Top five plays from StarLadder StarSeries Fall grand final

22-9-2025 23:36

Take a look back at some of the standout moments from NAVI and NIP's grand final in Budapest.

Editor's note:

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Allstar.gg.

Natus Vincere laid claim to the StarLadder StarSeries Fall trophy on Sunday, ending a title drought that dated back to IEM Rio 2024 and earning their first tournament victory with Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri with a 2-0 win over Ninjas in Pyjamas in the grand final.

NAVI claim StarSeries Fall title over NIP

There were highlight plays aplenty throughout the event and in the final itself, and we've picked out a select few moments to showcase from the final, as captured by Allstar.gg.

Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan began the title decider with an emphatic denial of Ninjas in Pyjamas' A execute, using his Dual Berrettas to perfection to down four players and give Natus Vincere early momentum.

Ninjas in Pyjamas recovered from 1-4 down and rallied to post five rounds at the break, but walked away from the map with just two rounds in the second half. One came by way of winning the second pistol, while the second was stolen away by three exceptional Deagle headshots from Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto in defense of Ramp.

Inferno was a much tighter affair, with several multi-kills from all of Ninjas in Pyjamas, including this quad-kill from Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer, seeing them dominate for an 8-0 start and 9-3 lead.

A quad-kill from Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy towards the end of the first half offered Natus Vincere a lifeline, and it was one they seized upon after the swap.

A near-impenetrable defense saw the eventual champions concede just one round on the CT side, with iM bailing his team out of trouble early in the half with a three-man spraydown while shrouded in a smoke to recover a 3v5.

Honorable mention: b1t's all-headshot Deagle 4k on 10HP highlight of the year contender

While not a highlight from the final, it would be a disservice not to include b1t's highlight of the year contender, an absurd Deagle quad kill against Ninjas in Pyjamas in the upper bracket final in a 2v4 on 10HP that helped NAVI sweep the teams' first meeting.

y no mvp?? and y no artcle like this for fpg and all others?

2025-09-22 23:38

27 replies

Not enough top10 teams, only Navi (#9)

19 replies

didnt that use to be enough tho? one hltv top10? thats why fpg1 had mvp right?

2025-09-22 23:41

6 replies

Might also take top 20 into account too. FPG had 15/16 top 20 with worst being 22, whereas SL Navi is the only top 20 let alone top 10. Perhaps HLTV changed how they viewed which tournaments deserved MVPs

2025-09-22 23:47

2 replies

#6 is referring to FPG1, which is the one JamYoung won an MVP for.

2025-09-22 23:53

1 reply

whoops, my mistake. Though as you stated in #13 it's still way higher ranked

2025-09-22 23:57

FPG1 had two Top 10 teams at the time of the tournament (FURIA and paiN, 9 and 10 respectively; compared to just Na`Vi here). FPG1 also had 9 Top 20 teams (again, compared to just Na`Vi here).

2025-09-22 23:52

such a mickey mouse mvp, now that i look back on it(still cool, don't get me wrong)

2025-09-23 08:02

you're right, 1 top-10 team is enough, but there should be a few top-20 teams besides that, at least 2 i believe this tournament had not just 1 top-10 team, it had 1 top-20 team in attendance and that 1 team won against literal t3 that's why it would be pointless to give an mvp for it

2025-09-23 00:04

Navi wasn't even top 10 before the tournament started.

11 replies

Given that we're talking about HLTV MVP requirements, it makes more sense to talk about HLTV's ranking rather than VRS. Na`Vi never left HLTV's Top 10.

2025-09-22 23:50

10 replies

HLTV ranking is just humbug now, they have said it themselves, it's useless because VRS is all that matters in all ways HLTV ranking is literally the exact same thing as me coming up with my own list

2025-09-23 00:00

9 replies

Yeah, and if you were the one awarding the MVP based strictly on quantity of Top X teams, your list would be the one that matters for the definition of a Top X team. Regardless, the sentiment that there's a strict definition like "there must be N Top 10 teams to qualify for an HLTV MVP" is most likely false, anyway. It just makes more sense to demonstrate the gulf in competition between non-awarding and awarding events using HLTV's own ranking instead of someone else's.

2025-09-23 00:10

Brother the HLTV staff don't rate their own ranking system, they always do these recaps on VRS but never on their own ranking hltv.org/news/42746/the-vrs-impact-of-fp.. They don't care or rate their own rating system, why the hell are you simping for theirs

2025-09-23 00:12

5 replies

I'm literally not, in fact I haven't even drawn any comparison of ranking systems, so I really don't know how you got to that conclusion.

