Natus Vincere have won this year’s DreamHack Winter CS:GO event, and they did so in dominating fashion earlier today.
In the three-day $100,000 event, they defeated many of the world’s best contenders—including Heroic, Team Envy, and Mousesports—to take home their first championship of 2017.
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After losing to Gambit Esports 31-28 in a quintuple overtime best-of-one on Inferno, Na’Vi pummeled Heroic 2-1 in the group decider match to punch their ticket to the playoff stage of DreamHack’s final event of the year. Their second-place group finish under Gambit put them on the opposite side of the bracket to face Team Envy in the semifinals.
Na’Vi swept Envy with close scorelines on Overpass (16-11) and Nuke (16-14), but they didn’t get the rematch they hoped for in the grand finals. Mousesports eliminated Gambit with 2-0 series of their own in the latter half of the bracket, putting them in the grand finals against Na’Vi.
Although they were expecting a tough matchup, Na’Vi crushed Mousesports on map one Cobblestone 16-4, as Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev led the way with a 26-9 kill-death ratio. To close out the tournament, Na’Vi newcomer Denis “electronic” Sharipov and Egor “flamie” Vasilyev carried their own weight and attained 28 and 27 kills respectively in the team’s 16-11 win on Inferno.
Overall, Na’Vi’s Terrorist sides and s1mple’s fragging capabilities were a key component to their wins against Mouz. S1mple was easily the team’s most valuable player throughout the tournament, as he averaged an unbelievable 31 kills per map.
With their DreamHack Winter title in mind, Na’Vi have a good confidence boost going into their upcoming pre-Major bootcamp, since their next international event won’t be until mid-January. They’re hoping to qualify for the Boston Major at the Offline Qualifier from Jan. 12 to 15.
