impact the team's atmosphere. It harms the team. After Zeus finished his career, it became clear that CIS had no strong captain. It is not clear when he will appear and who it will be. 

The best captain now is not the successor of Zeus but Nafany. By the way, Vladislav never supported NaVi, which is untypical for Cis viewers. He liked to support underdogs like Flipside with B1ad3. And if you look at his career, he and his team went through all the stages of becoming a top team. The most important thing is that it's just the beginning. We sure that Cloud9 will win many trophies and Nafany will become a legend in CS:GO.

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