NAVI qualify for BLAST Fall Final over G2

Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen's side have been cast down to the Fall Showdown.

Natus Vincere are through to the BLAST Fall Final after sneaking a pair of 16-14 victories past G2 on Inferno and Mirage, superb impact from Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev across the series and strong calling from Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen giving the new team the edge they needed to qualify for the LAN event in the Royal Arena.

"I'm so proud of each of our players," s1mple said after the victory. "We actually practiced 24/7, we had no days off because we knew that everything changed, three new players, so it's nice that we got good results for our new team. We managed to play close against Heroic, we got a lot of experience, and now we beat G2. Now people see that NAVI can be in the top 10 teams at the beginning of a new roster."

On the cameras, s1mple was often seen glancing across to Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius and Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan after rounds and being quite vocal. When asked what he was saying to motivate them and what input he was having, s1mple laughed. "Sometimes I'm saying don't do stupid mistakes," he said with a smile on his face. "Usually when we don't do it, we just smash opponents, especially on the T side, and that happened today as well when we were leading 5-0 and there were some shaky situations.

"I'm just telling them let's keep it up, you should ask my team, the whole team is cheering everyone up." James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks then asked s1mple if he feels like it's a very positive environment despite what people are saying from the outside, and s1mple once again had a smile on his face: "Yeah, yeah, if I'm not going to be toxic, it's going to be AWESOME [laughs]."

G2, conversely, find themselves cast down to the Fall Showdown after a rather miserable campaign through the group stage. Being one of the few teams that chose not to make changes during the off-season, they had an inherent advantage with no need to redefine themselves and their structure lasting through the break, but they faltered to Liquid and FaZe in their group, and only barely scraped past Evil Geniuses in the Knockout Stage in a series that the North American side had in their hands.

Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač was upfront about his disappointment regarding the result after the end of the series, giving NAVI credit for their results but admitting that G2 didn't play up to their own standards. "We just played really bad the whole tournament," he said, "we just didn't step up when it mattered, in the crucial rounds, it was chaotic in TeamSpeak, decisions were made poorly as well and that cost us the game.

"There's no excuse, I don't know what to say. Just embarrassing results this event, losing to FaZe, Liquid, and NAVI, but mostly to Liquid and NAVI, it's just very embarrassing. Especially in a way where we're more experienced together, we should be closing out these games. There are just no excuses, we played really bad and we need to recollect our thoughts and fight for IEM Cologne."

s1mple was firing on all cylinders from the series' onset, helping his team make up for a lost pistol round with a FAMAS quad kill in an ensuing force buy. That win enabled an early 4-1 lead for the newly-formed international composition, but they fumbled a handful of advantageous situations which gave G2 the chance to recover and briefly pull ahead by one round. That lead didn't last, however, and HooXi and company's early spree of rounds was the last they would record for the rest of the half as multi-fragging from Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and s1mple powered their side to a 10-5 advantage at the break.

Another triple kill from the GOAT granted NAVI a win in the second pistol round, but they ended up on the receiving end of the treatment they'd given G2 in the first half — a force-buy from the reigning IEM Katowice champions upset the odds swapped momentum around, from which they won six rounds in a row to even the score at 11-11. A blow-for-blow trade of rounds ended with NAVI coming out on top, allowing them to close in on map point, but it took them until round 30 to convert upon that advantage courtesy of a triple kill from b1t.

NAVI maintained form as their pick of Mirage got underway, jumping out to a 5-0 lead before G2 recovered on the CT side. Superlative performances from NiKo and Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač powered their team to a narrow 8-7 recovery at the end of the half, and they further extended that lead to 11-7 before NAVI had guns in their hands.

From that point, though, Aleksib's men assumed firm control, excellent multi-fragging from the team's Ukrainian duo punishing G2 round after round, with s1mple in particular having immense impact to bring his side back into the game, 15-12. In identical fashion to the first map, it took until the last moments of the map for NAVI to close things out, but they did so in dominant fashion as huNter- was left in a 1vs5, managing to gun down two players before their Fall Final hopes were completely crushed.