Ukrainian NAVI team dominates IEM Rio 2024 eSports tournament, claiming $250,000 prize
Photo: HLTV
The Ukrainian e-sports team NAVI (Natus Vincere) emerged victorious at the Intel Extreme Masters Rio-2024 tournament in Counter-Strike 2. They took home a prize of 250 thousand dollars.
This is stated on the team's website.
The Ukrainians won in the grand final, beating the German team Mouz 3:1 in a Best-of-5 format.
The tournament in Rio was held from October 7 to 13, with 16 teams competing against each other for a spot in IEM–2025 in Katowice, Poland.
The Ukrainian team started its journey to Rio from the group stage.
Photo: screenshot / NAVI
Only six of the 16 teams made it to the playoffs. The top team from each group directly qualified for the semi-finals, while the teams that were finalists and winners in the lower bracket moved on to the quarter-finals.
As reported, the Ukrainians defeated the Brazilian team Imperial Esports and the Netherlands team Liquid in the group stage. Still, in the third match, they lost to FURIA (0:2), who held the home tournament.
NAVI triumphed over Russian Virtus. pro in the quarterfinals, winning both sets (13:4 on Inferno, 13:11 on Ancient).
Name a more iconic duo than @iMeCSGO and @b1tcs pic.twitter.com/PkiRX9AXiv
— NAVI (@natusvincere) October 13, 2024
In the semi-final round, the Ukrainians triumphed over HEROIC, staging a comeback from their previous loss on the Dust 2 map.
The final match for Natus Vincere was against the German team Mouz, who earned a spot in the playoffs by winning the lower bracket in their group. This was their 12th encounter, with the Ukrainians holding the advantage in previous face-to-face matches at eight wins to 6.
Photo: HLTV
The teams had a streak of five victories to determine the tournament winner. Natus Vincere started with a victory on the map Inferno, which was chosen by MOUZ (13:0).
In the second match, Dust 2, the Ukrainians defeated their opponent with a score of 13 to 2. However, they were later beaten by MOUZ in the third round on Mirage, ending with a score of 6 to 13.
In the end, the grand final result was determined on the fourth map: despite losing the first half of the meeting on Ancient, NAVI turned the tide of the game in the second, winning with a total score of 13:11.
For the Ukrainian team, the victory in Rio was the fourth in 2024. In April, the Ukrainians won the first "major" with CS 2 — GL Major Copenhagen, and in July, Natus Vincere won the first-ever Esports World Cup 2024. The last time Na'Vi triumphed was in September, at the ESL Pro League Season 20.
This is the sixth tournament final this year. They won the "silver" award at the BLAST Spring Final and IEM Cologne 2024, and the tournament victory earned them a grand prize of 100,000 dollars.
The prize fund for this tournament was $250 thousand. The team also received the right to participate in IEM-2025 in Katowice, Poland.
The next tournament for Natus Vincere will be the BLAST World Final 2024, starting on October 30 in Singapore.
Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!! pic.twitter.com/hvh4d0vynY
— NAVI (@natusvincere) October 13, 2024
For reference:
In 2011, the Ukrainian team made history by becoming the first-ever winner of the International tournament, the world's largest Dota 2 competition.
In 2021, the NaVi CS: GO team won the major tournament – PGL Major Stockholm.
The team became the first in eSports history to win three major Counter-Strike tournaments in one year: the World Cyber Games 2010, Intel Extreme Masters, and Electronic Sports World Cup.
Also, the Ukrainian e-sports team Natus Vincere (NaVi) won the first Counter-Strike 2 championship held in Copenhagen. For the victory at the NAVI tournament, they received 500,000 dollars, as well as tickets to the BLAST Premier World Final and Esports World Cup 2024 tournaments.
It was previously reported that the Ukrainian eSports team NAVI won the Esports World Cup tournament in Counter-Strike 2.
It is worth adding that the Ministry of Youth and Sports recognized e-sports as an official sport in Ukraine.
