M80 hand NAVI humbling elimination from BLAST Open London

NAVI have suffered an early elimination by a team ranked over 20 places below them in the world rankings.

M80 have pulled off a memorable upset win to eliminate Natus Vincere from BLAST Open London 2025, completing a 2-1 series victory with wins on Ancient (13-9) and Inferno (13-11) either side of a loss on Train (7-13).

As a result of their well-earned win, M80 have a chance to earn a LAN berth if they can defeat fnatic in the lower bracket final.

Date	Matches
BLAST Open London 2025
01/09/2025	fnatic 16:10 M80	Match

Natus Vincere were humbled early in the series, M80 sprinting out to an 8-1 lead on the T side of Ancient. The rounds were close but M80 were the beneficiaries of a string of clutch plays from the likes of Fritz "⁠slaxz-⁠" Dietrich and Jadan "⁠HexT⁠" Postma, granting the team a 9-3 lead at the half.

Not to go down without a fight, Natus Vincere worked their way back into the map thanks to an Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan pistol 3K and some clutch plays of their own in man-down scenarios. slaxz- put the map to bed though, an AWP collateral leading to a 4K, earning a 1-0 lead for his team in the series.

slaxz- collat leads to first CT round

Natus Vincere were a different beast on Train, their slick A executes too much for M80 to handle. When the stacks came through for M80, Natus Vincere made the right adjustment and walked into the understaffed B site. Another big iM pistol round spelled disaster for M80 and allowed Natus Vincere to level the series.

Natus Vincere's individuals, particularly iM, kept them in the decider of Inferno. The Romanian pulled off a 1v4 clutch in the pistol to put his team ahead, Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov clutched up to earn a round win, and ultimately four of their five T rounds came via these two moments.

iM pulls off 1v4 pistol clutch

M80 were the better team, however, and their superiority told as the map wore on, the NA side marching to an 11-6 lead off the back of their strong CT setups and well-oiled offense. A force-buy win gave Natus Vincere hope, and some more iM multi-kills came through as M80 faltered, leading to an 11-11 score.

Ultimately it was the B bombsite defense that let Natus Vincere down at the death, Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri and w0nderful crumbling against back-to-back B hits through smokes to allow M80 to complete the upset.

NAVI hit new low

Natus Vincere were bailed out by individual moments of brilliance across both Ancient and Inferno, and could easily have lost both maps by a bigger score. Train was a different story, the European squad outclassing M80 holistically, but the disjointed play in the two map losses was concerning.

In a post-match interview on broadcast, Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy cited confidence as the issue for his team. "I think we had a good game plan, but after the losses we have had, we lost confidence."

Since their top-four showing at IEM Cologne, in makazze's debut, Natus Vincere have won two of six series played in early exits in BLAST Bounty, Esports World Cup, and now BLAST Open London. In the aforementioned broadcast interview, B1ad3 admitted there is a lot of hard work ahead of his team.

More highlights:

• HexT crazy 1v3

• iM and Aleksib turn a 3v5 for a lifeline

• iM single-handedly opens up B

• iM gets another big pistol highlight

• NAVI bailed out by another big clutch

• iM triple levels the decider