NAVI Explains Why it Entered Mobile Legends Esports

The Ukraine-based esports organization, Natus Vincere, widely known as NAVI, reveals its reason for venturing into the Mobile Legends: Bang bang esports scene. The team recently acquired the former roster of the Russian team, DeusVult, and booked its ticket to the M3 World Championship. According to NAVI, the constant communication with Moonton and the popularity of the mobile MOBA title is what piqued its interest. The esports organization is prioritizing on building its homegrown talent and molding them into formidable pro players that can match the teams from Southeast Asia (SEA), the strongest region in the Mobile Legends esports scene.

NAVI ventures into Mobile Legends Esports

One of the prominent PC esports organizations, NAVI took the opportunity and fielded its team for the upcoming M3 World Championship. This is the first time the organization will venture into the Mobile Legends esports scene. Its team is composed of veteran pro players who have participated in the previous world championships.

According to a report from ABS-CBN, NAVI's chief operating officer Aleksey Kucherov revealed that the organization has been in contact with Moonton for quite some time and has been considering joining its ever-growing esports scene.

"We started investing in Mobile Legends just a few months ago and this also happened because of right communication with gaming publishers and as I've said it's very important for us right now," stated Kucherov, as quoted by ABS-CBN.

NAVI’s Mobile Legends team is composed of former DeusVult members who previously participated in the M2 World Championship. The team was not able to go far in the tournament but it did showcase that there is potential in teams outside the SEA region.

The team is composed of the following members;

• Andriy "Defender” Martynenko

• Maxim “Nagib" Dudich

• Kemiran "Sunset Lover" Kochkarov

• Ruslan "Lil" Degtev

• Stanislav "SAWO" Reshinak

Before being acquired by NAVI, DeusVult was the strongest team in its region. The team recently won the Mobile Legends Mythic League (MML) CIS 2021, a local esports event where they dominated against UNEXT with a 4-2 match score.

Being the first major esports organization in Europe to field its own Mobile Legends team, NAVI believes that it is hard to speak on behalf of other esports organizations such as Team Secret, Team SoloMid, and Team Liquid. These kinds of investments require rigorous amounts of planning and communication.

"The ecosystem of every gaming title is important for every club... It means that every club should see big audiences. And they should see interest from the gaming publisher. They should communicate with the teams. They should announce plans regarding their gaming titles for the next year, for example, because this long-term planning is a very interesting and a very important topic for every club," stated Kucherov, as quoted by ABS-CBN.

NAVI currently aims to develop homegrown Mobile Legends talent in its own region

The esports organization sees potential in gaining the attention of its Mobile Legends fanbase in the SEA. However, NAVI’s primary goal is to nurture and develop high-tier Mobile Legends pro players that can potentially compete with the strongest teams from other regions, especially the SEA teams.

"We feel that we should go through our own home region because we can build here the strongest team. We can communicate, speak with the players, we can gather them. We know how to fix some issues, performance issues, player issues. It's just a native region. So it's much easier for us to build a stronger team here than in other regions," stated Kucherov, as quoted by ABS-CBN.

NAVI will be participating in the upcoming M3 World Championship. While this will be the second time that the team members will be participating in the world championship, it will be the first time they will be playing under the NAVI banner. It will be interesting to see how much the team has improved since its previous world championship run.

Get a weekly recap of all the latest developments in the global esports industry with our esports business insights newsletter: AFK Weekly

Subscribe for free to receive insights, analysis, and opinions on the biggest developments in the esports business, provided by our team of experienced journalists in collaboration with thought leaders across the industry.