NAVI see off FaZe to reach fifth consecutive final

Aleksib's troops will have the chance to lift their fourth trophy of 2024 on Sunday.

Natus Vincere came back from a map down to beat FaZe 2-1 and lock up a spot in the title decider of the BLAST Premier Fall Final, keeping alive a streak of grand final appearances that stretches back to the Spring Final in London.

The opening two maps of the series were not for the faint-hearted, and it could have easily been a 2-0 victory for either side. FaZe took the lead in the series with a close win on Inferno after punishing their opponents' lack of bite and determination. NAVI then edged out a 13-11 win on Ancient before steamrolling FaZe on Anubis.

In the grand final, Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's charges will take on G2 — a rematch of Group A's upper bracket final, which NAVI won 2-0.

"We're really confident," Aleksib told James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks in a post-match interview. "We won EPL, we came here trying our best to figure out the mistakes we made in EPL and try to improve. Now we're in the finals again. The team wants to play tomorrow, they want to win tomorrow. Then we'll have a couple of days off."

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024
29/09/2024	G2 16:00 Natus Vincere	Match

The series kicked off on Inferno, where the first half was largely dominated by Natus Vincere. FaZe won the pistol round and strung three rounds together later on, but they struggled to find their rhythm in the rest of the half as Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy led his team to an 8-4 lead with five multi-kills, 11 headshots and a 109 ADR.

NAVI added to their lead with a clean pistol and quickly entered double-digit territory. It looked like the game was out of reach for FaZe, but then they managed to punish NAVI's indecisiveness on the B site to get their first of the half.

FaZe's players grew in confidence with each round victory, while NAVI looked afraid to make plays, even in advantageous situations. A 1v2 clutch by Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard and a wasted 4v3 advantage on account of another miscall — one that left Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy shaking his head in disbelief — showed how out of it NAVI were. FaZe locked up the game after a 9-0 run, with Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants dealing the finishing blow with a stylish quad kill.

"We were kind of laughing about it," Aleksib said after the match. "We lost four advantageous situations. We went back and forth, we had miscommunication, we thought no one was A, broky is in boiler. The 1on2 against rain, the 2on2 on B site.

"A lot of rounds we could have won and we would have broken their money. But sometimes CS is just like that. And it's good when you have your map pick next, and we had confidence we could make it happen, and we had Anubis as the third."

FaZe carried their momentum into Ancient as they stormed to a 5-1 lead on the CT side. They then gifted NAVI a way back into the game after an anti-eco blunder but regained their composure before things could get out of hand and went into half-time up 8-4.

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's troops kept up the pressure and increased their lead to 10-4, but the game's complexion changed once Natus Vincere had money in the bank. They took the fight to their opponents and enjoyed a spell of dominance, ultimately securing the map in the final round of regulation with a stunning clutch by Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov just when overtime seemed inevitable.

After two heavily contested maps, Anubis fell short of expectations as it was a one-way street. Led by Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius, NAVI cruised to a 10-2 lead after an offensive masterclass, and they quickly picked up three rounds on the CT side to seal the victory.