With a clear victory over Nuke (13-6) and destruction over Inferno (13-6), Natus Vincere emerged victorious in the grand final of the Esports World Cup 2024. This victory came after the team had recovered from a loss against G2 in overtime, which resulted in a score of 14-16.
With this victory, Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen expands his perfect record against his previous company to seven wins and zero losses. Additionally, his team was awarded its second trophy of the year following its unexpected triumph in the PGL Major Copenhagen tournament.
In the months that followed, discussions over whether or not the Major triumph was a fluke continued, and Natus Vincere made a step toward rebutting that claim by finishing in second place against Spirit at the BLAST Spring Final just before the tournament break. They have now made a significant step ahead by winning a second trophy, and this time, it was a convincing one. This comes after they were able to avoid a red-hot start from the second position.
Nicolai Nikola "NiKo" When Kovač entered the final in a state of outstanding form; nevertheless, he was not provided with a significant opportunity to extend his domination further. Although he managed to get a few multi-kills with a reduced impact on Ancient and put out a solid effort on Nuke and Inferno, Natus Vincere was able to avoid him on the latter two maps. Furthermore, his fragging was not sufficient to compensate for an unusually quiet Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov.
However, the Russian sniper's numerous overextensions, unforced errors, and several essential misses opened a massive hole in G2's game, which NAVI lost no time in attacking. The Russian sniper did have a few moments that stood out as very impressive.
The performance of Nemanja "huNter—" Kovač, who enjoyed a comeback to form during his team's run at the European Championship of Tennis (EWC), was also a source of disappointment for G2. Kovač had a poor performance in the final, with a rating of 0.67 over the series. On the latter two maps of the series, Natus Vincere totally overpowered G2 in terms of their team play and combined prowess. This was a sharp contrast to the situation that G2 found themselves in.
G2 decided to begin the series with Ancient, a map on which NiKo has shown an increasing level of comfort. Additionally, NiKo now has Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa's extraordinary proficiency in the Middle to rely on as a backup.
However, the kill total of the Bosnian rifler by the time the map was over is somewhat deceptive because a substantial percentage of his production was against Ecos or in rounds that had already been lost. MalbsMd's openings and kills from the backlines from Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski were what helped propel G2 to a strong 6-0 start. He still delivered a couple of multi-kills and a few impact rounds, but Janusz Pogorzelski's contributions were what helped force G2 to victory.
The entries into A provided NAVI with a window of opportunity to get back into the game, and they were able to narrow the margin to four rounds at the halftime break. After that, they capitalized on a relatively calm map and a few overextensions by m0NESY to lead by a score of 11-10.
However, as m0NESY gives, m0NESY takes away: the Russian sniper scored a double to tie the game, and despite another overextension in round 24 that caused the game to go into overtime, he came up with a massive clutch to put his team on map point before malbsMd cut straight through the B defenses to finish off the map. After that, the game went to overtime.
However, Natus Vincere came out of the gates swinging on their Nuke choice. They exploited malbsMd at Ramp on many occasions and influenced rotations to perfection in order to breach into sites and get out to a 4-0 start.
A triple kill from m0NESY's Scout kicked off G2's comeback attempt to avert a runaway. NiKo led the way in tying the game at the half because he started the recovery effort. However, all was wasted because G2 was unable to create any kind of offense following the side change. Natus Vincere won all the T rounds, which resulted in a resounding victory for Natus Vincere, 13-6.
For Valeriy, "b1t" Vakhovskiy had begun to exert himself on Nuke, demonstrating what a natural Ramp anchor is capable of doing in comparison to the painstaking effort that G2 had put out, and he took things to the next level on Inferno.
An early game plan to exploit Apartments paid off for Natus Vincere, as the Ukrainian rifler appeared to be entering a flow state that was comparable to his performance in the Major grand final with Inferno. This was due to the fact that he was able to shred G2's fortifications.
It wasn't until the fourth Apartments pop that G2 was finally able to put a stop to the onslaught, and it was only because malbsMd had managed to finish off the attack with an unbelievable quad kill.
The round, however, did not do much to soothe the agony that was created by b1t, and Natus Vincere was eager to bring the destruction of G2 to a stop. The only thing that NiKo's team was able to do was three rounds of ham-fisted punches. However, their destiny in Riyadh was sealed when Justinas "jL" Lekavicius and Mihai "iM" Ivan completely shut off a B attack, therefore clinching victory for their team.