FaZe win PGL Major Antwerp in front of NAVI!

This Sunday evening in late-May, Finn “karrigan” Andersen and the rest of FaZe cemented their names in the history of Counter-Strike by winning the 17th CS:GO Major championship in Antwerp, Belgium. In the title decider, they took down the reigning Major champions from NAVI after a phenomenal individual performance by Håvard “rain” Nygaard. 

The Grand Final was set to begin on the always legendary map of Inferno. Here FaZe quickly took charge on the T side as they steamrolled over NAVI’s defence round after round, going up 8-0 led by Helvijs “broky” Saukants who posted 13 kills going into round 9. 

In the following round, FaZe decided to rush towards the A site with great confidence. Here they ran into Denis “electronic” Sharipov, who clinically took down three FaZe members to get his team the first point in the match. NAVI used the gained momentum to recover towards the end of the half, setting the score at 10-5 in the favour of FaZe. 

But then this happened in the second pistol round… 

Despite rain’s magnificent USP ace right after the switch, FaZe stumbled heavily in the second half which led NAVI back in the game. And it was in fact NAVI going up on match point first after a strong comeback from s1mple and company. But things were clearly not supposed to end in regulation with all the thrilling and action-packed CS that we were presented so far on Inferno - but also because of FaZe’s baltic duo of ropz and broky who saved a 15-14 deficit in the 30th round. 

In overtime, it was exactly like the start of the map with FaZe in control with captain karrigan stepping up huge with both calls and individual frags. After a sensational and really hard-fought brawl, FaZe secured a 19-16 victory to go up 1-0 going into NAVI’s map pick of Nuke. 

In the beginning on Nuke it stood clear that the overtime loss on Inferno hurt NAVI heavily with the CIS giants struggling to set up a decent and acceptable T side. After yet another 10-5 lead in the favour of FaZe, NAVI once again stood with their backs to the wall going into the second half. 

One determining factor for NAVI’s problems could well be the lack of impact coming from their superstar Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. The Ukrainian phenomenon was far away from his usual top levels on both Inferno and Nuke, which also could be said about his partner in crime electronic. 

On the complete contrary, was Håvard “rain” Nygaard playing some of his best CS of his career when it absolutely mattered the most - And what a timing to pull out your peak performance. The Norweigan rifler had racked up no more than 27 kills at the score of 13-10 and had no intention of stalling. In the end, it was also rain who carried FaZe to the magical and decisive16th round which secured them the PGL Major Antwerp trophy. 

FaZe - NAVI 2-0  |  PGL Major Antwerp (Grand Final)

19-16 (Inferno) | broky - 1.29 Rating / 30-22 K-D / 78.2 ADR

16-10 (Nuke) | rain - 1.84 Rating / 30-16 K-D / 132.1 ADR

MVP: Håvard "rain" Nygaard - 1.42 Rating / 52-40 K-D / 107.9 ADR