Gambit stun Natus Vincere in ESL One New York opener

Gambit have kicked off their ESL One New York campaign on the right foot after defeating Natus Vincere 2-1 (16-4 on Nuke, 11-16 on Inferno and 16-10 on Overpass).

The CIS derby started off on Gambit's map pick, Nuke, with Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov and co. quickly bagging a 3-0 lead as Terrorists. Natus Vincere still won the first gun round on the back of a triple-kill from Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov, but Gambit countered them immediately with a fast B execution through vents, which Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov followed up with a great 1v3 clutch in the next round.

Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko's men nearly got back on the board in the eighth round, but mir and Dosia denied them by clutching a 2v4 situation. Natus Vincere simply could not close out rounds, with Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov securing an 11-1 score for his team with a 1v2 clutch before the Ukrainians were finally able to win a round. Still, Gambit managed to switch sides with a 12-3 lead.

In the second half, Natus Vincere found a lifeline by winning their Terrorist pistol, but that was not enough to stop Gambit, who kept overrunning their opponents' to finish off the map at 16-4, with mir topping the scoreboard with 21 kills.

Just like on the previous map, Gambit got off to a great start on Inferno, Natus Vincere's pick, this time around as CTs. After losing the first two rounds, Natus Vincere's best chance to get on the board was in a third-round buy, but they could not plant the bomb in time. Dosia and his men were far too hot to handle, constantly shutting down their opponents to go up 7-0.

It was only then that Natus Vincere won their first round thanks to Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev turning around a 2v3 situation, and that inspired them to lose only two more to reduce the deficit to 6-9 by half-time. Now playing on the T side, however, Gambit were helpless to prevent Natus Vincere from taking the series to a third map with a 16-11 scoreline.

The decider, Overpass, began with Gambit on the T side, and they won yet another opening pistol thanks to Dosia's quad-kill and successful 1v1 against s1mple. From there on out, Gambit kept breaking through the defence until the seventh round.

That was when Zeus's team was finally able to stop their opponents, but Dosia instantly reset their economy by finding three opponents through a smoke in a post-plant situation. Surprisingly enough, Natus Vincere got back on the board with a triple-kill from electroNic on a shoddy buy, and, from there, just lost the last round of the half to reduce the deficit to 5-10.

Gambit further added to their lead in the second half, winning their CT pistol and the subsequent anti-ecos, 13-5. Natus Vincere still reduced the deficit to 10-14 after losing only one of the next six rounds, but then Gambit tightened up their defence to seal the deal at 16-10.