The first-ever Counter-Strike 2 Major series competition, PGL Major Copenhagen 2024, was held in Copenhagen. The victory in the championship was won by the Ukrainian eSports team Natus Vincere (NAVI). The team became the first-ever CS2 World Champion, beating the American team FaZe Clan 2:1 in the grand finals.
The tournament, like the previous majors, was held according to the Swiss system, and NAVI started their journey with the Elimination Stage. As reported on the official website of the team, in the debut Natus Vincere were able to beat The Mongolz on the Mirage map (13:10), and then they passed the G2 team on the Nuke map. Although the opponent was ahead during the second part of the map, NAVI still closed it with a score of 13:11 in their favour.
In the next stage, held in the best of 3 formats, the team played against Spirit and Cloud9, and although the players performed competitively on the first two maps, they still lost to their opponents on the decisive one. “For the last match of the Elimination Stage, NAVI had no margin for error. The team performed in full force against paiN and bypassed the Brazilian team, which unexpectedly reached this stage (2 : 0),” the team said in a statement.
In the quarterfinals, NAVI defeated the Turkish team Eternal Fire with a score of 2:0, and in the semifinals – G2. NAVI beat G2 on the Anubis map (16:13), lost to Nuke, but still won on the Ancient map (13:11) and made it to the finals. In the finals against FaZe Clan, the Ukrainian team also took Ancient (13:9), but the opponent was able to win back against Mirage (13:2). Nevertheless, NAVI rallied, took the third map and won the PGL Major Copenhagen trophy on Inferno (2:1).
In addition, the title of the best player of the tournament was also taken by the representative of Natus Vincere – Justinas “jL” Lekavicius. According to the team’s message, he “finished the competition with a rating of 1.22. The best map for the Lithuanian was the final Inferno against FaZe, on the map Justinas simply did not leave any chances to the opponents, ending the confrontation with a rating of 1.90”. He was also a major factor in winning matches against G2 (1.27) and Eternal Fire (1.25) in the playoffs.
According to the results of the first major tournament after the signing of three European players in CS2, NAVI took the highest place and earned $500,000. The ESL Pro League S19 tournament is ahead in NAVI, which will be held from April 23 to May 12 in Malta.
It is also reported that during the grand final of the PGL Major Copenhagen, the Maincast studio collected UAH 5.3 million for the needs of the Azov battalion, and the owner of Natus Vincere, Maxim Krippa, doubled this amount.
Read also:
- AirCar have sold their flying car technology to a Chinese firm
- Kyiv’s Independence Square Recreated in Fortnite Game