Natus Vincere continue to dominate the international scene after taking out Vitality 2-1 in the BLAST Premier Fall Final grand final, making this their third LAN victory in a row (fourth counting the pre-online era IEM Katowice 2020) after IEM Cologne and the PGL Major in Stockholm.
The final victory didn’t come easy to Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy’s men, however, as a first map victory was followed by a shocker as Vitality astoundingly claimed Nuke 16-6, a map which NAVI hadn’t lost in over half a year, racking up 20 victories in a row in the meantime.
Ultimately, the Frenchmen weren’t able to hold up the pace on the final map, Inferno, where NAVI set the pace on the CT side giving themselves plenty of room to close things out on the attack to win the trophy.
Natus Vincere are now eying an era, and if Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and company can continue to put away tournaments in dominating fashion they could be on their way to make the bid reality ahead of 2022, when the scene will be in upheaval following myriad roster changes.
Nobody could cast a shadow on s1mple in the final
The final series started on Mirage, Vitality’s pick, and a map they had just walked all over Astralis on in the consolidation final, but Natus Vincere were the first ones to make a mark on the CT side, taking a 5-0 lead. Despite the slow start, the Frenchmen hit back to within one before deflating under the might of s1mple and Denis “electronic” Sharipov in a 9-6 half.
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and company won the crucial second pistol round and once again got within one round of tying things up, but that’s when Natus Vincere kicked into gear on the attack with s1mple putting on a show for the fans at the Royal Arena downing 36 players as he and his teammates won the first map 16-12.
Vitality were then tasked with going up against Natus Vincere on Nuke, where the CIS squad has a 20 map win streak and recently beat the Dan “apEX” Madesclaire-led squad 16-6 in the upper bracket final. Not ones to back down, the Frenchmen took complete control in the early stages of the map with a flawless 6-0 start. Despite losing a round, a calm and collected Vitality bounced right back to a 9-1.
Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov won a big 1vs3 afterplant clutch to tally a second round for his side, but Vitality showed no signs of slowing down, winning the half 11-4. NAVI wedged themselves back into the map in the early rounds of the CT side, but to no avail as the Frenchmen did the unthinkable and ended B1ad3’s men’s winning streak.
Vitality spoiled NAVI’s 2-0 on Nuke before falling on Inferno
In classic fashion the series came down to Inferno, where the CIS squad took the lead on the defense in their bid to take the series and leave Denmark with another piece of silverware for the organization’s trophy cabinet in Kyiv. Vitality hit back in the third round, but a triple by electronic kept his team ahead.
From there in out it was a one-sided affair as NAVI took a 12-3 half before putting the final nail in Vitality’s coffin after the Frenchmen covered up the final result winning a few rounds before Valeriy “B1T” Vakhovskiy closed it out in a 1vs2 afterplant situation to make it 16-7 and claim the title.
The final BLAST Premier Fall Final standings are:
1.
2.
3.Astralis – $40,000
4.
5-6.Liquid – $15,000
5-6.FaZe – $15,000
7-8.NIP – $10,000
7-8.BIG – $10,000
PlatoAi. Web3 Reimagined. Data Intelligence Amplified.
Click here to access.
Source: https://www.hltv.org/news/32882/navi-claim-blast-premier-fall-final-trophy-over-vitality
