NAVI started off Dust2 with a 6-1 lead thanks to a stellar performance from the debutant David "dav1deuS" Tapia Maldonado. However, paiN found their footing on offense, fighting back to cut the deficit to just two rounds by halftime. The momentum carried into the second half, with João "snow" Vinicius leading the charge as paiN moved to map point at 12-9. But NAVI found salvation in the form of late heroics from Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius and Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy, forcing overtime. From here, Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov took control, delivering ten kills with the AWP to secure a 13-12 win for NAVI.
On Nuke, paiN dominated from the outset. Behind a strong performance from Kaue "kauez" Kaschuk, they raced to an 8-2 lead, with NAVI only managing to salvage the last two rounds of the half. After the break, paiN continued their dominance, reaching map point at 12-4. Despite a late comeback attempt from NAVI, the Brazilian team closed out a commanding 13-8 win to even the series.
The decider on Mirage began with paiN in blistering form, managing to secure a 6-0 lead on the T side and winning three consecutive 4v5 situations. NAVI looked rather rattled but managed to stabilize and cut the deficit to 8-6 at halftime. The second half turned into a nerve-wracking affair, with both teams struggling to gain the upper hand. paiN reached map point at 12-10 but failed to capitalize, allowing NAVI to force overtime once again. Seizing the momentum, NAVI completed the comeback with a 13-12 victory to close out the series.
For paiN, the result was a bitter pill to swallow. They were the stronger team for significant stretches of the series and came agonizingly close to closing it out.
With this win, NAVI advance to the semi-finals, where they will clash with the dominant Team Spirit for a spot in the BLAST Bounty 2025 finals on January 25.
What did the paiN say?
“Our team was stronger than the individuals,” admitted jL, reflecting on the defeat after the closely-contested match. “Some individuals dropped off, here and there. Like me, in the first two maps.”
Sometimes, the intense aim duels and strategic battles across different CS2 maps are too much. After a long day of grinding the ranks, there are times when you just want to chill out and cool down. A lot of players turn to playing CS2 surf maps for this. CS surfing has been a feature since the early days of Counter-Strike. But did it transition along with CS2? Today, we find out everything about surfing in CS2.
CS2 came as an update for CS: GO, but it was also an entirely new game in the Counter-Strike series. It brought a variety of new features while keeping the essence of the game and all the elements that made fans fall in love with the series. But CS2 also made people switch from the old version of the game to a new one. Moreover, those who never had access to CS: GO can only download the new CS2 game from Steam. So, how to get CS2 access in 2024? Furthermore, is it available for everyone? We’ll get into all of that and more in the paragraphs below.
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