This story was originally published by Dead Spin
Jordan Woodruff
Natus Vincere battled Eternal Fire and came away with a 3-2 victory in the grand final of the ESL Pro League season 20 on Sunday in Saint Julian’s, Malta.
NaVi dug out of a 1-0 hole, then hung on to take down Eternal Fire and win $170,000 of the $750,000 prize pool along with 2,400 BLAST Premier points.
The Ukrainian esports organization added to a banner CS:GO season in which they also won the Esports World Cup and the Copenhagen major.
Eternal Fire opened the best-of-five match with a 13-8 win on Nuke. NaVi rallied by pulling out a pair of 13-11 victories on Anubis and Ancient.
Eternal Fire stayed alive by running away with a 13-4 win on Inferno. The fifth and final map was Dust II, where NaVi built a 10-5 lead before Eternal Fire closed within 11-10. But NaVi struck for the final two points and a 13-10 victory to claim the championship.
Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov of Ukraine led NaVi with 75 kills on a plus-15 kills-to-deaths differential. His teammate, Romania’s Mihai “iM” Ivan, added 75 kills on a plus-3 differential. For the all-Turkish Eternal Fire side, Ozgur “woxic” Eker had 81 kills on a plus-21 K-D and Ismailcan “XANTARES” Dortkardes posted 80 kills and a plus-8.
The event began on Sept. 3 with 32 teams. Sixteen advanced to the playoffs, which began this past Tuesday.
Natus Vincere defeated Eternal Fire 2-0 in the Group A upper-bracket final. As a result, Natus Vincere advanced straight to the playoff quarterfinals, and Eternal Fire had to start the playoffs in the Round of 12. All matches were best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final.
ESL Pro League Season 20 prize pool (money, BLAST Premier points):
1. $170,000, 2,400 points — Natus Vincere
2. $80,000, 1,800 — Eternal Fire
3-4. $45,000, 300 — MIBR, G2 Esports
5-8. $32,000, 175 — Team Vitality, M80, Team Liquid, Team Spirit
9-12. $23,500, no points — The MongolZ, HEROIC, Complexity Gaming, Imperial Esports
13-16. $17,500, no points — BIG, Virtus.pro, FaZe Clan, FURIA Esports
17-20. $12,000, no points — Sangal Esports, 3DMAX, MOUZ, RED Canids
21-28. $7,000, no points — Ninjas in Pyjamas, FlyQuest, 9z Team, Wildcard, Fnatic, Astralis, Team Falcons, ATOX Esports
29-32. $3,500, no points — Lynn Vision Gaming, KOI, Rooster, ENCE
–Field Level Media
