The opening round of BLAST Fall Finals in Copenhagen has been announced. Two matchups have caught the attention with Cloud9's match against NAVI as the most prominent. 

Three former Natus Vincere players will be on the server with Cloud9. Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy joined the roster this summer from NAVI, while Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhaylov is the latest addition to the squad after the departure of Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov. All three were part of the 2021 Major winning lineup for NAVI.

In the other group, Team Vitality will face Heroic, who has Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen on the server. The 30-year-old Dane was kicked from the active roster of Vitality a month after having won the BLAST.tv Paris Major earlier this year. Now dupreeh is set to face his old teammates in the opening round in Group B, where Astralis and Complexity are also in the mix.

You can see the schedule from the event here:

Perfecto

electronic

Boombl4

dupreeh

Cloud9

Natus Vincere

Team Vitality

Heroic

The 2023 edition of IEM Cologne is shaping up to be a very exciting one. In the playoffs, we have a lot of the biggest teams and names in Counter-Strike, but oddly enough none of the teams have ever won the coveted trophy.

Vitality, Cloud9, Heroic, Astralis, G2, and ENCE are all looking to join these teams in the history books of CS:GO.

2014: NIP (f0rest, GeT_RiGhT, Xizt, Fifflaren, friberg)

2015: Fnatic (JW, flusha, pronax, olofmeister, KRIMZ)

2016: SK Gaming (FalleN, fer, coldzera, fnx, TACO)

2017: SK Gaming (FalleN, fer, coldzera, felps, TACO)

2018: Natus Vincere (Edward, flamie, s1mple, Zeus, electronic)

2019: Team Liquid (nitr0, EliGE, Twistzz, NAF, Stewie2K)

2021: Natus Vincere (s1mple, electronic, Boombl4, Perfecto, B1T)

2022: FaZe (rain, broky, Twistzz, karrigan, ropz)

It is only electronic (x2) and Perfecto that have tried to win the title in Cologne of all the players that are left in the playoffs in Cologne.

The playoffs will start tomorrow, where Team Vitality and Cloud9 will play the first quarter-final at 15.30 (CEST).

On the 22th of March 2023, NAVI faced off against Outsiders in the ESL Pro League Season 17 Playoffs Round 2. The match started off intensely on Ancient, but on Mirage, NAVI comfortably cruised to victory.

With NAVI leading 11-6 on the T side, Perfecto found himself in an open position on the A-bombsite. The odds were against him, as he was the last man standing, facing four enemies. But Perfecto didn’t give up, he took down the first enemy with a headshot and quickly followed up with another headshot kill.

The remaining two Outsiders players were on their way, rotating to A, but Perfecto stayed calm and collected even though the time was ticking. With both enemies close to Connector, Perfecto killed the first one, and had to quickly recover the bomb to plant it on the site with only 10 seconds left on the clock. He managed to do so, and promptly caught the last man from Outsiders off guard, as he jumped on the box of default right after.

Despite Astralis winning the early stages of the map Ancient, Natus Vincere bounced back after the sick 1vs3 clutch made by Perfecto. The game was tied at 9-9 as Perfecto secured his team their tenth round. Alone against three on the A bombsite, Perfecto showed why he is considered one of the best clutches in the game. The 23-year-old Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy had ice in his veins as he singlehandedly outplayed Astralis.

Watch Perfecto dominate Astralis in a 3vs1 clutch:

Natus Vincere won the first map after winning 10 rounds on the T side. Astralis fought back on Overpass but saw themselves falling short on Inferno. You can read more about the series in the article below.

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Astralis

It has been a difficult year for everyone involved with Natus Vincere.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has taken its toll on the Ukrainian organization that has suffered from the war in Ukraine. On the CS:GO team it has also been evident, that things have not been running smoothly like in 2021 when NAVI conquered the CS:GO throne.

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Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy is one of the two Russian players playing for NAVI. The 23-year-old rifler has not publicly commented on the situation, but yesterday the NAVI player reached out to Liquipedia.

On his [link:{"url":"https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Perfecto","isNewTab":true,"text":"Liquipedia"}] page there is now a non-representing flag alongside the text; Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Perfecto has requested Liquipedia to denote that he chooses to not represent Russia.

BLAST will once again honor the best CS:GO players and coaches by selecting the 2022 Team of the Year.

Taking part in the vote is a diverse selection of experts consisting of journalists, broadcast talent, and other respected voices from the world of Counter-Strike. We here at Pley.gg are among those who have been asked to nominate players and coaches within six different categories.

