Ukrainian esports team NAVI become first-ever CS2 champions
Pravda Ukraine
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.
Support UP or become our patron!