Na’Vi sweep G2 at IEM Katowice grand finals

After an astonishing performance at IEM Katowice 2020, Natus Vincere (Na’Vi) takes home the championship. This week Na’Vi 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 thousand check. The winner would also join Evil Geniuses and mouseports in the running for Intel Grand Slam. Both teams performed extremely well, making it difficult to predict who’d be victorious. The world had high expectations of Na’Vi, who demolished Astralis, knocking them out of the running. Likewise, G2’s been in impressive form over the last month and went undefeated at the tournament.

Map one: Nuke

Na’Vi started G2’s pick on the counter-terrorist side. In-game leader, B00mbl4, placed the team on his back. During the first two rifle rounds, Boombl4 had a 3k and 4k, which set his team up with 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. Swapping sides, 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 resulted in a more balanced scoreline. Electronic secured round 1 after 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 first-half lead of 7-2 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 G2’s, 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. Na’Vi completely dominated the first half,  only allowing their opponents a single round the first half. Entering into 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.