IEM Cologne 2021: NAVI Crowned as Champions

In this dark time of Covid-19 ESL finally brought light by announcing the CS:GO LAN event which was taking place after 491 days. IEM Cologne schedule was postponed due to Covid-19 but ESL decided to conduct it in LAN format. It took place from 6^th – 18^th July. This 2-week long tournament has shown us the most intense CS:GO game.

After waiting for 2-weeks and witnessing this intense battle between players it finally came to an end on 18^th July we got our champion of IEM Cologne 2021. Natus Vincere (NAVI) was crowned as the champions of the IEM Cologne 2021. They won a prize pool of $400,000.

NAVI aced through the group stage by crushing Renegades, Team Vitality, and Astralis. Each match against those teams showed a score of 2-1, but NAVI dominated the third map each time. In playoffs, NAVI was against FaZe Clan. In this face-off, FaZe Clan took the fall and NAVI emerged as the winner. All the maps against FaZe Clan were dominated by NAVI, scoring 16-7 Inferno, 16-7 Mirage which leads to the overall score of 2-0.

On one side as NAVI forwarded towards the finals by defeating every team coming their way. On the other side, G2 Esports was also marching forward the grand finals with all their might. G2 esports in Group A Bracket swept the floor with Complexity, BIG, and Gambit Esports scoring 2-0, 2-1, and 2-1 respectively. As the G2 Esports entered the Playoffs, where they battled with Astralis. Scoring G2 16-6 Nuke, AST 16-12 Dust2, and G2 16-14 Inferno, leading to the overall score of 2-1 and winning the match.

Both NAVI and G2 Esports entered the grand finals held on 18^th July. Both the teams went through their fair share of ups and downs throughout the tournament. Both the team Squashed their enemies to dust. This face-off was going to be the most intense one as both the teams thrived towards becoming the IEM Cologne 2021 Champions.

On 18^th July at 9 am CT, Grand Finals (Best of Five) began between NAVI and G2 Esports. The series started on Dust 2, where a very competitive CT side by G2 Esports was fumbled into a 16-11 win for NAVI. The second map, Mirage, was more of the same as G2 got off to a solid start on the CT side, but Natus Vincere clutched it out 16-14 with a fantastic performance from 18-year-old Ukrainian riffler Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi. 

After winning 2 back-to-back maps by NAVI, G2 Esports was in a tough position. In the first half of the third map, Nuke both the teams were at an even position. As the second half began NAVI got into a very strong economic position and used that to take control on the T side of Nuke. This was the nail in G2 Esports’ coffin, as they were unable to put up a proper fight for the final two rounds. One last grenade stack through the smoke sealed NAVI, LAN CSGO championship with a 16-13 victory. 

Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev continued his excellence into the new era of CSGO LAN. Aleksandr’s stats at IEM Cologne break the charts on HLTV. 93.1 damage and .96 kills per round combined for a 1.77 KD ratio for the event. Those stats are a head above anyone else at IEM Cologne. s1mple also broke the record for the most aces at a LAN tournament, with four full-team wipes. 

Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was awarded the MVP of the tournaments. This is the fourth personal award in a year for the Ukrainian cyber athlete. He is a universally recognized best player of the season’s first half.

NAVI has finally been crowned the champions of the IEM Cologne 2021. They also won the IEM Katowice 2020. That leaves them with 1 more win in the ESL pro Tour to finally take home the Intel Grand Slam. They’ve got THREE more EPT Masters events to pull it off and claim the $1,000,000 bounty.