Relive the WePlay Academy League Finals with the best photographs from the event in Kyiv

HLTV is live from the WePlay Esports Arena Kyiv, bringing updates on the happenings from the ground in Ukraine.

The WePlay Academy League came to an end on Sunday when MOUZ NXT swept Young Ninjas in the best-of-five grand final, taking revenge on the Swedes and going on to lift the trophy despite coming to the final with a map advantage from the lower bracket. With that, our live coverage is coming to a close, but HLTV's photographer on the ground, Radosław "⁠MAKKU⁠" Makuch, left behind a set of images he captured of the action in the Ukrainian capital through his lens.

Three galleries full of photographs commemorate the first academy league of its kind, so scroll down to see a selection of some of the best images taken at the WePlay Esports Arena, and don't forget to check out the gallery itself if you want to see more shots of the happenings in Kyiv.

Day 3

18:29 mouz NXT to face Young Ninjas in WePlay Academy League grand final

MOUZ NXT came out on top in a consolidation final that went all the way to the wire, with fnatic Rising not able to hold on in the dying embers of Vertigo, the decider map, as the team from the Hamburg-based organization closed the series out in the very last round of regulation.

Once again, it was Jon "⁠JDC⁠" de Castro who led the charge for his team, putting on a massive performance on MOUZ NXT’s map pick, Nuke, reaching a 1.94 rating as he and his teammates took the lead in the series with a 16-7 scoreline.

The squad led by Kevin "⁠Kevve⁠" Bohlin kept their hopes alive on Inferno, where the whole team pulled together after losing against a second-round forcebuy, turning an early 1-3 deficit to a 9-6 lead at the half. Francisco "⁠kst⁠" Fragoso and company then dominated the CT side to even things up, 16-8.

It was on Vertigo where the match got exciting, as a 10-5 half by MOUZ NXT on the defense gave way to a great comeback by fnatic Rising, with the map remaining at a stalemate all the way to the 28th round. But then Dennis "⁠sycrone⁠" Nielsen’s men were able to break the CT’s bank to run away with the last two rounds, closing the series 16-14.

The grand final match will start after MOUZ NXT get a break to regain their energy from the three maps they just played, and they will then be pit against the upper bracket winners, Young Ninjas, who will start the final series with a map advantage.

15:07 WePlay Academy League consolidation final under way

The last match before the grand final at the WePlay Esports Arena in Kyiv is now live, with MOUZ NXT and fnatic Rising fighting in the consolidation final for a spot in the title bout. Young Ninjas are already waiting in the final match after winning both of their upper bracket series against the two remaining teams, setting up the final to be a grudge match regardless of who makes it out of the lower bracket alive as they will seek to exact revenge on Erik "⁠ztr⁠" Gustafsson and his men.

The maps for the series are Nuke, which was picked by MOUZ NXT, followed by fnatic Rising’s pick of Inferno. Were the two teams to be at a stalemate after they play their picks, the third and final map to decide the match will be Vertigo.

MOUZ NXT are the favored team to make it through, with JDC at the helm as he has a well-above average 1.26 rating in the five maps played by his team. In front of them, the revitalized fnatic Rising led by fnatic analyst Kevve and with the help of Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim standing in as the team’s coach, have regained a fair amount of confidence after defeating BIG Academy last night in the first elimination match of the event.

The key for Peppe "⁠Peppzor⁠" Borak and company will be the ability to go back to basics, taking initiative and playing off of each other, which is what the 19-year-old Swede told HLTV after the first round of the lower bracket in a short interview that can be found among this thread's Day 2 updates.

10:52 Relive the second day of play in Kyiv through photos ahead of the consolidation final

The final matches of the WePlay Academy League are set to start just hours from now, with MOUZ NXT and fnatic Rising playing the consolidation final at 15:00 ahead of the grand final, where the winner will face off against the upper bracket champions, Young Ninjas, in a best-of-five series.

Before the final day gets underway, relive some of the action from the second day of play at the WePlay Esports Arena Kyiv, where the action has been unfolding among the top academy teams with some of tomorrow's stars fighting to make a name for themselves.

To see more photographs of from the first round of the lower bracket and the upper bracket final of play at the WePlay Academy League Season 1 Finals in Kyiv, head over to our Day 2 gallery.

