NAVI send BIG to BLAST Fall Groups Knockout Stage

The international composition will rematch HEROIC in the Group B final.

Natus Vincere have cast BIG down to the Knockout Stage of BLAST Fall Groups after defeating the German-majority side 2-0, securing wins on Ancient (16-11) and Mirage (16-14) to set up a rematch against HEROIC for a spot at the Fall Final.

The Danish troupe had eased past NAVI 2-0 in the group's upper final on Sunday, outclassing the newly-crafted lineup with rather one-sided scorelines. Although the extra few days of practice and officials under their belts could help Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and company be more competitive in their upcoming rematch on Thursday at 15:00 , the well-oiled machine of HEROIC is unlikely to grind to a halt against a NAVI that is still working through growing pains and language issues.

Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's men had also struggled on Ancient in their opening match of the tournament against Astralis, but looked far better on the map this time around courtesy of a masterclass CT performance from Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan. The Romanian rifler was on fire for much of the first map, but slowed down somewhat on Mirage, which ended up with far slimmer margins than the team would have liked after they initially held an 11-4 lead at halftime.

"Not even close," iM joked after the end of the series. "Yes, we had the lead on both sides [on Ancient and Mirage] and then we were starting to choke because... I don't know, we were losing to ourselves. But we still won, a win is a win, and also props to Aleksi, he had amazing calls, especially on the T side. I'm happy that we won."

iM also touched on the team's better showing this time around on Ancient compared to their opening game, saying that it wasn't a trick that they hadn't put practice in on it and they weren't trying to bait BIG into picking the map. "We started to practice after the Astralis game, we put up some setups, some strats, and obviously it was going to be better than the first game because we had some things."

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Heroic defeat NAVI to qualify for Group B Final

BIG's pick of Ancient backfired in spectacular fashion as they proved unable to crack past Natus Vincere's defenses, with the firepower trio of iM, Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy, and s1mple presenting a brick wall to the German-majority side for much of the first half. The Romanian rifler secured seven multi-kill rounds in his team's CT side effort alone, ending the 11-4 half with 22 frags to his name with support from his team's Ukrainian duo.

Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski made an effort to help BIG recover from that deficit in the second half, finding an ace with the AWP to help close the gap between the teams. However, Natus Vincere managed to turn some late-round situations in their favor and recovered from man-disadvantages toward the latter moments of the second half, allowing them to prevail and take the map, 16-11.

Superb calling from Aleksib and fragging from the entirety of NAVI's lineup allowed them to maintain firm control at the onset of Mirage, sheer dominance on the T side seeing the team push up to an 11-4 lead as they consistently made good reads on BIG's defensive setups. A pistol win following the side swap made it look like the remainder of the map would be a formality for the new international roster, but they crumbled to BIG's pistols in round 17, allowing Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz's men an avenue back into the map.

That chance was seized with gusto as s1mple was repeatedly shut out of rounds early, and some miscommunication from NAVI allowed BIG to make up even more ground. They brought the game back to a 12-9 scoreline before an ace from s1mple finally put a halt to that momentum, and a triple kill in the following round from Aleksib moved NAVI closer to match point.

s1mple's heroics couldn't help his team convert upon a 5vs4 advantage for match point, though, and BIG got themselves back into the running by winning three more rounds, helped by a 1vs2 from tabseN. An excellent read from s1mple in a late-round situation finally turned the tides for NAVI and put them on match point, and BIG couldn't quite push things to overtime as the international combine closed out the game, 16-14.