s1mple's dominant performance sees Na`Vi advance to the Major

Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev shut down a pretty simple A attack from Liquid in the pistol round on Inferno, setting the tone for the game right from the start. The Ukrainian side went 3-0 up before losing the first buy, only to break Liquid's bank in the next one. The star of his team, Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, was bullying Liquid with the AWP, picking up a total of 19 kills in the first nine rounds (8-1).

Liquid wasn't able to even put down the bomb in the rounds they lost, finally breaking into the B bombsite in round 14, with Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella, Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken and Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski all picking up kills. However, all of the members of the North American side simply weren't gettign kills in the first half, which ended 13-2 in favor of Natus Vincere.

s1mple had no issues decimating his former teammates

Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado stepped up with two USP-S entires on the CT pistol, locking down the A site with Twistzz, and with some scary anti-ecos closed out, Liquid added a couple of rounds to the board. It semed like Liquid would finally establish themselves on the map when Natus Vincere stole a round with just a couple of Deagles, with s1mple's double-entry once again instigating the action.

The 20-year-old finished the game with 30 kills, picking up the last one as the game was closed out 16-6.

ELEAGUE Major 2018 Challengers StageBest of 1

Natus Vincere

Matchpage

16

5

16th January 2018

Liquid

16

Inferno

5

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	31 - 10	+21	129.3	81.0%	2.18
Danylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoZeus	21 - 8	+13	101.1	90.5%	1.68
Denis 'electroNic' SharipovelectroNic	15 - 8	+7	94.0	95.2%	1.50
Egor 'flamie' Vasilyevflamie	16 - 9	+7	85.4	90.5%	1.44
Ioann 'Edward' SukharievEdward	7 - 11	-4	38.7	71.4%	0.76

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Russel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenTwistzz	13 - 19	-6	75.2	52.4%	0.81
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	9 - 18	-9	67.0	47.6%	0.64
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	6 - 16	-10	42.8	57.1%	0.59
Josh 'jdm64' Marzanojdm64	8 - 20	-12	50.4	52.4%	0.53
Wilton 'zews' Pradozews	9 - 18	-9	52.4	42.9%	0.51

3-0 (qualified)
G2	Cloud9
3-1 (qualified)
Vega Squadron	FaZe
Space Soldiers
3-2 (qualified)	2-3
MOUZ	Renegades Renegades
Quantum Bellator Fire	AVANGAR
Natus Vincere	Liquid
1-3 (eliminated)	0-3 (eliminated)
Misfits	Flash
Sprout	FlipSid3
Envy