Monte maul NAVI to secure BLAST Paris Major playoff berth

Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev got his revenge over his old team in dominant fashion as Monte secured a place in the playoffs.

In one of the most shocking results of the Major so far, Monte utterly decimated Natus Vincere 2-0 to progress to the playoffs of the BLAST Paris Major. After a solid 16-12 performance on Anubis Monte put on a show to close things out, battering Natus Vincere 16-2 on Nuke.

Natus Vincere will be left reeling after this defeat as they were comfortably second-best throughout the series. Anubis was at least somewhat close, even if it felt firmly in control of Monte for most of the game, but Nuke was a completely different story.

Volodymyr "⁠Woro2k⁠" Veletniuk dominated the second map of this series with his aggressive AWPing approach, the rest of the squad stepped up and swatted Natus Vincere aside when needed, and Monte were very deserved winners.

There will need to be some soul-searching in the Natus Vincere camp after this defeat, because they seemed completely out of sorts in this series. Natus Vincere are rarely a team to find themselves overwhelmed by a plucky underdog, but that is exactly what happened here, it really did feel like they were forced under by the momentum Monte built up as the match wore on.

Plenty of storylines ran parallel to this match and added an extra layer of interest to an already important game.

sdy wrought revenge on his old team, the team that had decided he wasn’t good enough at the end of last year. Woro2k fulfilled a promise he made to destroy Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, with the two clashing recently after participating in a show match together. Last but not least, Sergiy "⁠DemQQ⁠" Demchenko got his vindication against Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy, the coach who accused him of cheating two years ago.

Natus Vincere are by no means done at this Major, but a difficult matchup will await them in the fifth round in one of FaZe or G2. Top-fours at ESL Pro League and IEM Rio proved that s1mple and co. are still a force to be reckoned with, but they will need to show a better face than they did in this series against Monte if they are to go deeper here in Paris.