Coach of the Year: Andrii "B1ad3" Horodenskyi

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Support of the Year: Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy

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Lurker of the Year: Robin “ropz” Kool

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Entry of the Year: Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis

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IGL of the Year: Finn "karrigan" Andersen

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AWP of the Year: Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev

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s1mple

karrigan

YEKINDAR

ropz

We are now less than one week away from the start of the much-awaited IEM Rio Major in Brazil. To ease the waiting time, we have created a countdown series, where we dive into the history of all 17 Majors. Today we have reached the second-most recent Major: PGL Major Stockholm where NAVI secured their first-ever Major title with a flawless run.

The PGL Major Stockholm 2021 was the 16th CS:GO Major Championship and the most anticipated event of all time because the Covid-19 pandemic made it impossible for organizers to arrange a championship with an audience for two years. Other than that, the PGL Major Stockholm was the first Counter-Strike Major broadcasted in 4k, while the event also had the biggest prize pool in the history of the franchise: a whopping $2 million! 

 Natus Vincere (s1mple – electronic – B1T – Boombl4 – Perfecto) 

 Ancient, Dust2, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass, Vertigo. 

The Russian-Ukrainian squad was undoubtedly the best CS:GO team coming into the PGL Major in Stockholm and it seemed impossible to deny them this Major achievement. All of NAVI’s players were full of confidence as well as momentum, as they had just completed their Intel Grand Slam a month before the event. And with consistently high placements in the CIS Regional Major Rankings (RMR) events throughout the year, NAVI earned themselves a top-two seed at the PGL Stockholm Major. This meant that Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy’s troops got to start in the New Legends Stage as a part of the top 16 teams. 

However, their journey to glory wasn’t easy at all, as NAVI had to face multiple tough opponents on the way such as Heroic, NiP, Team Vitality, and Gambit before ultimately taking down G2 in the grand final. 

Kirill “Boombl4” and company started the event with a match against Casper “cadiaN” Møller’s men from Heroic who were sitting in 5th place in the HLTV world ranking at that time. In a very tough match, NAVI came out on top of Ancient with a 16-11 scoreline. Later, NAVI took upon Dzhami “Jame” Ali and the rest of Virtus.pro in a matchup where NAVI left no chance for their opponents, closing out the match in dominant fashion on Overpass, 16-4. 

A bo3 match against Ninjas in Pyjamas for a spot in the playoffs as an undefeated 3-0 team awaited for Born To Win. The match was expected to deliver some nail-biting action, but both maps turned out to be one-sided affairs, as NAVI booked themselves a ticket to the playoffs with back-to-back 16-9 wins against the Swedes. 

Their first opponent in the playoffs was Team Vitality. Many predicted that the Frenchmen were going to be the first team to steal a map away from NAVI, but s1mple and company made quick work of them. NAVI took Vitality’s map pick of Dust2 16-11 before returning to their home of Nuke to extend their map-win streak to 17 with a 16-13 scoreline. That victory led them to the semi-finals where their rivals from Gambit waited for an exciting CIS derby. On two maps, NAVI gave away only 11 rounds in total and locked in a spot in the grand final. 

The grand final was the most closely contested match for NAVI at the event and the closest they came to losing a map. Boombl4’s men registered a somewhat comfortable 16-11 victory on the newest map in the rotation, Ancient, a planned curveball from the French-Balkan squad which took fans by surprise. G2 hoped to catch NAVI off guard but failed. G2 would need to deliver some magical individual performances to keep the series alive, considering NAVI’s home of Nuke was up next, where the Russian-Ukrainian squad held a 17 map win streak. 

On Nuke, NAVI were tested to their very limit by G2 who looked dangerous with some strong showing from the Kovac’s and Audric “JaCkz” Jug who all three pushed their team to a 10-5 advantage. The roster of G2 continued their strong form and secured match point at 15-10. However, s1mple and company resurfaced from the depths of defeat to force not one but two overtimes. In double overtime, NAVI secured match point and eventually snatched Nuke away from G2’s grip right in front of their eyes. 

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With a 2-0 victory in the grand final, NAVI not only repeated Astralis’ flawless Major playoffs in the past but went a step further by not dropping a single map throughout the entire event, claiming the title with an incredible 10-0 map record. NAVI made history and completed the most dominant run ever seen at a CS:GO Major. 

Watch highlights from the Grand final right here: 

The Ukrainian beast, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev capped off a fantastic Major event with a powerful final performance as he inspired NAVI to a stellar 2-0 victory over G2 with a server-leading 1.51 rating and took home the MVP medal in the process. s1mple’s first-ever Major MVP and the 17th MVP medal of his career at the time. 

s1mple topped the charts in several categories across the event, most notably leading in rating (1.47), KD-diff (+106), and kills per round (0.95). The arguably best player of all time finally achieved his dream of winning a Major trophy and he showed up on every single map to become the only player in history to be both Major MVP and the highest-rated player. 

