Natus Vincere through to playoffs after defeating Ghost

Ghost started out winning the Group B decider match with a 16-11 victory on Mirage, but Natus Vincere brought it back on Nuke, 16-12, and Inferno, 16-6, to make it through to the playoffs.

Starting out on Mirage, Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev laid the foundation for a quick grip on the first half from Natus Vincere by downing three Ghost players on the terrorist side. His team won the subsequent anti-ecos, but Joshua "⁠steel⁠" Nissan's men put themselves on the board in their first round with rifles.

Natus Vincere fired right back to reset the North Americans, and from there pulled ahead on the back of several multi-kill rounds from Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov. They reached a 6-1 lead before Ghost answered back as Kenneth "⁠koosta⁠" Suen and co. upped their defence to bring it back to 6-6, eventually reaching a 8-7 lead at halftime.

Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko's troops once again triumphed in the pistol round after the switch and also took the following anti-eco. Ghost then showed great skill to win two, including a cool-headed 1v4 clutch to defend the bomb plant from Yassine "⁠Subroza⁠" Taoufik (10-9).

The North Americans looked confident as they kept adding to their tally, eventually making it to 12-9. Natus Vincere won two more, but Ghost kept the lid on s1mple and co. to win Mirage 16-11.

Action moved on to Nuke, where steel's troops won the crucial first pistol round as terrorists. They followed up with a couple of anti-eco wins, but s1mple denied a B hit from the North Americans to put Natus Vincere on the board. The 20-year-old superstar then tied things up at 3-3 with a massive 4k, after which Natus Vincere pulled ahead by two.

Kevin "⁠kRYSTAL⁠" Amend then, undeniably, made the play of the match, as the German stand-in managed an unlikely Zeus entry kill on A site, his teammate koosta finishing off the round with the CZ-75. The half then turned into a close fight, eventually ending 8-7 in favour of Natus Vincere.

Ghost went aggressive in the second pistol round as CTs, pushing all the way into the radio room to take Zeus' men by surprise. Now fired up, steel and co. punished a series of force-buys from Natus Vincere to get all the way to 11-8. The CIS side then seemed to collect themselves, breaking through the Ghost defences to win six in a row. Natus Vincere looked poised to get to match point when Matthew "⁠WARDELL⁠" Yu once again showed his talent on the AWP, winning a 1v3 to clutch the round.

In the end, it wasn't enough for Ghost, as Zeus' troops managed to close things out on Nuke, winning the map 16-12 and forcing game three.

The final map, Inferno, kicked off with Ghost taking the lead out of the gate, but Natus Vincere won the forcebuy to take the 4-1 lead before steel was able to clutch a 1vs1 against Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev with the AWP to keep the game close. Despite a triple by s1mple playing around smoke as Ghost planted on B, Subroza was able to stall Zeus and Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev long enough for the bomb to explode, making it 3-4. Having brought it back to 4-4, both teams then traded rounds to keep it even after 10 rounds, but it was finally Natus Vincere who were able to hold on late in the half to take a 9-6 lead.

A big clutch by flamie in a 1vs2 afterplant against koosta and steel in the second pistol round kept Natus Vincere in the lead. Having won the first gun round, the CIS side took a 14-6 lead bringing it close to an end. Finally, s1mple & co. closed it out, 16-6, for a spot in the playoffs.