NAVI beat FaZe to secure semi-finals in London

FaZe will begin their playoff road in the quarters.

Natus Vincere have defeated FaZe in the Group A upper-bracket final to secure a semi-final spot at the BLAST Premier Spring Final in London.

"The preparation for this tournament was what we needed," said an upbeat Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen after the match. "We put in the hours and had some much-needed discussions. We weren't ourselves in Dallas, and now we are playing CS you haven't seen from us since the Major."

FaZe are not eliminated after the loss and will start their playoff campaign in the quarter-final, where they will face off against the winner of Vitality vs. G2.

The series began with Natus Vincere's second appearance on Dust2, and they quickly justified their pick. Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius led the way for their T-side, on which they put up seven rounds, before Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy took over the mantle and spearheaded a 6-0 streak on the CT side that gave Natus Vincere a comfortable 13-5 win.

FaZe's map pick of Nuke was equally one-sided. Despite Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard previously saying he feels the team is getting countered on the map, FaZe put together a rampant T side, which proved more than enough for the map victory. Natus Vincere made a bit of a cosmetic comeback on their offense but couldn't prevent the series from going to the decider of Mirage.

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rain: "We feel countered, especially on Nuke"

FaZe seemed to keep up their Nuke momentum on the decider as well, as they ran away to a 7-0 lead early on. This time, however, Natus Vincere reduced the deficit to just two as Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov and Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan led the charge for their team and found several openers.

Natus Vincere began the second half fighting from behind after David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský's 1vs2 clutch in the pistol, but a spirited CT side meant they were the first to reach match point, which they converted at the first time of asking.