Natus Vincere Continues Its Era with a Victory at BLAST Premier: Fall Finals

It’s been official since the end of the PGL Major but now it’s undeniable: Natus Vincere has established a new era of dominance in CS:GO, similar to what we saw in the past in the case of NiP, Fnatic, Astralis, or Team Liquid. This is by far the strongest Na’Vi roster we’ve ever had the chance to watch and unless something changes either about the game, the CIS organization, or its main rivals, there’s a huge probability that s1mple and his young crew will dominate CS:GO for at least one more year. Because everyone on the roster is hungry for more and perfectly relaxed about being at the top of the global rankings. This BLAST Premier: Fall Finals trophy is just another good result for them.

Na’Vi’s Road to the BLAST Premier: Fall Finals Title

Natus Vincere entered the tournament as its number 1 favorite. Everybody knew it from day 1, fans and adversaries alike. With NiP going through a tough time after its recent roster change and G2 not even in the race because of their disastrous qualifier results, Na’Vi had a relatively simple job at this event.

The race started in the Upper Bracket Quarterfinals with a victory against BIG. This CS:GO organization hadn’t done anything important in quite some time, while Na’Vi was at the top of its game. Everyone expected a 2 – 0 result and that’s exactly what happened. BIG managed to win just 15 rounds in total while Na’Vi played so well that s1mple was only the 4^th best player on his team. This would be unthinkable a few years ago. But now, thanks to his incredible crew, the best CS:GO player of all time can finally get carried himself. s1mple’s rating 2.0 for this match was 1.11, while B1T’s was 1.72.

The next match was against Heroic, a team that wasn’t unfamiliar to Na’Vi. Quite the contrary, the two squads encounter each other very frequently at important events. The CIS crew wasn’t far from ending the match in just 2 maps, but Heroic managed to steal the 2^nd map with a score of 16 – 14. This was a painful defeat for s1mple, who obviously got angry and heavily carried his team in game 3. His score in that game was +12 / 1.53, which is spectacular against an opponent like Heroic.

Na’Vi’s final 2 matches of the tournament were played against Vitality. The first time, ZywOo and his French roster got destroyed by Na’Vi, winning just 13 rounds in total. Nobody on his team had a positive score or a rating 2.0 above 1. Things looked very very grim and the crowd felt confident that Astralis would beat Vitality in the Lower Bracket Final. However, despite starting with map victory, gla1ve and his recently changed roster ended up losing the match with a score of 1 – 2. This meant that Vitality was going to get its 2^nd shot at the title.

Grand Final

The Grand Final started poorly for Vitality, which lost on its map pick (Mirage) and was going to play the 2^nd game on Na’Vi’s favorite map: Nuke. Prior to this encounter, Na’Vi had won 13 consecutive times on this map. And that’s why very few people gave Vitality a chance to force the 3^rd map. But to everyone’s amazement, the French side actually smashed s1mple on his map pick with a score of 16 – 6.

On the 3^rd map, however, Na’Vi had a phenomenal start, taking a massive lead and never letting go. The final score was 16 – 7.

With this result, Na’Vi confirms once again that we are living in its era. And we’ll probably continue to do so for a bit longer.

 

Photo credit: IEM|Adela Sznajder