Throwback: s1mple and NAVI clinch Intel Grand Slam Season 3 title
In this series, we look back at the teams who have managed to bag themselves an Intel Grand Slam title.
In the world of Counter-Strike, the Intel Grand Slam is one of the most prestigious and greatest honors to obtain. The massive prize and title live up to its name, as the Intel Grand Slam offers no more than a whopping $1.000.000 in prize winnings. The Intel Grand Slam was founded in 2017 by ESL and the prize is awarded to any team that manages to win four S-tier events held by ESL and DreamHack in a span of ten tournaments.
In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how Natus Vincere cemented themselves into the history of Counter-Strike by becoming the third team to win an Intel Grand Slam and the spoils of $1.000.000.
NAVI joined the elite group of Astralis and Team Liquid, but became the first team to complete the impressive run with victories in both ESL Pro Tour Championship competitions, IEM Katowice, and IEM Cologne. They also managed to break Astralis’ record for most prize money won in a calendar year – $4,275,500, surpassing the achievement of Astralis, who scooped in $3,600,000 in 2018, according to esportsearnings.com.
Intel Grand Slam Season 3 | 2019-07-18 to 2021-09-12
Winners: Natus Vincere (Born to Win) – s1mple, Boombl4, Perfecto, B1T, electronic, flamie.
Intel Extreme Masters XIV – World Championship | NAVI
DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 | NAVI
Intel Extreme Masters XVI – Cologne | NAVI
ESL Pro League Season 14 | NAVI
The third season of the Intel Grand Slam is the only one that had two of its events held online. DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 and ESL Pro League Season 14 were among many other events in that period that just couldn’t be carried out on LAN due to the Covid-19 crisis and its devastating consequences. This was also the reason for the Season 3 of the Intel Grand Slam being the longest one to date, lasting 756 days since it kicked off at IEM Chicago 2019.
Intel Grand Slam alters its rules
In the first two seasons of the Intel Grand Slam, which were won by Astralis and Team Liquid respectively, a team was required to win four S-Tier events out of ten. With Astralis and Team Liquid both securing the Intel Grand Slam title within the same twelve months, many fans feared that there would be no third season of the Intel Grand Slam. However, Season 3 of the Intel Grand Slam got confirmed not long after, but the IEM boss, Michal Blicharz revealed that there had been made some changes in the rules. To win the Intel Grand Slam, a team could still secure the title with four wins in ten consecutive tournaments but had to win either IEM Katowice, ESL One: Cologne, or a Major held by ESL or DreamHack.
“Are you undisputed if you don’t prove yourself in Cologne or Katowice along the way?” - Michal Blicharz
Here’s the story of NAVI’s journey to the Season 3 Intel Grand Slam title.
NAVI begin the hunt for the Intel Grand Slam
Natus Vincere’s hunt for the Intel Grand Slam title began at IEM Katowice in February 2020. It was the last S-Tier LAN event before the Covid-19 pandemic forced CS:GO events to be played online. At the event, NAVI recovered from an early loss to fnatic and made it out from the Lower bracket by defeating the likes of FaZe Clan and Ninjas in Pyjamas to lock in a spot in the playoffs. Here, NAVI’s top level of team play began to show, with all their players’ individual skills also shining through.
In convincing fashion, they stormed through to the grand final with 2-0 victories over Team Liquid and Astralis before ultimately taking down G2 3-0. The Russian-Ukrainian squad only dropped 29 rounds in their final five maps. Their Ukrainian beast, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, grabbed the MVP award and averaged a 1.33 rating across 18 maps, totally outclassing the opposition at the tournament while also closing out the grand final with a 1.52 rating.
Born to Win replace flamie with B1T
NAVI’s second step towards the Intel Grand Slam title came in April 2021. In the period leading up to the DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 event, NAVI was going through a bit of a turbulent time with their six-man roster and decided to make a change. After some poor results at IEM Katowice 2021 and ESL Pro League Season, the organization announced the benching of flamie, replacing him with one of Ukraine’s biggest talents, B1T. In his first S-Tier event with NAVI at DreamHack Masters Spring 2021, the 18-year-old prodigy quickly showed the CS:GO world what he was capable of. With B1T, NAVI seemed to had found their missing piece as they went on to eliminate MOUZ, Virtus.pro, FURIA, and Heroic before sweeping their CIS rivals from Gambit with a 3-0 series result in the grand final.
The Ukrainian beast, s1mple, grabbed another MVP award, finishing DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 with a 1.41 across 15 maps. This was s1mple’s 13th MVP medal of his career.
The first LAN event in 18 months
Just a week later, the world of CS:GO finally got the experience that they had waited for in such a long time. The first LAN event in 500 days, IEM Cologne. Here, NAVI played their hearts out and no one stood a chance against them. They demolished every team on their way to the grand final – Renegades, Team Vitality, Astralis, and FaZe Clan. In the grand final of the event, they took upon G2, their opponents from the last LAN event at IEM Katowice. The Russian-Ukrainian squad made quick work of the grand final and came out on top with a dominant 3-0 victory to claim what seemed to be rightfully theirs.
Once again, s1mple clinched the MVP award, this time at a stacked $1 million tournament. The Ukrainian beast showed terrifying form throughout the whole event and averaged a 1.51 overall rating. The MVP medal was s1mple’s fourth of the year and 15th in his career as a professional Counter-Strike player.
NAVI write their name in the history books
Coming from IEM Cologne and a short player break, it was clear to everyone that Born to Win was a level above everyone else in CS:GO and undoubtedly the best team heading into the ESL Pro League Season 14 event, where they would finally clinch the Intel Grand Slam title. And even if they didn’t triumph at the event, they would still have two opportunities to claim the prize.
Natus Vincere started off with topping the arguably most competitive group in the tournament, taking down the likes of fnatic, MOUZ, Evil Geniuses, and FaZe before crushing the playoffs with victories over ENCE and Heroic to set up a grand final battle against ZywOo and company from Team Vitality. The Frenchmen got the best out of NAVI in the grand final and pushed them to the limit by making sure the affair went the distance of five maps.
However, NAVI’s momentum of their previous victories helped them clinch the victory on the deciding map, Mirage (16-14).
Alongside the ESL Pro League title and the Intel Grand Slam, s1mple was awarded the 16th MVP medal of his career. The Ukrainian superstar was without a doubt the best performer at the event and topped several categories, including rating (1.35), kills per round (0.88), impact rating (1.48), and KAST (77.8%), while also being in the Top 5 in terms of K-D difference (+135), ADR (87.3), and opening kills per round (0.18).
NAVI got their deserved Intel Grand Slam title and wrote their names in the history books of CS:GO by becoming the third team to win an Intel Grand Slam while silencing any doubters or haters in the process.
Events that were part of the Intel Grand Slam Season 3
Here’s the list of events that were part of the Season 3 Intel Grand Slam:
- IEM Chicago 2019 – Team Liquid
- ESL One: New York 2019 – Evil Geniuses
- DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019 – fnatic
- IEM Beijing 2019 – Astralis
- ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals – MOUZ
- IEM Katowice World Championship 2020 – Natus Vincere
- Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge – Astralis
- IEM Katowice 2021 – Gambit
- ESL Pro League Season 13 – Heroic
- DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 – Natus Vincere
- IEM Summer 2021 – Gambit
- IEM Cologne – Natus Vincere
- ESL Pro League Season 14 – NAVI
The most exciting fact is that Boombl4's men weren’t even looking to slow down things any time soon.
