The esports division of CSGO never stops. Differently than most years, however, 2021 saw the action return earlier than usual. In fact, we already had a major tournament – and we also have its winner: NaVi.
An effort that started one year ago
Natus Vincere is the big winner of BLAST Premier: Global Finals 2020. As the name said, the whole circuit started last year, but the finals only kicked off this month.
Nonetheless, the effort to win the tournament goes back a year. The BLAST Premier circuit ended with 36 teams competing for points over various cups in the 2020 season.
At the end of the circuit’s qualification process, NaVi was the first team to qualify through the points system. Those points coming from spectacular performances of the team in events such as winning IEM Katowice 2020.
A bumpy road for NaVi
While NaVi managed to qualify comfortably, the squad struggled against both Vitality and Astralis. In the last months of 2020, these two squads were both stones in Na’Vi road.
Natus Vincere didn’t win a single trophy in tournaments where either Vitality or Astralis played for the last half of 2020.
So, coming to the Global Finals, a tournament with both NaVi nemesis, their chances on paper weren’t high. Yet, here Natus Vincere is.
The Global Finals
To make NaVi chances worst, they kicked off the tournament in the worst way possible. The team lost to Team Liquid after a major upset by the Americans.
Afterwards, the team felt to the lower-bracket. There, s1mple’s squad went through another scare as Complexity managed to challenge them in their elimination game. Fortunately for the yellow-wearing team, they managed to overcome them.
Next, came G2 Esports. In that match, NaVi entered as the underdogs due to their performance compared to the Frenchmen. Yet, NaVi managed to pull their first solid performance.
Then Natus Vincere faced a rematch against Liquid, and a final lower-bracket match against Vitality. S1mple and electronic’s duo came alive, as well as Boombl4’s individual skillset.
A dominant performance against the favorites
While NaVi road to return to the top had fans hyped, the Astralis wall certainly had put many fans’ confidence to test.
All worries went away once the first map, Nuke, started. S1mple kicked off their game with a massive 29 / 19 KD rating, and along with flamie, they caused major issues for the Danish side.
In the second map, Inferno, which was Astralis’ pick, NaVi did even better. Not only the CIS squad won, but they completely overwhelmed them. The team won Inferno with a 16 – 5 score. All in all, Astralis couldn’t even get 20 rounds in total in the best-of-three.
NaVi first major win since March 2020
While Natus Vincere won a couple of events in 2020, such as WePlay Clutch Island after the first quarter of 2020, none of them were prestigious as the BLAST Global Finals.
This victory comes along with a great start to the 2021 season. Natus Vincere now has broken the curse against their previous nemesis, Astralis and Vitality.
Moreover, this win also gives Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, a major confidence boost. The player, which is always competing for the spot of best CSGO player ranked 3rd last year. Now, with a trophy on his back to start 2021, he definitely will be motivated. In fact, his stats were very impressive during the event.
The new team to beat
With the BLAST Premier: Global Finals over, Na’Vi will also be wrapping January. The team will return in early February though, as BLAST Premier Spring Groups start on Feb 3rd.
There, the team will be again facing both Astralis and Vitality. Liquid, G2, FaZe and Complexity will also be present in order to make things even more interesting.
The Spring Groups will be the place for Natus Vincere to consolidate themselves as the team to beat. Should they do, we might finally see Na’Vi becoming the threat they’re supposed to be since last year.
NaVi will be returning soon to the competition
After lifting BLAST’s trophy, Na’Vi will be taking this last week of January to recover and regroup. Don’t think that this means that CSGO will stop for a second, though.
The action continues with cs_summit 3, and you’ll want to make sure to follow us to keep up with it!
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