After taking the long road through the lower bracket of the playoffs, Natus Vincere completed their comeback Sunday, defeating Gambit Esports 2-1 in the Grand Final of the BLAST Premier World Final at Copenhagen, Denmark.
Natus Vincere fell in the opening round of the upper-bracket playoffs then won four consecutive matchups in the lower bracket just to reach the Grand Final.
Na’Vi fell 16-11 on Mirage to open the Grand Final before rallying to win 16-11 on Ancient and 16-6 on Inferno.
Led by a dominating performance from Ukraine’s Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev (77-40 kill-to-death ratio), Na’Vi didn’t allow a single player from Gambit to finish with a positive k/d ratio. Russia’s Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov came closest for Gambit with his 50 kills against 51 deaths.
Ax1Le powered Gambit to the win on the first map with 26 kills (plus-11). S1mple led the way in defeat, finishing plus-5.
On Map 2, s1mple once again led the way for Na’Vi with a plus-14 (26-12), though teammates Denis “electronic” Sharipov and Valeriy “B1T” Vakhovskiy each contributed, both finishing plus-6.
On the deciding map, s1mple finished plus-18, B1T was plus-11 and Kiril “Boombl4” Mikhailov was plus-8 as all five players finished in the positive.
To earn the $500,000 first-place prize Sunday, Na’Vi first had to dispatch Team Vitality in the lower-bracket final, sweeping to a 16-12 win on Nuke and a 16-5 win on Dust II.
S1mple had the most kills with 44, while electronic and B1T both led the way by finishing plus-17.
BLAST Premier World Final prize pool:
1. $500,000 – Natus Vincere
2. $250,000 – Gambit Esports
3. $120,000 – Team Vitality
4. $50,000 – Team Liquid
5-6. $25,000 — G2 Esports, Astralis
7-8. $15,000 — Heroic, Ninjas in Pyjamas
–Field Level Media
