NAVI send Heroic packing in Copenhagen

Natus Vincere move on in the lower bracket despite still looking shaky following their loss to Liquid earlier in the tournament.

Natus Vincere have survived their first elimination match at BLAST Premier World Final, sending HEROIC packing after a 2-0 series despite a commendable effort from the Danes on Nuke. Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller and company leave the tournament in joint-last place after they had to use MAD Lions' Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup as a stand-in for Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund, who had opted out of the $1 million competition for personal reasons.

Although the early elimination of a HEROIC squad playing without their star hardly comes as a surprise, it is a difficult ending to the season for the Danes who had hoped to finish the year on a high note following their semi-final finish at PGL Major Stockholm. Since then, they have been unable to replicate that form, placing fourth at the Fall Final and last at IEM Winter.

A quick Mirage affair kicked off the first elimination match in the lower bracket, which saw the No. 1 team in the world get off to a dominant start off of an Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov triple in the pistol round and maintain a scary form as the first half progressed, with HEROIC unable to break through the defense outside of a few solitary rounds in which their individuals stepped up.

Ismail "⁠refrezh⁠" Ali and Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck put up a 1v2 clutch each to give the Danes a glimmer of hope, but it was ultimately not even close to enough to threaten Natus Vincere, who rallied to a 12-3 half and a swift closing after that.

You'd think Nuke would be just a formality given Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov's team only recently-broken streak on the map, but despite another strong start from the favorites it turned out a much closer battle than anticipated.

A couple of close rounds meant that after a 5-0 lead Natus Vincere didn't have much left in the bank once HEROIC got on the board with a Deagle buy, and coupled with another halfbuy win and a 1v3 clutch from René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen, that gave the Danish squad a way back into the game.

Closing out the half just three rounds behind before switching over to the T side, HEROIC started off slow again, but the initial gunrounds went their way following consecutive executes towards the A bombsite. Natus Vincere had a daunting task ahead of them after cadiaN stringed seven rounds together and amassed a huge bank, but with electroNic stepping up in yard the CIS squad brought it back to force overtime and deny their opponents a third map with a convincing closing effort.