NAVI wins ESL Pro League Season 23
The rematch of the ESL Pro League Season 20 final once again went in favour of Natus Vincere (NAVI) as Aleksib and co. beat Aurora to win the ESL Pro League Season 23. The BO5 final saw a trade of map wins to get things going before NAVI stole Anubis from the Turkish team and a dominant display on Dust2 saw them wrap things up at 3-1 to win their first LAN title of the year.
NAVI's pick of Mirage was the opening map of the BO5 final and a stellar T side from NAVI as w0nderful and b1t stepped up to help NAVI take a 9-3 lead. The second half pistol and conversions helped Aurora put a couple of rounds on the board but w0nderful's AWP had the Turkish team shut out that saw NAVI start with a 13-7 win. A 6-0 start on their pick of Anubis meant Aurora started their first pick with a four round lead and despite a comeback attempt on their T side as w0nderful once again put up a strong performance, it fell short at the very end as impact from MAJ3R helped the Turkish squad tie up the series with a 13-11 win.
Nuke was a masterclass from NAVI on their CT side as a near flawless defensive half saw them turn around a 5-7 half to go 13-8 to take the lead in the final once again. The second pick of Aurora saw the match head to Dust2 where NAVI started with a 4-0 lead before Aurora tied things up at 4-4. A couple of late low buy rounds almost had Aurora salvage the opening half but an incredible 1v3 retake clutch from makazze in the final round of the opening half saw NAVI go 8-4 up.
Impact from MAJ3R and Wicadia saw Aurora show some fight on their defensive half but a quick B hit saw NAVI close the game at 13-9 with w0derful wrapping things up with a 1v2.
makazze ended ESL Pro League Season 23 with a 1.30 rating which netted him the MVP award as NAVI's newest signing picked up his first-ever Tier-1 MVP award.
Natus VincereAurora| Natus Vincere |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov |
82 - 46 | +36 | 83.8 | 74.7% | 1.56 |
 Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri |
63 - 56 | +7 | 82.3 | 78.2% | 1.24 |
| Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy |
63 - 53 | +10 | 74.4 | 74.7% | 1.16 |
 Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen |
48 - 54 | -6 | 62.2 | 74.7% | 0.90 |
 Mihai 'iM' Ivan |
49 - 64 | -15 | 73.6 | 71.3% | 0.85 |
| Aurora |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Caner 'soulfly' Kesici |
58 - 61 | -3 | 74.0 | 67.8% | 1.02 |
| Özgür 'woxic' Eker |
62 - 58 | +4 | 74.8 | 71.3% | 1.02 |
| Engin 'MAJ3R' Küpeli |
54 - 63 | -9 | 74.3 | 69.0% | 0.94 |
| Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalçın |
54 - 64 | -10 | 63.5 | 70.1% | 0.87 |
| Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş |
44 - 62 | -18 | 65.0 | 63.2% | 0.76 |
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