Highest rated players at PGL Major Stockholm 2021

1. Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev (NAVI) – 1.47 Rating 

2. Nikola ”NiKo” Kovac (G2) – 1.36 Rating 

3. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut (Vitality) – 1.30 Rating 

4. Dennis “electronic” Sharipov (NAVI) – 1.28 Rating 

5. Valeriy “B1T” Vakhovskiy (NAVI) – 1.27 Rating 

6. David “frozen” Cernanský (MOUZ) – 1.22 Rating 

7. Dmitry ”sh1ro” Sokolov (Gambit) – 1.21 Rating 

8. Helvijs ”broky” Saukants (FaZe) – 1.18 Rating 

9. Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi (CPH Flames) – 1.16 Rating 

10. Martin “stavn” Lund (Heroic) – 1.15 Rating

The Grand final between Natus Vincere and G2 reached a peak viewership number of 2,748,434 viewers, demolishing the previous CS:GO peak viewership record by over 1 million, according to [link:{"url":"https://escharts.com/tournaments/csgo/pgl-major-stockholm-2021","isNewTab":true,"text":"Esports Charts"}].

Earlier matchups in the event also consistently broke records from previous Majors and were watched on various streams across the world, setting a high new standard for CS:GO event viewership.

1. PGL Major Stockholm 2021 – 2,748,434

B1tGOD

G2 Esports

IEM Rio will be the second CS:GO Major of 2022 and the first-ever Major tournament to be held in Brazil. The Challenger Stage of the Major will kick off on October 31, with the Grand final of the event set to be played on November 13. Once the Legends Stage kicks off, a total of 16 teams will be competing for the lion’s share of the $1.250.000 prize pool, with the winner walking away with a Major trophy and $500.000.

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{cflag:UA} Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev – 1.29 Rating in 2022

{cflag:RU} Denis “electronic” Sharipov – 1.11 Rating in 2022

{cflag:UA} Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev – 1.01 Rating in 2022

{cflag:RU} Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy – 1.04 Rating in 2022

{cflag:UA} Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy – 1.12 Rating in 2022

Is not that long ago since NAVI fell out of the Top 3 of HLTV’s World Ranking for the first time since they acquired Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy to the first team. Their last dip from the Top 3 dates all the way back to May 2021, so it’s not a secret that there have been some questions regarding the team who had a disappointing start to the second half of the season. This is the reason why the spotlight was sat on the new IGL, Denis “electronic” Sharipov, who many didn’t find as the right man for the job. However, after a rough 5th-8th finish at ESL Pro League Season 16, NAVI picked themselves up and made some clear changes in the way of approaching the game, which has helped them finish the rest of this year, until now, with podium finishes.

They succeeded in moving through the RMR Europe with ease, recording no losses at all to secure a 3-0 record. At the end of the event, electronic and s1mple were to be found on the top of the best-performing players with a 1.58 and 1.48 Rating, respectively.

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Many CS:GO fans would probably be pointing to Natus Vincere as one of the favorites alongside FaZe and Team Vitality to win the IEM Rio Major. They’re the second-most recent Major winner behind FaZe, and their coolness and individual experience on the big stage could get them a long way, even if they aren’t hitting their best day as a team. Our prediction is that s1mple and company from Natus Vincere will reach the semi-final of the Major. But, the only way to know for sure is to tune in to the Major when it kicks off on October 31, 2022.

 2nd at PGL Major Antwerp 2022, 1st at BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2022, 1st-3rd at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022, 1st at Intel Extreme Masters Road to Rio 2022: European RMR B.

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The 16th edition of ESL Pro League was set to be initiated this Wednesday with the start of Group A. Here we saw NAVI take on Spirit in a domestic derby between two of the strongest CIS teams. However, today Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and company were levels above Spirit as NAVI grabbed an easy 2-0 win on Nuke (16-11) and Dust2 (16-9)

It was a quite unexpected figure who ended up as the best performer on Nuke with the more supportive Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy completely taking over the server. Especially his CT-side was impressive averaging a 1.87 Rating, 116.9 ADR and putting up a +11 K-D.

On the second map, NAVI cemented the victory through an even more dominant showing where they gave Spirit no chance on either the T or CT side. The powerful Ukrainians can now see themselves on top of the scoreboard in Group A before today’s next two matchups.

