NAVI muscle past GamerLegion to claim IEM Atlanta trophy

NAVI were largely untroubled as they overpowered a plucky but ultimately inferior GamerLegion team.

w0nderful claimed a well-earned MVP that included a 60-kill haul in the grand final that continues his exquisite run of form. The AWPer has been magnificent of late, and was superb in the very important win over Vitality and untouchable in the grand final, and hopefully he can kick on and be the player we know he can be.

Any fears NAVI fans may have harboured going into the series were quickly assuaged as NAVI racked up double figures on the CT side of Mirage off the back of b1t and w0nderful. Aleksib at half time had two kills, just as GamerLegion had two rounds. Not for the want of trying on REZ' part, who had massive impact on the GL T side, somehow dropping over a kill per round and essentially stopping the game from being a total non-event.

REZ was also the only hold-out on GL's brief defense, with seven in the four rounds they played. He cannot do much more than that.

REZ had some help from PR and hypex in map two, including what felt like a huge moment for hypex with a 1v3 near the end of the first half, but it became apparent that NAVI could bully Snax and have the run of Anubis fairly early on in their T side, and this became too much of an issue for GamerLegion to deal with.

The same was somewhat true of Nuke, though GamerLegion had four players standing tall and probably should have won this map despite it.

Snax was a real issue for GL in the sense that he struggled to get anything going, but a crucial clutch from Tauson to break back after Aleksib's 1v2 on the pistol helped bring GL back to life, and they went on a run to go 12-7 up on their CT side.

From there it should have been plain sailing, but Snax struggled and GamerLegion fell around him. makazze was an absolute menace on this map, signified best by his 10 (!) opening kills, which contrasts nicely with Snax's eight opening deaths. You can see where the game was won and lost, even in OT.

NAVI won the next five in a row to force OT, and while GamerLegion got their elusive 13th round in the first round of OT, they were quickly swatted away by what is a very, very strong NAVI team.