ESL Pro League S18: NaVi secures its first final since its rebuilding

We are much closer to knowing the ESL Pro League S18 champion, as currently, only two teams are still alive. Before that, however, we could see that NaVi, the popular Ukrainian organization, secured its presence in the tournament’s Grand Final for the first time since its lineup change.

There is no doubt that this is a great merit and great news for the team, players, and fans alike, as we had seen a worrying team in previous tournaments. However, everything seems to indicate that this new lineup has already reached its best level of play, and right now, they are an extremely strong and dangerous team.

On the other hand, Monte Esports, their rivals in the semifinals, also had an excellent tournament, but this time, they could not beat NaVi and ended up losing 0-2.

Let’s see what happened in the match between Monte and NaVi in the ESL Pro League S18 semifinals.

NaVi annihilate Monte 2-0 to qualify for the ESL Pro League S18 Grand Final

Monte Esports, the team led by Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev, got an excellent 2-0 victory to secure their place in the Tournament’s Grand Final. On the other hand, Monte had some chances to win some of the two maps. However, the determination and good Team Play shown by NaVi was infinitely superior.

The series took place on Anubis and Mirage.

Anubis

It all started on Anubis, Monte Esports’ map pick, where we had an even match in the first half and somewhat unbalanced in the second.

Monte, starting on their CT Side, managed to take a partial victory in the first half by 8-7, which gave them the confidence to face the rest of the map. However, at the change of sides, NaVi woke up, and thanks to a spectacular combination of s1mple, Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy and Justinas “jL” Lekavicius, they were able to win 9 of the 13 rounds played to take the victory by 16-12.

.@natusvincere successfully convert @Monte_Esports‘ pick of Anubis 16-12 to open up this Semi Final!

Mirage is coming up next 🙏#ESLProLeague pic.twitter.com/5QOgwhulrR

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) September 30, 2023

Mirage

Next, the teams moved to Mirage, NaVi’s map pick, where we had practically a replica of what happened in Anubis.

Also, for the second map in a row, Monte started extremely well on their CT Side to take a 9-6 partial victory in the first half. However, NaVi hit back in a big way in the second half, as they won 10 of the 11 rounds played to secure a 16-10 victory and a ticket to the ESL Pro League S18 Grand Final.

.@natusvincere cleanly take down @Monte_Esports 2-0 in the Semi Finals of #ESLProLeague S18!

16-12 Anubis
16-10 Mirage pic.twitter.com/W61SYCIxGn

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) September 30, 2023

Header: ESL