After an astonishing performance at IEM Katowice 2020, Natus Vincere (Na’Vi) takes home the championship. This week, the Ukrainian organization waded through the world’s best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams, including G2, Astralis, and more.
Na’Vi joins an elite group of teams to leave Katowice as champions. Their predecessors include legends Virtus.pro, fnatic, and Astralis. G2 and Na’Vi faced off in a best-of-five for IEM’s championship trophy and $250,000 check. The winner would also join Evil Geniuses and mouseports in the running for Intel Grand Slam.
Heading into the match, the two players to watch were Kenny “kennyS” Schrub and Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. The pair are legends and arguably two of the greatest AWPers in CSGO history. After such strong performances, it was difficult to predict who’d win the match. The world had high expectations of Na’Vi, who demolished Astralis and knocked them out of the running. Likewise, G2’s been in impressive form over the last month and went undefeated at the tournament.
Na’Vi’s performance throughout the tournament was especially impressive because this team trained together for only two weeks. Their starting roster coming into IEM was:
- Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov
- Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev
- Egor “flamie” Vasilev
- Denis “electronic” Sharipov
- Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy
Map one: Nuke
Na’Vi started G2’s pick on the counter-terrorist side. In-game leader Boombl4 placed the Ukrainian-Russian team on his back with a double and triple kill during the first two rifle rounds. His performance set Na’Vi up for a comfortable lead.
After eight rounds, G2 finally managed to take a round off Na’Vi, but that would be their only round of the half. Moving to the next half, Na’Vi’s momentum was unstoppable. The team swiftly reached map point and ended map one 16-4 after a monstrous triple kill by electronic.
Map two: Dust 2
Dust 2 was Na’Vi’s map choice and resulted in a more balanced scoreline. Electronic secured round 1 with a nail-biting 1v2 clutch. G2 returned round two with a force buy win on the CT side and built momentum for the first time in the series.
Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač performed miles above the rest of his team with 15 kills after nine rounds, resulting in a 7-2 first-half lead for G2. Perfecto got his head in the game and spearheaded Na’Vi’s comeback, resulting in a lead half of 8-7.
Na’Vi’s CT side locked out G2 until Nemanja “nexa” Isaković won a crucial 1v3, which triggered a slight comeback.
It seemed as though G2 had Na’Vi figured out and they eventually tied the map 13-13, but weren’t able to secure the bag. Dust 2 ended with a final score of 16-13.
Map three: Mirage
The last map moved the squads to an old favorite, Mirage. Once again, G2 had a hard time finding their footing. Flamie had an incredible 3k pistol round, starting his team off on the right foot.
Na’Vi completely dominated the first half, only allowing their opponents a single round the first half. Entering the second half, the champions showed no mercy. During match point, flamie and s1mple successfully clutched a 2v5 which secured their win. The final score was 16-2.
