EPICENTER 2018Natus Vincere beat HellRaisers in Group A opener
Na`Vi started out their run in Moscow winning two maps in a BO3: Train, 16-10, and Dust2, 16-3, despite giving up Overpass to Hellraisers, 11-16.
It was Natus Vincere who kicked the match against HellRaisers off with a pistol round victory on Train, as Denis "electroNic" Sharipov made quick work of his enemies with four glock kills. With the weapons advantage in the third round HellRaisers were able to neutralize the attackers despite three frags by Egor "flamie" Vasilyev, although they got reset the following round as Natus Vincere started to assert early dominance. The Ukrainian-Russian side went on to take a 7-1 lead before Özgür "woxic" Eker & co. were able to get a second round.
Constantly struggling for money, HellRaisers were only able bag four rounds all half long on the defending side. Having lost the pistol round despite a B plant, they were able to take the following the forcebuy to stay alive. The two teams then traded rounds, helping HellRaisers take the economic advantage. Quickly, Natus Vincere’s easy half started to get harder as they got reset several times. HellRaisers even got to double digits, but with match point already in the bag, Natus Vincere were finally able to win the map after a B-site retake.
Overpass kicked off once again with both teams trading rounds, as Natus Vincere won the pistol round on the defending side but then lost against the forcebuy. Having then lost a forcebuy of their own Natus Vincere quickly fell behind as HellRaisers took the two round lead, 3-1. The fifth round went all the way to the wire, as Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and electroNic found themselves in a 2vs2 afterplant, with the latter eventually winning a 1vs2 clutch and defusing the bomb. HellRaisers then won the following round, and took an early lead as they exploited a heavy economic advantage. woxic & co. managed constantly keep Na`Vi on the back foot, and went on to win the first half of the second map 11-4.
A quad-kill by Kyrylo "ANGE1" Karasiow then gave his team their 12th round, but Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev with the opening frag and a 1vs2 afterplant clutch won the second round forcebuy. Natus Vincere took control of the half, although HellRaisers were able to win two rounds to get to 14, but s1mple & co. managed to keep winning rounds to try and make the comeback on the attacking side. woxic then got three entries on A site to get his team to map point. It was then the Turkish AWPer who closed the map out with an ace before going on to defuse the bomb.
The last map, Dust2, started with Natus Vincere taking the pistol round as electroNic and Edward got a full house of frags. From there on out, Na`Vi were completely dominant on the map, taking round after round without giving the attacking side a chance. HellRaisers finally got three rounds after starting out 0-10, but an ace by Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko brought it back to his side, who went on to close the half out 12-3. Na`Vi then won the second pistol round and followed it up with two more on the attack to close the match out.
 Natus Vincere |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70 - 34 | +36 | 96.6 | 73.6% | 1.52 | |
| 53 - 42 | +11 | 82.7 | 77.8% | 1.20 | |
| 50 - 40 | +10 | 74.3 | 70.8% | 1.18 | |
| 48 - 43 | +5 | 78.5 | 73.6% | 1.18 | |
| 48 - 45 | +3 | 72.6 | 77.8% | 1.12 |
 HellRaisers |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63 - 53 | +10 | 89.5 | 65.3% | 1.22 | |
| 39 - 50 | -11 | 59.4 | 56.9% | 0.83 | |
| 38 - 50 | -12 | 62.6 | 63.9% | 0.82 | |
| 30 - 55 | -25 | 52.0 | 56.9% | 0.69 | |
| 34 - 62 | -28 | 61.3 | 55.6% | 0.68 |
NoregNik
| 
JaspCardoso
levi_ath4n
| 
rivulet
| 
MIBR_IS_OVERRATED5
Yupp17
| 
| 
shtx
| 
Argyl
zikinu
| 
| 
| 
smizereens
Ex666TenZ
shox_1_major_s1mple_0_major
Brian_Furious
alon9
| 
| 
Kropsinz
YM_
andryxa1337
milanintermilan
| 
| 
Alar1c
| 
poly_scotland
| 
tjsgn0715