Day 2

22:07 Young Ninjas secure WePlay Academy League grand final berth over mouz NXT

MOUZ NXT and Young Ninjas, the top two teams in the WePlay Academy league group stage, took the spotlight in the final match of the second day of action at the WePlay Esports Arena in Kyiv. JDC and company initially set themselves in a great position to sweep the series, lifting the Swedes’ pick of Inferno from under their nose, 16-11, but Fredrik "⁠slap⁠" Junbrant’s men went on to deny MOUZ NXT three match points on Vertigo before taking the map in overtime, 19-17, to set the score even.

The series finished on Mirage, a map that had yet to be played at the event in Kyiv, and it was Young Ninjas who showed proficiency out of the gate, controlling the first half on the CT side to a 10-5 half before going on to blow their rivals out of the water 16-5 with ztr leading the way in fashion as he ended with a 2.13 rating and dropped 31 kills with an average of 135 damage per round.

This victory puts the Swedish squad straight into the grand final, where they will have a 1-0 map advantage in the best-of-five series, while MOUZ NXT will be playing fnatic Rising at 15:00 in the consolidation final, with both teams hoping to come out on top in order to get a shot at a rematch against Young Ninjas in the title bout.

20:10 Peppzor: "We showed today that we're a team to watch out for"

fnatic Rising met the night of their opening loss to Young Ninjas in order to figure out how to face BIG Academy after a big blow to the team's confidence, in which the team tried to find and fix the problems that they could in the short amount of time before their bout against the Germans.

The adjustments seemed to bear fruit, as fnatic Rising were able to best Tugay "⁠TuGuX⁠" Keskin's men, albeit in two fought out maps. "We showed today that we're a team to watch out for," Peppzor told HLTV after the series. "If we can just play our game it doesn't matter who we play and what strats they have or don't.

"The problem was that we didn't play off of each other that much," the 19-year-old told HLTV about the problems against Young Ninjas, "and that when someone says something we need to do something with that information instead of just saying 'there's two here or two there' and that's it. We need to take initiative, which we did [against BIG Academy] and everything went a lot better."

In regards to the match itself, fnatic Rising let BIG Academy pick Nuke, showing that they worked on it after the group stage. "We knew that a lot of teams here like to play Nuke," Peppzor said. "mouz NXT, Young Ninjas and even BIG Academy like it, so we knew we needed to practice it. kevve showed us some stuff we should do and we built on that. We had two or three different defaults and some variations, which turned out great as Ts. On the CT side we just tried to figure out the rotations, which was really difficult in the beginning but then we talked about it and it got a little bit better."

fnatic Rising then took a 9-6 lead at the half on Inferno before going on the defense, where they struggled to keep control of the map. "We won the pistol round really cleanly, and we won the second round as well, but then the first buy round we got shocked," the youngster said. "We tried to adapt instantly, but they still found gaps. Golden told us that they were using long a lot and that maybe we should do something about it, and then we got more information towards long, which gave us a better grip on the match after that."

18:26 fnatic Rising eliminate BIG Academy in Kyiv, mouz NXT play Young Ninjas for spot in final

fnatic Rising gathered their pieces after being shattered by Young Ninjas in the WePlay Academy League opening day, losing in a one-sided 0-2 affair, and remain alive going into the final day of play in Ukraine after defeating BIG Academy in a disputed two-map series played on Nuke (16-12) and Inferno (16-14).

In an interview earlier in the day, Iulian "⁠regali⁠" Harjău said that he expected to finish “top 2 or 3, since we know mouz NXT bootcamped and they've had their roster for a long time, but then we also thought that it could be third because Young Ninjas play more tournaments in the summer and other leagues, so they had officials to prepare for.”

No matter what comes next, this victory will give the international squad another day of play to keep gaining experience at the event, as they came here “with the mindset of experiencing stuff, not really just winning,” as the Romanian AWPer stated.

The final series of the day is about to kick off, with the two favorite teams at the event, Young Ninjas and MOUZ NXT, going head-to-head in a clash of styles that pits the young Swedish team’s focus on group cohesion up against a team put together around the firepower and prowess of its individuals.

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15:13 Second day of WePlay Academy League underway as fnatic Rising and BIG Academy face off in lower bracket

The second day of play at the WePlay Academy League is now live as the two teams that lost their opening matches, fnatic Rising and BIG Academy, are fighting to eliminate the other and reach the tournament's consolidation final.

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The second series of the day, which will start at 18:00 , will feature the two winning teams from day one, MOUZ NXT and Young Ninjas, with the winner advancing to the grand final with the coveted map-advantage, while the loser will go on to the second and final elimination match of the tournament, the consolidation final.

