NAVI beat NIP to secure IEM Rio playoff spot

18-4-2023 00:48

The Ukrainian side booked themselves a spot in the bracket stage in Brazil after besting NIP.

Natus Vincere are through to the playoffs of IEM Rio 2023 after coming out on top of a two-map series versus Ninjas in Pyjamas, defeating the European combine 16-10 on Mirage and 16-13 on Ancient to advance to the upper bracket final of Group A. There, they will play the winner of HEROIC vs. BIG to determine which team will begin their playoff run from the opening round, and who will advance directly to the semi-final.

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and company continue their strong run of form from the BLAST.tv Paris Major EU RMR A, where they had beaten Into the Breach, Falcons, and FaZe to qualify for the Legends Stage.

electronic stepped up early in the series

Andrii "⁠npl⁠" Kukharskyi had expressed that he felt more comfortable in the team and understood ideas better at that event, and that cohesion continued to be displayed this time as NAVI remained in control for most of the series.

npl: "I understand B1ad3 and electronic's ideas better than I did before"

Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov was the star of the show for his team early on, dominating on the T side of Mirage and helping NAVI muster an early lead on the CT side of the map. Ninjas in Pyjamas's attempts to gain entry into bombsites fell flat for much of the half for that reason, and they didn't manage to turn the tides much in the second half as it was s1mple and npl combined to take things over the line for their side, 16-10.

NIP got off to a better start on Ancient, stringing together five rounds at the onset of the map, but the latter moments of the half devolved into a back-and-forth brawl.

The European combine consistently won mid control throughout the map, but failed to convert that control into round wins on multiple occasions as NAVI found their footing to bring themselves back to six rounds at halftime before running away with the victory in the second half, thanks in part to multi-kill rounds from electroNic and Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and a crucial 1vs2 clutch from npl.

IEM Rio 2023Best of 3

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Matchpage

17th April 2023

Natus Vincere

Mirage

Ancient

Ninjas in Pyjamas	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Kristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke k0nfig	41 - 40	+1	80.8	72.7%	1.13
Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov headtr1ck	37 - 34	+3	63.2	70.9%	1.04
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen Aleksib	33 - 36	-3	63.1	72.7%	0.94
Fredrik 'REZ' Sterner REZ	26 - 40	-14	58.8	65.5%	0.78
Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin Brollan	27 - 41	-14	65.8	52.7%	0.76

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov electroNic	47 - 38	+9	84.1	61.8%	1.24
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev s1mple	41 - 28	+13	79.2	70.9%	1.21
Ilya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy Perfecto	40 - 33	+7	66.9	80.0%	1.08
Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyi npl	34 - 36	-2	79.3	69.1%	1.05
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy b1t	29 - 30	-1	63.9	69.1%	0.95

Ninjas in Pyjamas are not out of playoffs contention yet as they fall to the lower bracket of Group A, but now require two wins to advance. Their first elimination match will be against the winner of 9INE vs. MOUZ.