Ukrainian esports team NAVI become first-ever champions of CS2 tournament in Copenhagen

Sunday, 31 March 2024, 23:49

Ukrainian esports team Natus Vincere (Latin for "born to win", or NAVI for short) has won the highly prestigious Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) tournament – PGL Major Copenhagen 2024.

Source: Champion

Born to Win proved to be stronger than the American organisation FaZe Clan’s European team. The battle ended with a score of 2-1. The match was held in Bo3 (Best of 3) format. The prize pool was US$1.25 million.

The NAVI team consists of two Ukrainians, a Lithuanian, a Romanian, and a Finn:

Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi (Ukraine)
Justinas "jL" Lekavicius (Lithuania)
Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen (Finland)
Mihai "iM" Ivan (Romania)
Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov (Ukraine)
Andrii "B1ad3" Horodenskyi (coach, Ukraine)

PGL Major Copenhagen

Final. 31 March

NAVI – FaZe 2-1

Maps: Ancient (13-9), Mirage (2-13), Inferno (13-3)

Background: The Ukrainians had started the tournament from the second round according to their qualifying results. They got off to a fairly strong start, achieving two of the three wins required (The Mongolz – 1-0, G2 Esports – 1-0), but only managed to reach the play-offs at their last attempt (Pain – 2-0) after losing to two Russian teams (Cloud9 – 1-2, and Team Spirit – 1-2).

In the quarter-final, Born to Win confidently defeated the Turkish team Eternal Fire – 2-0.

The PGL Major is a highly prestigious CS2 esports tournament sponsored by the game's creator, Valve.

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