BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024NAVI move past Astralis with Dust2 debut
Going 0-4 on pistol rounds did not stop NAVI from snagging an opening win in London.
Natus Vincere have kicked off their BLAST Premier Spring Final campaign with a victory over Astralis, sending the Danish side to the lower bracket after snagging a quick 2-0 victory that included a solid showing in their first official on Dust2.
NAVI arrived in London with a disappointing 9-12th place finish at IEM Dallas looming over them, but a win over Astralis provides a good first step for moving past that result.
"Dallas we had really shit preparation, the practice was terrible," shared Justinas "jL" Lekavicius after the matchup. Conversely for London, the Lithuanian rifler elaborated, "we had a bootcamp schedule online, which is like twelve hours a day. It was rough, but it's paying off."
For their efforts, Natus Vincere have been awarded a series against FaZe for an opportunity to emerge as the victor of Group A. Astralis, meanwhile, will be preparing for their series against SAW in order to breathe more life into their final event of the season.
The opening series kicked off on the Danes' pick of Nuke, where, despite a brief two-round interruption by NAVI, Astralis took over the game on the offense.
Natus Vincere scraped together two more rounds before the side swap, and although they missed out on the second pistol round, a subsequent force-buy victory gave Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen's troops the fuel they needed on the T-side, allowing just two more rounds to slip away to steal away Nuke 13-11.
Dust2 offered another slow start for NAVI, but the international side managed to recover far quicker this time around. An early 0-4 deficit on the offense soon turned into a 7-5 half after solid rounds from Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy.
Although Natus Vincere dropped their fourth-consecutive pistol round this series, the European side emerged victorious in the first buy round. With jL hitting his stride with b1t, Astralis were given few avenues into the bombsites, allowing NAVI to close out their pick 13-9.
 Natus Vincere |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43 - 29 | +3.64% | 94.5 | 73.9% | 1.44 | |
| 34 - 29 | +2.92% | 76.9 | 71.7% | 1.13 | |
| 28 - 31 | +2.00% | 78.7 | 76.1% | 1.08 | |
| 22 - 27 | -2.65% | 51.1 | 76.1% | 0.92 | |
| 24 - 29 | +0.33% | 60.2 | 65.2% | 0.90 |
 Astralis |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 - 27 | +1.46% | 78.2 | 73.9% | 1.16 | |
| 31 - 26 | -0.90% | 72.1 | 67.4% | 1.10 | |
| 33 - 32 | -0.29% | 77.2 | 63.0% | 1.01 | |
| 28 - 32 | -1.36% | 62.2 | 71.7% | 0.95 | |
| 20 - 34 | -5.16% | 65.1 | 67.4% | 0.80 |
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
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