NAVI fans have reason to celebrate once more, as the storied esports organization has added another Counter-Strike major championship to its trophy collection.
Natus Vincere defeated FaZe Clan in the grand final of PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 by a series score of 2-1, bringing the year’s biggest Counter-Strike 2 tournament to a close.
Natus Vincere win PGL Major Copenhagen
The victory at PGL Major Copenhagen for Natus Vincere was hard-fought and well-earned. FaZe was considered the favorite by most fans and observers, having entered the CS2 major playing at a high level and looking poised to achieve major championship glory. But NAVI had other ideas.
FaZe surprised onlookers by choosing Ancient as the series’ first map, and NAVI immediately punished FaZe for it, stealing the map with a 13-9 score. FaZe did manage to bounce back, handily winning on Mirage with a dominant 13-2 scoreline. But NAVI was able to swing back just has hard in the third and final map, triumphing 13-3 on tournament staple Inferno.
Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy was the top performer for Natus Vincere in the grand final, totaling over 50 frags across the three games played. Justinas “jL” Lakavicius, wasn’t far behind with 46 frags of his own, and the team as a whole performed well.
Efforts for FaZe were also relatively balanced, with David “frozen” Cernansky leading the way. In-game leader Finn “karrigan” Andersen struggled on the scoreboard, managing both the fewest frags and the most deaths of any of the 10 competing players.
NAVI win second CS major
The championship is only the second CS major NAVI has won in its illustrious history. The first came nearly three years ago at PGL Major Stockholm 2021. That event was notable for star player Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev capturing his first major trophy after having long been considered the best professional Counter-Strike player in the world.
In Copenhagen, familiar names G2 Esports and Team Vitality rounded out the top four. G2 lost by a razor-thin margin to NAVI in the semifinals after Natus Vincere swept Eternal Fire in the quarterfinals.
NAVI was nearly eliminated during the appropriately named elimination stage, before the playoffs could even begin. The squad failed in its first two attempts to advance to the playoffs, dropping series to both Cloud9 and Team Spirit before recovering to defeat PaiN Gaming with both teams’ tournament lives on the line. That victory was enough to propel Natus Vincere forward with sufficient momentum to run through the playoffs successfully.
