NAVI send Heroic to the lower bracket

It was a relatively tight series between the two teams, but in the end it was Natus Vincere who proved their class.

HEROIC made good on their pre-game promise that they were one of the teams who could run Natus Vincere close, taking them to all three maps in this series before falling to the CIS titans.

Whilst the score lines across the three maps tell the tale of a very close series, in reality it was a little bit more comfortable for Natus Vincere than that; Natus Vincere only won two pistol rounds across the series, and after one of those they were immediately upset by a forcebuy. Across the gun rounds Natus Vincere were the better side.

Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov gave plenty of credit to his opposite number for the closeness of the series: "I think that cadiaN is a great in game leader, he has a lot of energy and he gives a lot of energy to his team. They have a lot of good things, they are a hard team to play."

This result gives Natus Vincere an upper bracket match against either Vitality or Astralis on Saturday at 16:30 , whilst HEROIC will look to pick themselves up in the lower bracket against either Liquid or Ninjas in Pyjamas on Saturday at 13:30 .

The first map of the series was the Danish side's pick of Inferno, and it was a reasonably close battle.

Natus Vincere won the pistol only to be immediately pegged back by a HEROIC force, giving the Danes a 3-1 lead on their offensive side. Natus Vincere immediately began to take control of the half from this moment, netting seven rounds on the bounce, with HEROIC's fairly basic, grouped up approach punished by the CIS squad's coordinated, staggered crossfires.

The Dane's did manage to find the switch up necessary to grab a few more rounds, and could have had more considering they dropped a round where were in a 5v3, the half finishing 6-9.

Moving into the second half HEROIC got off to the perfect start by winning the pistol and converting, getting back to a 9-9 score. Once again Natus Vincere took control once the gun rounds came about, largely succeeding due to sheer entry power, finding opening frags with apparent ease.

Whilst HEROIC did manage to post a couple more rounds to keep the score line respectable, it ended up being a fairly simple day at the office for Natus Vincere as they closed the map 16-11. The usual duo of Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov got the bulk of the work done, posting a 1.35 and 1.34 rating respectively.

Next up came Natus Vincere's pick of Mirage, which ended up being a slightly bizarre affair. The CIS squad started on the T side, and after winning the first two rounds, they hit a brick wall. HEROIC won nine consecutive rounds as Natus Vincere struggled to get anything going, with few of the rounds even coming close. Towards the end of the half Natus Vincere awoke to scrape a few more rounds together and give themselves a chance going into their CT side.

It looked dire for s1mple and co. at the start of their defensive side, as they lost the pistol and watched the Danes get up to match point without reply. At this point, something similar to the first half ensued, with the offense of HEROIC struggling to get anything going as they ran into a wall time and time again, often falling to Natus Vincere's mid aggression.

Fortunately for the Danes they had enough of a cushion, and just as it seemed we would go to OT, one of Natus Vincere's aggressive moves failed them; HEROIC took the advantage and converted it to a final round, finishing the map 16-14.

The decider was Overpass, a map that is strong for both teams, and thus a perfect finisher for this series. HEROIC started on the T side and it was a bright start for the Danes, as they took four of the first six rounds to run up to a 4-2 lead. Once again Natus Vincere grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, seeming to make the correct information play every round as they ran up eight rounds in a row to get out to a 10-4 lead. HEROIC grabbed the final round to go in at half time 5-10 down.

In the final half of the series, HEROIC once again started brightly only to falter, winning the first five rounds on the bounce before only managing two of the next eight as Natus Vincere took the map 16-12, and thus the series. s1mple was the difference maker on Overpass, posting a staggering 7:0 in opening duels to carry the CIS squad to victory.