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NAVI – Spirit 2-0 | ESL Pro League Season 16 (Group A)

16-11 (Nuke) | {cflag:RU} Perfecto – 1.60 Rating / 26-11 K-D / 94.2 ADR

16-9 (Dust2) | {cflag:UA} b1t – 1.60 Rating / 24-17 K-D / 108.4 ADR

MVP: {cflag:RU} Ilya ”Perfecto” Zalutskiy – 1.24 Rating / 37-27 K-D / 74.2 ADR

Spirit

After seeing Spirit qualify for the playoffs, Na'Vi and NIP now had the chance to do the same. After going 2-0 on Day 1 the two teams were hoping for a clean run through the Swiss Stage.

Na'Vi had a fantastic start to their opponents' map pick of Inferno. The CIS squad went in front 9-1 despite heavy resistance from "es3tag". The other Ninjas finally stepped up and the Scandinavians managed to take an acceptable five rounds before the break.

Changing sides did not bring more fortune for the Ninjas as they only managed to stop the Na'Vi offense a single time. Throughout the map, the trio of "s1mple", "b1t", and "Perfecto" was simply too much to handle for NIP.

Na'Vi looked to make a statement against the Ninjas as they capitalized on their momentum from Inferno to take a 6-0 lead on the second map of Mirage. "hampus" and co. somehow recovered from that devastating start and ended the half behind by only one round.

The CIS squad led almost the entirety of the map, and it seemed like a certainty that they were going to win it, but the perseverance of the Ninjas and the calls of "hampus" led to a surprising 16-14 in favor of the Scandinavians.

After their great Mirage, NIP struggled on the T side of Ancient. They conceded the first eight rounds of the map before they themselves put one on the board. "Brollan" and "hampus" were able to find some good openings for the team, but at the end of the day that only translated to two rounds at halftime.

The map was over after five second-half rounds as NIP could not stand up to the CIS giants of Na'Vi.

Na'Vi unsurprisingly qualify for the playoffs while NIP will have to try their luck again tomorrow.

Na'Vi - NIP 2-1 | PGL Major Antwerp Legends Stage

16-6 (Inferno) | {cflag:UA} s1mple - 1.70 Rating / 23-15 K-D / 120.5 ADR

14-16 (Mirage) | {cflag:UA} b1t - 1.49 Rating / 29-20 K-D / 107.3 ADR

16-4 (Ancient) | flag Perfecto - 1.55 Rating / 21-10 K-D / 98.5 ADR

MVP: {cflag:UA} Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy - 1.48 Rating / 71-44 K-D / 102.9 ADR

, the Bad News Eagles and Imperial fought for survival.

The match started on Imperial's pick of Inferno where only a single round separated the teams at halftime. 

Imperial, who had started as the terrorists, looked more convincing on the defensive side as they were able to make good reads with some aggressive maneuvers. "fer" also stepped up his game which helped the Brazilians win on their map pick.

On their map pick of Mirage, the Eagles managed to take their first pistol round of the series but were immediately shut down by a seven-round streak from the Brazilians, that had "boltz" and "fer" written all over it. The Kosovars managed to pull a few rounds back and were only behind by five at halftime.

The Brazilians quickly pushed the lead to 14-7 and things were looking bleak for the Eagles. But like the click of a button, all of a sudden the Eagles were turned on. Things started working out for them, most of all on an individual level. Especially "rigoN" came alive and boosted his team's chances massively. In the end, the Eagles fell just short of the mark after pushing the map to its 30th round.

The historic performance of bNE, therefore, comes to a close as they go 0-3 in the Legends Stage. On the other side Imperial stave off elimination and hope to make the reverse sweep.

Bad News Eagles - Imperial 0-2 | PGL Major Antwerp Legends Stage

13-16 (Inferno) | {cflag:BR} fer - 1.55 Rating / 26-16 K-D / 102.3 ADR

14-16 (Mirage) | {cflag:BR} fer - 1.40 Rating / 24-17 K-D / 77.7 ADR

MVP: {cflag:BR} Fernando "fer" Alvarenga - 1.47 Rating / 50-33 K-D / 89.8 ADR

es3tag

boltz

rigoN

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Bad News Eagles

Imperial

Natus Vincere has been without their normal in-game leader Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov in the first matches of ESL Pro League Season 15. The Russian is rumored to be back tomorrow, but against Complexity, it was still the NAVI Junior player Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov on the server.

The young Ukrainian could enjoy his teammates on Ancient, where especially Perfecto was dominating. The Russian had an almost flawless CT-side to set his team up to a 12-3 lead at the break. Despite an impressive display in the second half, the deficit was too big for the NA team to force a comeback.

On Dust2 it was obvious, that NAVI was on home soil. The worlds #1 once again established a 12-3 lead at the break leaving Complexity with another mountain to climb. The NA team was looking into a 0-3 start in Group D with a defeat against NAVI, and would have to win the last two remaining matches while getting help in other matches to stay in contention for the playoff spot. So to put it lightly, it was time to shine for Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou and his men in the second half.

And so they did. Justin 'FaNg' Coakley got activated big time, and the Canadian showed some of the potentials, that the team has been very vocal about before the tournament started. At 13-13 Complexity had finally caught NAVI’s lead. But then s1mple and NAVI stepped up and found the last three rounds to deny the young North American squad.

NAVI is now 3-0 up in the group alongside Heroic in the first place, and is now guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.

Natus Vincere – Complexity  2-0 | ESL Pro League Season 15 (Group D)

16-13 (Ancient) | {cflag:RU} Perfecto – 1.44 Rating / 29-19 K-D / 95.3 ADR

16-14 (Dust2) | {cflag:UA} s1mple – 1.43 Rating / 25-19 K-D / 89.2 ADR

MVP: {cflag:UA} Aleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev – 1.29 Rating / 46-38 K-D / 85.0 ADR

compLexity Gaming

The man behind today's Pley of the day is NAVI's Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy. The play is from yesterday's marathon battle on Mirage between NAVI and AGO, which ended up taking 71 rounds.

Watch the hectic and entertaining round in today's #POTD.

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.

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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 

Intel Extreme Masters XVI – Cologne | 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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).

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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:

- ESL One: New York 2019 – Evil Geniuses 

- DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019 – fnatic 

- ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals – MOUZ 

- IEM Katowice World Championship 2020 – Natus Vincere 

- Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge – Astralis 

- DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 – Natus Vincere 

The most exciting fact is that Boombl4's men weren’t even looking to slow down things any time soon.

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flamie

Team Liquid

To start the day we had the last two opening-round matches which saw G2 take on the British/Swedish combo of fnatic, while the reigning Major-champions of Na'Vi fought against ENCE.

The fighting started out on fnatic's pick of Nuke and was by far the most dominating map of the series. With the Kovač Cousins both achieving a rating of above 1.9, G2 took an extremely fast win of 16-2 on their opponents' map pick.

Next up was Mirage and here fnatic decided to completely flip the script. They did to G2, what had just been done to them and finished the map with a commanding scoreline of 16-7. "KRIMZ" finished at the top of the board with an impressive 1.95 rating, and 30 kills in only 23 rounds.

Inferno was unsurprisingly chosen as the decider and was a lot closer than the first to maps. Fnatic got off to a great start on the T-side, running over the defense of G2 round after round. The Spanish organization, looking lost for answers, only managed to win five rounds on their CT-side. The second half looked much better for the "Aleksib"-led squad as they came within touching distance of fnatic very early on. But that was all they accomplished as fnatic drove it home with force from there on out and took the victory at 16-11.

With the result, fnatic moves into the upper bracket where they will face FaZe, while G2 will have to make a lower bracket run where they will start by taking on Liquid.

Nuke: 16-2 | NiKo – 21/8 K-D | 133.3 ADR | 83.3% KAST | 1.92 Rating

Mirage: 7-16 | KRIMZ – 30/11 K-D | 121.1 ADR | 91.3% KAST | 1.95 Rating

Inferno: 11-16 | mezii – 24/14 K-D | 89.3 ADR | 81.5% KAST | 1.38 Rating

 Nikola “NiKo” Kovač – 56/45 K-D | 89.4 ADR | 66.2% KAST | 1.20 Rating

On the b-stream the action began on ENCE's pick of Mirage where Na'Vi had a soul-crushing performance on the CT-side, leaving no room for ENCE to work with, which resulted in a 12-3 halftime score. ENCE were able to take five rounds in a row in the second half, but they did not get any more than that, and Na'Vi swiftly took the first map at 16-8.

As the second map, Na'Vi chose to play Nuke, a map that they were absolutely dominating on in 2021. But this is 2022, and ENCE had no problem embarrassing the world's #1 team. When ENCE had acquired 16 rounds Na'Vi had only managed to win 4, and ENCE could go to a third map full of confidence.

The third and final map was Overpass and went right down to the wire. ENCE started fantastic as they put themselves in front at 9-1, but unluckily for them, the CIS-squad managed to claw a couple of rounds back before the break, and the halftime score was 10-5. With the help of a fantastic performance from "Perfecto", Na'Vi had a dominating CT-side and managed to hit match point at 15-12. ENCE made it very interesting as they almost made the comeback, but in the end, it was "boombl4" and his team that could hold their heads high after a 16-14 win.

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Perfecto

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