The atmosphere was electrifying as the final approached - the moment everyone had been waiting for had finally arrived.

After all, this is the Cathedral of Counter-Strike.

“You work every day for a year to play the two weeks of Cologne”, apEX said in the pre-game interview. That just about sums it up.

The first map gave us a taste of what the Cathedral had in store.

With Nuke going back and forth, Spinx stepped up to keep control, delivering a series of crucial frags. Meanwhile, b1t appeared to be on a quest to tank his MVP chances, wrapping up the first half with an uncharacteristic 3-14 K-D.

Despite Vitality building a solid 10-4 lead, NAVI fought back with impressive resilience, winning 8 of the next 10 rounds to push the game into OT. Determined to silence his haters, (h)iM fueled NAVI’s late-game comeback with clean B site holds.

However, ZywOo had other plans, and the NAVI boys ultimately fell short, losing the map 16-14.

After a shaky first map from both teams, Dust 2 made it clear this was going to be a battle for the ages. Despite a rough start, Vitality stung their way back to a competitive first half, largely thanks to the wOo’s standout 4K on a low-economy round.

The AWPer kept up his relentless performance in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to fend off NAVI’s might. Behind a rock-solid A site defense from w0nderful, NAVI closed out the map 13-10, leveling the series.

Fortunately for us, the final was just warming up…