Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and his teammates defeated their regional opponents in the 13th and last match of the year between NAVI and Gambit Esports to conclude 2021 as the indisputable top team in the globe.
An impressive Mirage victory by Gambit started off proceedings, with the surprise pick of Ancient looking like the ticket for a quick 2-0 by the underdogs. However, Natus Vincere won key rounds on the second map to push things to Inferno, where they were by far the better side, taking the series and the tournament title. NAVI overcame Gambit‘s 3-0 CT advantage over Mirage, resulting in a tense phase. After a 5-5 tie, Gambit took the lead courtesy to Abay “Hobbit” Khasenov, Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov, and Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov’s outstanding play, while AWPer Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov had an uninspiring performance.
Gambit won three rounds on the offensive side of the map (3-2) thanks to an early clutch from sh1ro, but CT dominated the rest of the game. For his team, s1mple shone out (15-6 K-D at halftime), but Gambit‘s late comeback saw them take six rounds before the switch. Natus Vincere maintained their fantastic pistol record at the event (80%+ win rate, 95%+ conversion) and moved in on the map victory with a strong start on the T side (13-8) but nafany‘s squad was able to claw their way back into the game thanks to a mixed-buy from Gambit and Natus Vincere to take the map 16-11.
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Natus Vincere put their foot down on the CT side of Inferno after four competitive half, giving nothing up to Gambit. Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov led his team to victory with a spectacular performance on Banana, whereas nafany‘s team round victories were few and far between. To add insult to injury, s1mple and B1T won a 2v4 in the second pistol, forcing the tournament to be called early.
Final standings of the BLAST Premier: World Final:
s1mple earned MVP medal of the BLAST Premier: World Final
HLTV.org has awarded s1mple the BitSkins.com “Most Valuable Player of the BLAST Premier World Final” after an unrivaled individual performance led NAVI to the title and $500,000 big prize.
Aside from dominating the charts in overall rating (1.42), the 24-year-old also topped the charts in ADR (92.7), KPR (0.90), KAST (79.1 percent), and Impact rating (1.52), outperforming the tournament’s other two notable standout players, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and Nikola “NiKo” Kova, in each.
With his eighth MVP medal in 2021, Ukrainian superstar has now surpassed Nicolai “device” Reedtz’s previous record of seven MVPs achieved in a calendar year from 2018, as well as matching the Danish AWPer’s total of 19 medals won, as he appears ready to smash the overall record.
2021 MVPs by HLTV.org:
BLAST Premier Global Final – s1mple
cs_summit 7 – Jame
IEM Katowice – sh1ro
ESL Pro League 13 – Ax1Le
FunSpark ULTI: EU Final – FaNg
DreamHack Masters Spring – s1mple
Flashpoint 3 – frozen
EPIC League CIS – Hobbit
IEM Summer – Ax1Le
BLAST Premier Spring Final – Hobbit
StarLadder CIS RMR – s1mple
IEM Cologne – s1mple
ESL Pro League Season 14 – s1mple
IEM Fall CIS – sh1ro
IEM Fall: EU – device
PGL Major Stockholm – s1mple
V4 Future Sports Festival – sh1ro
BLAST Premier Fall Final – s1mple
IEM Winter 2021 – ZywOo
BLAST Premier World Final – s1mple
