NAVI advance to BLAST World Final semis over G2

The international squad will meet Vitality in the next round of the playoffs.

Natus Vincere are through to the BLAST World Final arena days, where they are set to play in the semi-finals against Vitality. They secured their spot with a 2-1 victory over G2.

"I'm just so happy that we finally get to play on the stage," Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen said on the broadcast after the match. "Vitality is a really tough team for us, we've had a tough time against them, but it's a good thing we've played against them to know their style."

The series kicked off on Anubis and it was Natus Vincere who were on cruise control, dominating their map pic early on to a 5-0 lead, but then Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov unsuspectingly won a 1vs5 that put his team right back in the running to a 6-6 half.

The map went to overtime and finally it was G2 who prevailed, stealing the NAVI's pick and setting themselves up to go to their Inferno stronghold to try and take the match in two.

G2 took control on Inferno as Natus Vincere had done on Anubis, going up 5-1, but slipped the same way their foes had in the previous map and a 3vs1 afterplant ended up in a round loss. Aleksib got behind enemy lines and killed the sole site defender, Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković, and defused the bomb while the other two players rushed back to the site in vain.

G2 lost concentration after Aleksib's clutch and the map went down to the wire, with Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and company fighting to force overtime, but it wasn't to be as Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius closed out a 2vs2 in the final round of regulation to push it over the line.

The final map was marked by one name: Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan. The Romanian player, who has at times struggled to live up to his billing from the BLAST.tv Paris Major days with GamerLegion dominated Nuke with 24 kills, 6 first kills, and 1.16 ADR for a 2.01 Rating.

He ran circles around G2 in Yard on the attack and was crucial in Natus Vincere's 7-5 lead on the T side, after which the Aleksib-led squad dominated on the defense and won six out of seven rounds to settle the matter, 13-6.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier World Final 2023
16/12/2023	Vitality 15:30 Natus Vincere	Match

Up next for Natus Vincere is the Group A top seed, Vitality, who got a direct berth to the semi-finals on Saturday, which will be played at the Etihad Arena.