Falcons make the Spodek at expense of NAVI

6-2-2024 18:59

Falcons have grown in stature with each series in Poland, but Natus Vincere were underwhelming opposition.

SunPayus was potent with the Big Green

Falcons have secured their spot in the playoffs of IEM Katowice by virtue of a 2-0 victory over Natus Vincere, taking down the boys in black and yellow on Ancient (13-11) and Mirage (13-4).

Natus Vincere started the series well, but lost to a half-buy early in the second-half of Ancient and never recovered mentally. Their T sides were slow, ponderous, and lacking bite, and the individuals were not in good form, outside of Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov on Ancient.

Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen referenced the mental collapse of his team as a key factor in their loss in a post-game interview. "The first three gun rounds [on Mirage] I felt like nobody wanted to take a duel... it just felt like we were on the back foot, never in the driver's seat.

"It's really bad if we go into the second map still scared to play the game, you cannot play like that. I don't know how we managed to reset in our other games but not today."

Falcons meanwhile got a stellar performance across the series out of Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García, who has had a slow start to life in his new team, and also benefitted from a superb Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas showing on Mirage.

The Saudi-backed squad have grown with each series in Poland, having started with a convincing loss at the hands of Eternal Fire and a shaky victory over Rebels. This match against Natus Vincere was their best performance yet, a sentiment Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen echoed in a broadcast interview post-game, and now they have the chance to truly test the mettle of their new team in the playoffs.

The series itself began with Natus Vincere on the front foot, their excellent utility usage and teamplay powering a strong CT side. They won their T side pistol and seemed set for an easy victory, only to collapse after losing to a half-buy. SunPayus and Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif duly took advantage to drive Falcons to a 1-0 series lead.

Mirage was a humbling experience for Natus Vincere. Falcons erected a wall on their CT side that Natus Vincere just couldn't batter their way through, with SunPayus continuing to shine as BOROS joined him atop the scoreboard, such that the result was a foregone conclusion by halftime. Falcons made no mistake and cruised to an easy victory.

IEM Katowice 2024Best of 3

Falcons

Matchpage

6th February 2024

Natus Vincere

Ancient

Mirage

Falcons	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Álvaro 'SunPayus' García SunPayus	35 - 20	+4.37%	83.1	75.6%	1.39
Emil 'Magisk' Reif Magisk	33 - 25	+3.30%	93.4	75.6%	1.29
Mohammad 'BOROS' Malhas BOROS	28 - 29	-0.53%	78.0	75.6%	1.11
Pavle 'Maden' Bošković Maden	31 - 28	+0.95%	71.5	68.3%	1.01
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer Snappi	23 - 30	+1.75%	67.6	65.9%	0.88

Natus Vincere	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov w0nderful	34 - 26	-0.67%	89.8	80.5%	1.36
Mihai 'iM' Ivan iM	29 - 31	-1.02%	70.8	70.7%	1.03
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen Aleksib	25 - 32	-2.15%	72.0	63.4%	0.98
Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius jL	22 - 31	-1.44%	71.7	63.4%	0.86
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy b1t	22 - 31	-4.56%	53.9	56.1%	0.70

SUNPAYUS WOKE UP LETS GO

2024-02-06 18:59

S1mple was not the problem

2024-02-06 19:00

3 replies

I haven't watched the game, but I expected bit not to be the lowest by rating. He was the second best player on the team behind simple in the past.

2024-02-06 19:29

2 replies

Language barrier maybe?

2024-02-06 20:51

1 reply

I've heard such rumours too.

2024-02-06 20:52

Blade has a great future but he has to fix his tactics

2024-02-06 19:01

That is his job entirely and yet he needs to fix it. Sounds like he needs to go. He is the coach if you wernt aware. No future in being a coach with shit tactics.

2024-02-06 19:47

2024-02-07 08:40

NaVi lately had at least two TOP20 players. Now they had none and Falcons has two of them. Team names don't play, players do.

2024-02-06 19:17

Smartest Polish that surfaced the earth xD Navi still should be able to beat a 3 days old lineup.

2024-02-06 19:52

that choke on Ancient broke NaVi

2024-02-06 19:02

choke? falcons had an "impecable" ct side, thats it

2024-02-06 22:54

Magisk did the right choice huehue

2024-02-06 19:05

Falcons are not going to win anything while Vit won two tournaments since he left

2024-02-07 07:43

The team that EF didnt lose a map didnt lose a map against the team that EF didnot win a map :D

2024-02-06 19:06

ef won a map against navi though

2024-02-06 19:14

hope they will bomb out in the quarters

2024-02-06 19:11

I would rather have Saudi oil money invested into CS than another yacht. Don’t know why people dislike Falcons so much. I think it’s cool we got big investments in the scene

2024-02-06 19:21

just redditors thinking other teams don't have money and their players play for F R E E

2024-02-07 09:19

Fix the system mr blade

-iM +s1mple

NaVi has a great future but they has to fix blade

7 replies

B1ad3 is literally the only good part of this team

2024-02-06 19:24

5 replies

Maybe in this game Falcons managed to kind of counter Blades structured system and it did cost dearly. I think it was first match where they could not gather that match info how Falcons play ct and break ct defence. Falcons players are strong and i think they pushed and gave much more pressure as ct and saved lot of utility till late round since they knew Navis slow playstyle and i think that got Navi offguard and confused which ended up poor T performance and made everybody on Navi side look pretty bad. I might be totally wrong but that's what i think what happened today.

2024-02-06 19:50

4 replies

B1ad3 isn't having accidents in his pants, whiffing shots, making mistakes, missing smokes and molotovs, getting a kill and then running with knife out into another opposing player, etc. Navi probably need to have a Ukrainian core again with s1mple b1t and w0nderful. Aleksib is fine but iM needs to go back to Romania.

2024-02-06 21:24

You could go watch some games from IEM Sydney and come tell that again if you want to compare coach role to player. My point was that maybe Navi got caught pants down by Falcons with different approach to CT side what they are used to last couple of months. So all those things what you said start to happen when things go differently what you expect and you get out zoned from your normal way of doing things. If there is no genuine way learned to handle different style of play then you looks just bad because whole team is confused. So obviously coaching and leading plays big part in those situations when emotional leading, creative decision making and alternating way of doing things is needed. Whole team looked way worse what they are used to. Not just one or two player having accident in pants. This might be too advanced way of seeing things for guy from NA to understand so i kinda understand you

2024-02-06 21:57

You're still ignoring the obvious. You can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink it. Their roster simply isn't good enough at the moment but they'll have the RMR and a boot camp before the Major so they do have a chance to get better before what seems like inevitable roster changes.

2024-02-08 06:59

I agree with you re: iM … he’s a big problem for this roster … -iM +jks? … idk if roles clash in this scenario though

2024-02-07 16:35

B1ad3 is great. The problem (as s1mple has stated previously) is that certain players keep having accidents in their pants when they are under pressure.

2024-02-06 19:53