09:12 Check out the photos from the opening day at the WePlay Academy League Finals ahead of the first elimination match in Kyiv

As you wait for the second day of LAN play in Kyiv, take some time to check out the photographs uploaded to our gallery from the first day of action at the WePlay Esports Arena, where favorites MOUZ NXT and Young Ninjas won their opening duels.

The second day of play will see the first elimination match of the tournament take place at 15:00 , with BIG Academy and fnatic Rising fighting for survival, while the later game in the day between MOUZ NXT and Young Ninjas will decide the second consolidation finalist and who gets to go on to the grind final through the upper bracket.

Day 1

20:41 Ro1f: "We've shown dominance today, we had the confidence to win"

We caught up with Kalle "⁠Ro1f⁠" Johansson after Young Ninjas' massive victory over fnatic Rising, which has pumped the Swedes full of confidence as they move along the upper bracket.

"The main reason [we dominated] is confidence, we played our game, we really played our game," an ecstatic Ro1f said after stepping down from the WePlay Esports Arena stage. "[fnatic Rising] were a bit more nervous, they didn't do the plays the usually do. Like prosus usually runs up playground every second round and stuff like that — I feel like we just played the game we wanted to play."

When asked about the LAN factor possibly playing into fnatic Rising's jitters, Ro1f seemed convinced it was a factor. "I think so," he said, "I think they were a lot more nervous than us."

Now going up against MOUZ NXT in an upper bracket final clash between the two favorites, the young Swede didn't back down. "We're hoping to win, of course, and I think we have a shot," the 17-year-old said. "We've shown dominance today, we had the confidence to win and they didn't seem as confident as they were online, so I think we can bring it on."

20:09 Young Ninjas crush fnatic Rising to set up upper bracket final bout against mouz NXT

Young Ninjas did not give fnatic Rising a chance in the second WePlay Academy League Finals opening series, winning two one-sided maps to move on to the upper bracket final. ztr and company will now fight MOUZ NXT for a spot in the grand final and the one-map advantage granted to the upper bracket champions.

The Swedes kicked the match off with a devastating 16-3 on their map pick, Overpass, and followed it up with an equally convincing display on fnatic Rising’s pick, Ancient, keeping the international squad down and taking it by the same scoreline to start their tournament run on a high.

The schedule for the second day of play is now set:

15:00 - BIG Academy vs. fnatic Rising
18:00 - MOUZ NXT vs. Young Ninjas

18:25 mouz NXT defeat BIG Academy in WePlay Academy League opener

The first update in this live post from the WePlay Academy League comes after MOUZ NXT bagged the first series of the tournament, beating BIG Academy 2-0 on Dust2 and Ancient with 16-10 scorelines on both maps to secure a spot in the upper bracket final.

"We wanted to 2-0 BIG Academy," Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás told HLTV after the match, "I think we played Dust2 great. We prepared against them well and we knew what they were going to do. We won both pistol rounds, but we lost the force rounds, so it was a rough game — but we closed it."

"On Ancient, from my view, I didn't play my best, I could have been better, but we had team chemistry and Kamil [siuhy] called insanely. I think he helped us to win — in both maps, actually. He was doing great things and everyone played well."

The second series of the day is now under way on Young Ninjas' map pick, Overpass, and will continue on fnatic Rising's Ancient. If needed, the decider will be Veritgo. To learn more about Young Ninjas, their preparation on theeir philosophy when bringing up youngsters, check out our interview with coach slap.

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14:50 HLTV.org live from Kyiv

The WePlay Academy League Finals, the first of its kind, are ready to start, pitting the four best academy teams from the league's group stage, which took place in July and early August.

For the first time since IEM Katowice 2020, HLTV will again be on site bringing all of the action live as it happens, with photographs and interviews to come from the three-day event in Ukraine.

The first match, which begins at 15:00 will have BIG Academy pitted against the group stage winners, MOUZ NXT, and before the match we spoke to Nico "⁠Aqua⁠" Kembitzky to learn more about him and his squad going into the match and event.

The second and final opening series will follow at 18:00 , and will have the other two teams in attendance, Young Ninjas and fnatic Rising, matching up against each other in a bid to make their way through the upper bracket.

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This post will be updated as the tournament proceeds at the WePlay Esports Arena, so be sure to check back in and don't forget you can also follow HLTV on Twitter and Instagram for updates on social media.