NAVI dismantle Cloud9 in opening round of IEM Katowice

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and company showed good form with a 2-0 opening victory in Katowice over a direct rival.

Natus Vincere have secured passage into the second round of the IEM Katowice Group A upper bracket after taking out Cloud9, condemning the Russian-Kazakh side to a frightening lower bracket run in the group of death off the bat.

The touted match between two of the top teams in their region was only played once in 2022, at the IEM Rio Major, where Cloud9 edged their way to a 16-14 victory in the best-of-one. This time around both teams clashed with their new quintets, featuring 17-year-old Andrii "⁠npl⁠" Kukharskyi for Natus Vincere and former Virtus.pro rifler Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov for Cloud9

Natus Vincere came into the IEM Katowice group stage tepid showing at BLAST Premier Spring groups, where they suffered two losses to G2 and dropped maps to Ninjas in Pyjamas and Complexity in their victories, so this map will be an important confidence booster. Cloud9, not a BLAST partner, started their year at the IEM Katowice Play-In, where they did due diligence and dispatched of IHC and ENCE to advance in the first Big Event of 2023.

NAVI showed an uptick in form against Cloud9

The series kicked off on Cloud9’s Ancient pick, but they weren’t able to find crevices in Natus Vincere’s defenses and were down 3-8 early on after losing the pistol round and failing to gain a foothold on the T side. buster, who had a lackluster map, won a crucial 1vs2 afterplant situation on A to give his team a fighting chance as they salvaged a six-round half.

A triple by Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov in the pistol round brought Cloud9’s hopes of taking their pick up, but Natus Vincere linked five in a row after winning the forcebuy to establish an insurmountable lead. Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov killed three players on B in the dawning rounds of the map when up against match point to make it 13-15 and break Natus Vincere’s economy, but a pistol rush on B sealed the deal for Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and his men the following round.

Natus Vincere went into their map pick of Inferno with full confidence and took the first two rounds on the attack. Cloud9 kept it close with guns in play and even took a brief lead, 3-2, but it was a Mirage as Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov and company had nothing to do against Natus Vincere’s unrelenting barrage. To add insult to injury, Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy clutched a 1vs2 afterplant situation on A to deny Cloud9 a fourth round in the half.

Cloud9 won the first three rounds on the attack, but it was apparent that it was in Natus Vincere's hands to close a map they dominated from beginning to end. And so they did, winning four back-to-back rounds to seal their fate and advance to the upper bracket semi-finals, where they will face the victor of Liquid vs. IHC.

IEM Katowice 2023Best of 3

Cloud9

Matchpage

0

2

4th February 2023

Natus Vincere

13

Ancient

16

6

Inferno

16

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolovsh1ro	40 - 30	+10	74.8	72.5%	1.13
Sergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovAx1Le	29 - 34	-5	60.6	62.7%	0.88
Vladislav 'nafany' Gorshkovnafany	27 - 39	-12	65.7	62.7%	0.86
Timur 'buster' Tulepovbuster	23 - 37	-14	58.0	62.7%	0.72
Abay 'HObbit' KhassenovHObbit	20 - 39	-19	56.8	56.9%	0.65

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Denis 'electroNic' SharipovelectroNic	42 - 29	+13	93.6	74.5%	1.38
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiyb1t	41 - 27	+14	86.1	80.4%	1.31
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	40 - 29	+11	73.3	72.5%	1.24
Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyinpl	29 - 29	0	63.9	78.4%	1.09
Ilya 'Perfecto' ZalutskiyPerfecto	25 - 28	-3	67.1	68.6%	0.94