NAVI make light work of mousesports to maintain unbeaten start

The CIS squad continued their terrifying form since IEM Cologne, stretching their current unbeaten streak to nine series.

Natus Vincere made light work of MOUZ 2-0 to continue their undefeated start to ESL Pro League, with the usual suspects s1mple and electronic doing the heavy lifting for the CIS squad. MOUZ have left themselves with it all to do in order to progress from this group, and will realistically need to win all of their remaining series to have a chance at the playoffs.

mouz IGL Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong identified anti-eco rounds as one of the main reasons for the defeat: “Definitely we will have to talk about anti-ecos in general, because I think we lost three today. The Ancient game we were just a bit too sloppy on the most important rounds and that cost us maybe four more rounds...”

The series began with MOUZ' pick of Ancient, with the international squad kicking things off with their T side. After winning the pistol they were immediately broken by a Natus Vincere force buy, and Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov and co. began to run up a big lead, getting all the way to 7-1 before MOUZ could respond. Rounds were then traded back and forth to give us a 10-5 half to Natus Vincere, leaving MOUZ with plenty of work to do in the second half.

MOUZ got off to a good start by winning the pistol and second round, but they were immediately pegged back in their first gun round, and from this point Natus Vincere controlled the map. MOUZ managed a couple of rounds in consolation before Natus Vincere quickly closed out Ancient 16-9.

That took us to Natus Vincere's pick of Mirage, and it was another tough map for MOUZ. Once again mouz won their pistol before dropping the following round, this time as Counter-Terrorists, and from this point on they struggled in the half. Natus Vincere were given free reign in middle as MOUZ couldn’t find a setup to effectively hold it, and this lead to a convincing 11-4 half.

At this point MOUZ were always facing an uphill battle in the second half, and whilst they managed to cobble together a handful of rounds, it was only a matter of time before Natus Vincere closed the map out, which they did 16-9.

The group standings after this match can be found below: