Snax storyline, NAVI vs G2 rivalry & top performers: key highlights of Fall Final 2024

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The BLAST Premier: Fall Final 2024 was one of the best BLAST Premier events to-date, achieving record-breaking viewership and hosting some of the most exciting matches Counter-Strike has seen all year. Esports Charts, in collaboration with betting brand GG.BET, presents some highlights of the record-breaking event. We also thank DATA.BET, a leading provider of esports betting solutions, for their support in gathering game statistics.

On top of the usual highly popular teams like NAVI, G2, and FaZe, certain organizations enjoyed a significant boost to their viewership thanks to new players, and esports storylines: such as legendary player Snax claiming his first trophy after returning to the tier-1 scene, and G2 Esports finally winning another event in 2024. Esports Charts presents the event’s most popular players across a selection of metrics, from the event’s most bet-on players by number of bets and value of bets to Twitch Chat’s most popular player to discuss. 

In general, NAVI players were extremely popular options for Counter-Strike fans to wager money on. NAVI’s Lithuanian star jL was the most bet-on player in terms of raw cash amount and was one of the most bet-on players in terms of total number of bets. In essence, more fans placed bets on other star players like NiKo and m0nesy, but when it came to putting larger amounts of cash on the line, fans chose jL. 

Snax was the most popular player by total Chat mentions throughout the event. The legendary polish giant is an icon of the Counter-Strike franchise, and has etched his name into the history of many Counter-Strike iterations. Snax returned to top-level play recently with G2 Esports, reuniting with old teammate and compatriot TaZ, G2’s coach. Snax was mentioned over 29.8K times during the event in Twitch Chats, reaching far ahead of NiKo, the next-most mentioned player. Despite being one of the event’s lowest performing players, Snax’s history and the storyline of him returning to top-level Counter-Strike helped fuel his popularity.

Snax also was the third-highest ranking player by Utility Damage, earning 398 damage from grenades in a single map. The Polish player was not leading his team in kills throughout the event, but his eras of experience let him have impact on the game in other ways. Other G2 players like NiKo and m0nesy were also highly mentioned in Twitch Chats, which comes down to a couple of main factors. 

Firstly, Twitch Chat data generally represents a North American and international English-speaking audience, which overlaps significantly with G2 Esports’ fanbase. Secondly, G2 finally defeated NAVI after a lengthy losing streak, and fans were cheering on NiKo and his teammates to another trophy. 

Critically, Twitch Chat popularity is not indicative of bets placed on the player nor their in-game performances. Snax was one of the lower-end options of top-players for fans to bet on and a poor performer at the event, but he was Chat’s most popular player. The event’s most bet-on player, jL, finished outside the event’s top 10 highest-rated players, and although he performed well at the event, there were players with stronger performances. Now, let’s turn towards the top performing players in-game across a variety of categories for the Fall Final.

M0nesy of G2 Esports was crowned as the event’s MVP and was dominant across multiple categories. Not only did he record one of the event’s highest ratings, but the young star earned the top spot in Open Frags as well as AWP Frags, and he was a podium contender for Kills in Smoke as well as Wallbangs. The 19-year-old was also the most bet-on player by number of total bets, significantly more times than G2 peer NiKo, who is the next-most bet-on player.

His teammate NiKo placed highly alongside him in several categories and outperformed him in others. NiKo tied first-place for HE kills at the event, as well as a first place in the Kills in Smoke category, and a second-place finish ahead of m0nesy in the wallbangs category. 

NiKo has been a major celebrity of the Counter-Strike scene for years, but his time with G2 has not been as dominant as he would like. He went viral towards the end of the Fall Final 2024 when a clip of him taking his frustration out on his table emerged. His virality has helped him to become one of Counter-Strike’s best-recognised professionals. The star player has won five significant events since joining G2 in late 2020, all either BLAST Premier events or IEM tournaments. NiKo is yet to claim victory at a Valve Major event, and a victory over NAVI in the finals of a third-party event is one step towards this goal. 

FaZe Clan is also well-represented in these rankings. FaZe players frozen and ropz tied with others for most HE kills at 4 each, and their teammate broky earned the most wallbangs with 11 and tied for the second-most AWP kills at 79. Generally, NAVI, FaZe, and G2 are the big three of Counter-Strike in terms of popularity, and these three organizations made up the majority of all our highlight categories. 

Moving on from individual players to how teams performed as a whole, we have collated the three best comebacks from the Fall Final 2024. These were the biggest turnarounds from teams at the event, and usually, we see these moments charge viewership as more and more excited fans tune in. 

In the group stage, Team Vitality were able to mount a significant comeback of their own against Team Liquid on Nuke. The map is known for being well positioned for the CT side, and Vitality were only able to secure 3 rounds on T side against Liquid. After losing the pistol round, Liquid led the game 10:3, but Vitality were able to lock down the map on CT side and win the map 13:11. Viewership for this game did not reach particularly high as the comeback was in the match’s final map, leaving no room for growth after the comeback, and fans are used to such wild comebacks on a one-sided map like Nuke. 

More interestingly, in terms of comebacks, the match-up between NAVI and G2 Esports was already a prime game for bringing viewers to the BLAST Premier event. These two organizations are two of the esports title’s top competitors, and NAVI started the event with a significant winning streak over G2. During the Group Stage, NAVI defeated G2 in a decisive 2-0 manner, including a major comeback on the game’s opening map, Dust 2. 

After losing 8 of the first 9 rounds, NAVI mounted a major offensive, and G2 could only secure one more round in the rest of the entire game. W0nderful in particular rose to the challenge for this game, finishing the T-sided comeback with 15 kills and only 3 deaths for the half. Viewership rose significantly during this first map, and ultimately, the second map was even more watched. The match was able to retain its viewers between maps, and beginning on such an exciting note helped the second map to become the group stage’s most popular moment.

The same occurred again, during the event’s grand final. NAVI faced G2 once again, and after losing the first two maps of the series, they lost the first 9 rounds of 10 on the third map, Mirage. This time, iM and jL played masterfully in the second half, both achieving over 130 damage per round; NAVI only allowed G2 to secure one more round, otherwise winning every round of the map. This comeback third map was extremely popular: it was the only moment of the event to reach over 800,000 concurrent viewers, settling at 887K PV. 

The next map was able to reach the event’s overall peak viewership, when G2 Esports closed the series 3-1. These comebacks from NAVI were fuel for the Fall Final 2024’s top viewership. If NAVI was unable to mount a comeback against G2 during the grand final, it is likely that the event would not have reached its record-breaking peak viewership. If NAVI could have driven the event to a fifth and ultimate map, concurrent viewership for the BLAST Premier event could have hit 7 digits.

Ranking teams by other game-based categories, Vitality was the most successful team in pistol rounds throughout the event, winning 9 of their 14 played. G2 Esports were the most successful team at converting a 2 round advantage, with competitors Vitality and NAVI achieving fewer advantages, and fewer successful conversions. 

Interestingly, teams at the Fall Final 2024 were rather proficient in denying eco rounds. Astralis was one of the most successful teams at winning eco rounds, having won a single round of their 6 eco rounds. G2 Esports, on the other hand, was not able to win a single of their 17 eco rounds. Against teams with full rifles and utility, no one was able to consistently stand against them with pistols.