Natus Vincere also known as NAVI, clinched victory at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals 2022, the Eastern Europeans secured their first big title of the current year.
Six months after triumphing at the BLAST Premier World Finals 2021, NAVI can celebrate again: After a difficult group stage, the team prevailed against the competition in the finals and found the groove from 2021 again despite the use of a substitute player.
The Ukrainian organization can look forward to a winner’s purse of around 190,000 euros and a direct invitation to the World Finals 2022, where they can officially defend their title from the previous year.
Is it 2021 again?
NAVI lost to OG in the group phase and had to fight for their own tournament life against the German team BIG, but the victory over this quintet was the starting spark for a drive that nobody could stop: The FaZe Clan, the most successful team of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in 2022, NAVI easily cleaned up in a one-sided 2:0 series (16:6, 16:1).
The semi-final against group winners OG presented the last major hurdle as the international quintet narrowly defeated NAVI in the second game of the series on Inferno and denied the team a place in the final, but Mirage tipped the scales in favor of the Eastern Europeans.In the final the opponent was called Team Vitality.
The Franco-Danish squad had to admit defeat to a dominant NAVI in the fall finals last year and this story has now been repeated in Lisbon: NAVI was amazing with the 2-0 victory (16:8, 16:5) over their rivals look easy and relaxed.
20th MVP award for s1mple
Hardly any NAVI success goes without additional laurels for Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, the exceptional talent was honored for his performance at the tournament with the 20th MVP award (Most Valuable Player, most valuable player) of his career. This record value is a new historical milestone that young professionals will strive to emulate in the coming years and possibly decades, after all “s1mple” is only 24 years old himself and still has a few more years as an active player ahead of him.
Strong substitute for NAVI
NAVI’s victory, especially given the Russian invasion of the team’s homeland, is a deeply emotional affair for the players and no one is more likely to feel that than Viktor “somedieyoung” Orudzhev.
The Ukrainian, who had to flee Kyiv with his family on the day of the Russian invasion and stayed in his grandmother’s village, where there is not even internet, could not have imagined on that day that about three months later he would be on a stage in Lisbon wearing the NAVI jersey would raise a trophy and the Ukrainian flag in the air.
Following the removal of Kirill “boombl4” Mikhaylov, “somedieyoung” stepped in as a stand-in for NAVI and perfectly complemented the team after the initial difficulties in the group stage. Perhaps this was the optimal application for the still vacant place of the ex-captain.
The balance of power in the CS:GO scene is thus more even and exciting than ever for the rest of the year: FaZe Clan may have dominated the start, but with the victories of Cloud9 at the IEM Dallas and NAVI at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals it is clear become that a long one-sided dominance is by no means to be expected.
