Vitality move past NAVI to set up MOUZ clash in Austin

The world No.1 is through to the semi-final stage after winning two close maps.

Natus Vincere's hopes of recreating their Copenhagen Major's unlikely run to the title went up in smoke on Friday in Austin as they were defeated by Vitality in a two-map series.

NAVI were competitive for large swathes of Mirage but ceded control to their opponents early in the second half. They mustered enough strength on Nuke to recover from a 10-5 deficit, only to falter when overtime seemed inevitable.

The victory puts Vitality on a collision course with MOUZ in the semi-finals — the seventh clash between the two teams since the start of the year. Vitality have a perfect 6-0 record, but it's worth pointing out that MOUZ had an extra day to prepare for the next round, an "unfair advantage" for his team, Dennis "⁠sycrone⁠" Nielsen admitted.

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
21/06/2025	MOUZ 20:00 Vitality	Match

A frantic start to Mirage saw Vitality cruise through the pistol round and nearly lose the conversion before William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman came up clutch in a 1v3 situation.

It didn't take long for Natus Vincere to get into their rhythm: with Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan and Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov leading the charge, they enjoyed a spell of dominance and prevented Vitality from stringing rounds together, but a late response from Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's troops saw the half end in a 6-6 stalemate.

Natus Vincere retook the lead after a dominant pistol round, but the complexion of the game changed once Vitality had money in the bank. One gun round was all that NAVI could muster on the CT side as Vitality took control of proceedings, locking down the map on the back of two great plays from Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan.

Chances of a Natus Vincere comeback looked bleak given their 25% winrate on Nuke this year, and the game quickly got away from them. Vitality took control of proceedings after buying up and stormed to a 7-3 lead before NAVI won the final two rounds of the half to keep the scoreline competitive.

Vitality began to make some uncharacteristic mistakes and looked a bit lost at times on the CT side, and NAVI pounced on the opportunity. They recovered from 5-10 down and took the game the full distance, but their efforts were in vain as mezii sealed victory for his team with a crisp quad-kill in the final round of regulation.

"Of course we have a bit of a mental edge, but it's a Major and you never know what can happen," apEX said after the match about facing MOUZ.

"They played a crazy game yesterday. The last six matches will not count tomorrow. We are not going to get too confident, we're going to give our best to get to the final."