NAVI qualify for Spodek despite donk's heroics

Aleksib's troops are now 2-6 against Spirit in the last twelve months.

Natus Vincere have outlasted Spirit in a marathon three-map series (13-8 Mirage, 11-13 Dust2, 16-14 Nuke) to secure their spot in the Spodek Arena and condemn Spirit to the lower bracket.

Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen and company will now meet The MongolZ for a semi-final spot, while Spirit will need to beat Liquid and the winner of Astralis vs. GamerLegion to secure a playoff berth.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2025
04/02/2025	Liquid 13:30 Spirit	Match
04/02/2025	The MongolZ 18:30 Natus Vincere	Match

The series began on Mirage, where Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan (2.17 CT rating) and Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius (1.93) came alive on the defensive half to secure a 13-8 win for Natus Vincere.

Spirit turned the momentum on Dust2 and found themselves 11-6 up before jL started finding crucial multikills and dragged Natus Vincere to 11-11, but Spirit did enough to secure the map in regulation.

Nuke was the decider, and Natus Vincere squandered a quick 4-0 start by losing seven rounds in a row on their offense, which prompted Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy to give Aleksib a stern talking to during a timeout.

"I called a round with the details of the other round, so it was obviously doomed. It's fair enough, man," Aleksib told HLTV after the victory.

"I feel like I've done this for a long time, and sometimes you hear it rough, and I felt like I came back into the game after. That's what I'm proud of. Sometimes that kind of stuff happens, and for me, back to the drawing board, I guess."

Luckily for Natus Vincere, that didn't end up costing them, as they secured a 16-14 win after a chaotic overtime affair filled with clutches and individual moments.

NAVI find second win in eight matches against Spirit

Natus Vincere vs. Spirit has been a very lopsided matchup in the last twelve months, with Aleksib's men winning just one out of seven matches.

Their solitary win came at ESL Pro League S20, but today's victory will no doubt be a sight for sore eyes, something Aleksib confirmed in a post-match interview with HLTV.

"Beating the number-one team and the form they currently had, and the form we had, it was a long time coming. It elevates our confidence and the overall level," the Finn said.

"We are gonna take all the takeaways from this game, but it's very nice to play a best-of-three that goes to all three maps, all the smallest margins, and overtime on the last map, and we manage to take it home. Feels fucking nice, and we did a lot of work to do this."

donk's supportive cast goes missing

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets was his usual self against NAVI and racked up a 1.38 rating, 104 ADR, and 71 kills across three maps, but even that wasn't enough for victory.

His support cast couldn't back up the young superstar, as Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov finished second on the scoreboard with a 1.02 rating, a whopping 0.36 behind donk, while Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia didn't fare any better (0.97).

Not all is lost for Spirit as they have been given a relatively straightforward path to the playoffs considering their recent form, but the form of donk's teammates has to be a worrying sign for the Russian squad.