2025-09-23 00:16

4 replies

It doesn't "make sense" that hltv would be using their own ranking for their mvp medal choices when their ranking doesn't control anything important, and how much they've tried to switch the entire ecosystem of us viewers to adopt it. HLTV ranking isn't used for literally anything anymore.

2025-09-23 00:42

3 replies

Do you think HLTV has more or less criticisms for VRS ranking's accuracy than their own?

2025-09-23 00:43

I don't think they care enough to compare the 2 because whenever they talk about VRS inaccuracies they say "who cares if teams aren't exactly accurately portrayed if we get the best teams at the major"

2025-09-23 01:01

Sure, but that demonstrates that exact accuracy isn't really meaningful to this anyway, which I've acknowledged in #18 (see "Regardless,"). But if you accept that, then none of #10 onwards ever mattered, since the actual number is irrelevant, just the point (that Na`Vi was the only top team at StarLadder).

2025-09-23 01:12

hltv is not more or less humbug than it ever was my guy... and makes has made more sense than pretty much any other ranking ever as well

2025-09-23 00:13

Before HLTV decided teams going to tournaments, now it doesn't. I prefer HLTV ranking but it doesn't have any standing on anything important anymore.

2025-09-23 00:33

If HLTV gives MVP for this they should give a MVP for a posibile s1mple win in ESL Challenger grand final too

2025-09-22 23:39

flair

A studio LAN with 1 Top 20 team isn't MVP-worthy, but an online event with 0 Top 20 teams is even less so.

2025-09-22 23:45

it's tier 5 tournament ofcourse no mvp

2025-09-23 03:17

We'll have it for other events too, just starting it off

2025-09-23 10:00

omg im famous also very interesting ty

2025-09-23 11:14

A b1t with a desert eagle on inferno, something absolutely insane

b1tferno strikes again

2025-09-22 23:43

kinda shit highlights b1ts was cool though

2025-09-23 00:41

that b1t clutch is so good

2025-09-23 01:09

I think this is a great idea but sorry allstar I would kinda love to hear the commentary

2025-09-23 01:29

hey flo thanks for the feedback let me chat with the team and see if we can come up with some ideas on how to bring in commentary to these clips!

2025-10-07 07:03

b2t

2025-09-23 02:17

Allstar.gg embeds don't really work well from a mobile browser. The next one usually starts playing before I'm done with the previous one.

2025-09-23 07:37

hey jozef, allstar CEO here, sorry about that, would you mind connecting with me on discord to share a video or screenshot of the issues you're talking about? we'll get this in front of the dev team to make sure the mobile browser viewing is improved. appreciate the heads up!

2025-10-07 06:51

That 4k deagle clip is like the inferno version of nin9's DD2 A-site hold clip vs spirit.

2025-09-23 07:56

2025-09-23 11:31

really hate these Allstar highlights. Instead of giving me commentary, the arena sound, what round it is etc. etc. you just give me the POV of a kill. It takes all the context out of the kill, removes all the hype around it and just gives me good shooting which like...whatever

2025-09-23 13:17

hey embru, i'm ants allstar's CEO- thanks for the feedback here, not all tournaments or match highlights will have that sort of content, and often times good rounds may not get clipped which is where we come in. with that said we do want to enhance the content to be as exciting as any in-arena moment can be, and really appreciate the feedback here. would you be willing to chat on discord? would love to hear your thoughts on how else can improve our content. thanks

2025-10-07 06:50

Allstar highlights are shit, they don’t work properly on mobile and they don’t have the commentary which is what makes playoff clips so hype. I could get behind Allstar clips tho if they just fixed their shit on mobile, it’s been a known issue for years now and they refuse to fix it, their phone app is broken as anything as well and they won’t fix it.

2025-09-23 16:23

hey Bob, allstar CEO here, sorry we are not up to snuff here. would you be willing to connect with me on discord tell us more about the issues on the mobile clips? we'll look at ways we can potentially mix in commentary, and other assets like video feeds. our approach enables lots of content to be created & quickly, so there's a lot more we can do to make it stand out and compete with more custom or production-heavy type highlights. thanks again! hope we can make some improvements here to win you over!

2025-10-07 06:48

Yes I’d definitely be willing. I am a fan of your service and do use it myself but since the integration with hltv some issues have really stood out and it can be frustrating at times. I would love to be able to provide feedback that is heard.

2025-10-07 17:40