NAVI Stand Their Ground, Beat FaZe Clan to Claim the PGL Copenhagen Major Trophy
The first Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) has finally concluded with Natus Vincere (Na’vi) coming out on top in a crazy best of three Grand Final against FaZe Clan. This was the first time a Grand Final has gone to the third decider map since 2018 with the Boston Major.
The first map was FaZe’s map pick Ancient where Na’vi were in the driver seat most of the first half taking a 7-5 lead going into the half. FaZe would put up a small comeback winning four straight rounds, but it was too little too late as Na’vi took the first map with a final score of 13-9.
The two star players for Na’vi on Ancient were Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy and the teams in-game leader Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen. Aleksib called a fantastic game against one of the greatest in-game leaders in Counter-Strike history Finn “karrigan” Andersen. Karrigan was the final Danish player left in the major, meaning he had the weight of all his countrymen that had been eliminated before him in the previous stages.
The second map was Na’vi’s pick Mirage and this is where we saw the number one team in the world FaZe show us why they are ranked number one. In an absolutely dominating fashion they beat Na’vi on their own map pick 13-2. Every player on Na’vi finished with a below 1.0 rating, and not a single player had double digit kills in the game. Robin “ropz” Kool finished the game with a near 2.0 rating finishing with a 1.91 rating. It was clear that this would be the major turning point in the series and soon the crowd in attendance would see their fellow countryman lift a major trophy in his home country. Na’vi was in shambles after winning the first map the second map could not have gone any worse for them, and their seemed to be no way to climb out of this slump. We were all wrong.
The decider map Inferno was now up and fans were waiting to see this crushed Na’vi squad get blown by in this final map to the best team so far in CS2, but Na’vi had different plans. Na’vi shocked everyone by winning seven straight rounds silencing the crowd and all the doubters watching from home. It was an amazing showing of mental fortitude as a team and in-game leader everyone had thrown out already, shut the haters up once again. Karrigan crumbled on the third map dropping only one kill and failing to hoist a major trophy in his home country.
Aleksib called the perfect game in a match where they routed the best team to claim the PGL Copenhagen Major Trophy. This was the perfect ending to a story that many Counter-Strike fans had been watching for years.
Aleksib was an in-game leader that was kicked from teams like G2, Ninjas in Pyjamas, OG and ENCE. He was always the scapegoat that fans would point to when his teams would underperform or choke in big time moments. This time however, Aleksib was the one to get the final laugh as he did something that his haters always said he couldn’t. He pulled the Na’vi roster out of the depths of darkness and back into the light giving his team that push to continue moving forward, and to show the world what this new international Na’vi roster without Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev could really do.
The Major MVP was given to Justinas “jL” Lekavicius who finished the major with an average rating of 1.22, and showing up big for them especially in the playoffs.
According to EsCharts, the major had a peak viewership of 1,853,954 viewers and an average of 552 thousand viewers throughout the tournament.
The next CS2 major Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 will take place this December.
