Natus Vincere wrote History today, becoming the third team after Astralis and Team Liquid to win the Intel Grand Slam. They defeated Team Vitality in a thrilling 5 map series to take the crown of ESL Pro League Season 14 and etch their name amongst the elites. They won IEM Katowice 2020, DreamHack Masters Spring 2021, IEM Cologne 2021 and finally ESL Pro League S14 in the process.
MAP VETO
⦁ Natus Vincere removed Vertigo
⦁ Vitality removed Ancient
⦁ Natus Vincere picked Dust2
⦁ Vitality picked Inferno
⦁ Natus Vincere picked Nuke
⦁ Vitality picked Overpass
⦁ Mirage was left over
Since the Grand Final was a Best of 5, only 1 ban per side was allowed and it went as one would expect. NaVi banned Vertigo, having never played it while Vitality continued to avoid Ancient. We were left with Dust2, Inferno and Nuke with Overpass and Mirage as decider (if the match went on to 5 maps).
MAP 1: Dust2 (Picked by: Natus Vincere, Won by: Natus Vincere, Final Score: 16:11)
Natus Vincere have been untouchable on Nuke in the last 3 months and were on a 11 map win streak as Vitality tested their steel. It had a shaky start and required a 2v4 by ‘s1mple’ and ‘Boombl4’ in the pistol round to get them started. T side Nuke is where they have done their best work and they gave another example of it and raced to 11 rounds quickly, only allowing Vitality 2 consecutive rounds the whole CT side to end the half 11:4.
After the sides switched NaVi looked set for a win. After the pistol win and the scoreline reading 14:4 it looked all set for a quick end but Vitality weren’t done just yet. With ‘Kyojin’ at the helm, Vitality got 5 rounds on their T side back to back, and NaVi looked humbled. It took a hero AWP effort from ‘s1mple’ to bring them to map point, 15:9.
He then had to bring his hero plays again, and with help from ‘B1T’ and ‘electronic’ they closed the map 16:11, to lead the series again at 2-1.
MAP 2: Inferno (Picked by: Team Vitality, Won by: Team Vitality, Final Score: 16:6)
Having not been tested on Inferno in some time, NaVi looked shaky from the start. Their last game on it was against an underwhelming FaZe but Vitality was the true test. The French relied heavily on their star ‘ZywOo’ and he delivered, especially on the T side. He found entries and exploited rotations, going 14-8 in the process to give his side a 9-6 lead going into the CT side.
There wasn’t much to write home about in the second half as ZywOo did even better on the CT side, not allowing NaVi a single round win. The T side was dismal from the CIS side as they could only get 12 kills in the whole half, which lasted seven rounds. Team Vitality clawed back the lead NaVi had with a win, 16:6 to bring us at even odds 1:1 in the Bo5.
MAP 3: Nuke (Picked by: Natus Vincere, Won by: Natus Vincere, Final Score: 16:11)
Natus Vincere have been untouchable on Nuke in the last 3 months and were on a 11 map win streak as Vitality tested their steel. It had a shaky start and required a 2v4 by ‘s1mple’ and ‘Boombl4’ in the pistol round to get them started. T side Nuke is where they have done their best work and they gave another example of it and raced to 11 rounds quickly, only allowing Vitality 2 consecutive rounds the whole CT side to end the half 11:4.
After the sides switched NaVi looked set for a win. After the pistol win and the scoreline reading 14:4 it looked all set for a quick end but Vitality weren’t done just yet. With ‘Kyojin’ at the helm, Vitality got 5 rounds on their T side back to back, and NaVi looked humbled. It took a hero AWP effort from ‘s1mple’ to bring them to map point, 15:9.
He then had to bring his hero plays again, and with help from ‘B1T’ and ‘electronic’ they closed the map 16:11, to lead the series again at 2-1.
MAP 4: Overpass (Picked by: Team Vitality, Won by: Team Vitality, Final Score: 16:7)
The most one-sided half of the series came on Overpass where Team Vitality literally ran away with it. After giving up the pistol, it seemed they were reinvigorated and clawed back round after round after round to putting up a mammoth 12:3 half. Much of this was owed to veteran ‘shox’ who had 21-7 K/D in the first half alone.
With just the formality left, Vitality cleaned up after losing 4 rounds to end the half at 16:7 and set us up for a dramatic finish on Mirage.
MAP 5: Mirage (Decider, Won by: Natus Vincere, Final Score: 16:14)
The final map, for all the glory, was the one that was the closest. Coming off pretty one-sided maps, for the most part, Mirage is where we saw the best Counter Strike of the series. Starting on the CT side, NaVi had a good start but the French fought back and looked set for a strong T side but ‘B1T’ with a magical B site hold, broke the streak and put NaVi in the driver’s seat for a half win at 10:5.
Vitality had their own strong CT side and NaVi were feeling the heat as the score was 11:10. The map was so intense that they exchanged rounds, winning one and losing one all the way to the 30th where ‘s1mple’ and co. closed it out to take the map, series and championship 16:14.
