NAVI overcome Vitality to reach BLAST grand final

In the face-off between the two best players of 2020, the Ukrainian superstar finished on top.

A thriller consolidation final BO3 between Natus Vincere and Vitality finished with the former team taking a 2-1 victory and earning a spot in the title match against Astralis.

The best player of 2020, Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, and the second-best one, Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, both had stellar showings in the match. Though, it was Natus Vincere's AWPer that pushed it across the line with a 1.74 rating on the decider, Dust2, to ensure his side a grand final bout against Astralis.

Nuke kicked off with Vitality taking a 4-1 lead, but Natus Vincere managing to break the Frenchmen's bank with a mixed-buy proved pivotal to them getting into the groove. The score was 6-4 for them when ZywOo's aggressive ramp play netted him a double entry, pulling the scoreline back to finish with just one round between the two teams at half time.

Vitality pushed ahead after the switch by winning the pistol and were up 11-8 before Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov's double put Natus Vincere in a strong situation to win their first defensive buy round. However, Vitality struck back and reached 15-9 after a Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire - Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon 2v4, but the CIS side still showed class. With their back against the walls and s1mple powering up, they chained six in a row to reach overtime and then closed it out, 19-17, to win their map pick.

Things moved to Overpass next, where Natus Vincere's 3-0 lead post-pistol was canceled out by Vitality thanks to Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier showing up in first buy with a quad kill. From 3-3, the CIS side took back the lead with great play from s1mple as well as Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev, who put up a 4K hold in round 8. Just when it was looking like the Frenchmen were going to get run over on their map pick (8-3 down), they scraped their way back into the half to finish it 8-7.

The second half was a full-out brawl, as Vitality took four of the first five rounds, but Natus Vincere came alive after a triple-kill from Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov to equalize at 12-12. In the dying embers of the map, shox found consistent success playing aggressively on A, helping his side to close out Overpass 16-12.

Strong play from shox set Vitality up for the early lead as CT on Dust2, 4-0, with the scoreline turning on its head after s1mple's AWP triple kill and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy's 1v2 clutch, which destroyed Vitality's economy. After that, Natus Vincere ran up a strong lead by punishing the mid holds from Vitality, finishing the half 10-5.

Another pistol added to the tally of the French side gave them a route back into the game, however, Natus Vincere were back to winning ways after their double eco, reaching 13-8. apEX's team managed to add one more round soon, but were unable to convert against a low-buy which saw their opponents take the victory, 16-10.