NAVI’s Major win may have seemed like a fluke back in March, but the team is now looking to be one of the best players of its generation. After struggling in the playoffs, they capped their tournament run with a win, with a great comeback against Ancient and a 3-1 victory over MOUZ.

After an impressive display of resilience in the semi-finals against Heroic, NAVI were once again forced to dig deep in the Grand Final. It may not have seemed like it would come to this, given how Aleksib’s team raced out to a 2-0 lead over MOUZ thanks to wins over Inferno and Dust2, the latter being a 13-2 drubbing, but it’s a testament to the mettle of their young opponents that they fought back with a 13-6 win over Mirage and secured a monstrous 10-2 CT half over Ancient that almost set up a deciding match on Nuke.

It was not to be, however, as NAVI made a comeback and set up an even more impenetrable defense. They only lost the fourth round in the second half, but then scored eight times in a row. In doing so, they did what seemed impossible: secure the card — and the championship — in regular time.

“We’ve talked about it the whole tournament, no matter how far behind you are, you can still win,” was what NAVI’s ⁠jL had to say in the post-match interview, adding: “But it also works both ways, no matter how far ahead you are, you can still lose, so stay focused.” It was a fantastic display of resilience from a team clearly on their last legs, having reached the grand final six times in a row in a gruelling schedule.