NAVI weather 5yclone in EPL Group C opener

NAVI are through to the upper bracket semi-finals, where they will face Apeks.

Natus Vincere have started their ESL Pro League Season 18 run with a victory over 5yclone. The international combine has been working through the growing pains of a new team, but came out the victors in their first official in nearly a month.

5yclone went to the Asian CS stronghold of Inferno to kick off the series, but could not make the best of starting on the attack despite a forcebuy win that could have tipped the early economy game in their favor. Instead, Natus Vincere took point with an in-form Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, who downed 17 by the half after a last-round Nova quad-kill to make it 9-6.

Late executes put Natus Vincere in a pickle at times in the second half, although Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius got a crucial trade in a 1vs1 in the second round against a forcebuy to keep his team in the driver’s seat. Other rounds weren’t as successful with the clock depleted, although in the end a strong performance by Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen got his team to 16-11.

Mirage was similar, with Natus Vincere going on to close it out 16-12. They started out with a big lead, 6-1, but weren’t able to run away with the score. It wasn’t clear which way it would go until the late rounds, as Jingxiang "⁠Mercury⁠" Wang and Zhuo "⁠advent⁠" Liang won a forcebuy killing all five NAVI players to make it 12-12 going into the final rounds of the map.

From there on out Natus Vincere didn’t flinch, however, locking it down and winning it out, 16-12. Up next for Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy’s men will be Apeks, who took out M80 2-0 in their opening series, for a chance to secure a spot in the playoffs through the upper bracket.