Following a 2-1 victory over Heroic, Natus Vincere earned the remaining semi-finals slot in PGL Major Antwerp 2022. The Danish team won Inferno (16-10) and came close to sweeping the reigning Major winners on Ancient (14-16), but NAVI hung on to the very end before a great CT performance on Nuke (16-8).
Following an up-and-down Legends stage in which they defeated G2 and Vitality, Casper “cadiaN” Møller’s team will depart Belgium with a top-eight result at their second Major.
Heroic’s Pick: Inferno
With a successful pistol, Natus Vincere opened up Heroic’s selection of Inferno, but they struggled to stay up as the defenders pulled out the rifles. “refrezh” Ismail On the CT side, Ali was at the top of his game, producing many multi-kills on the A site to put the Eastern European squad on the back foot. Despite their early lead and Denis “electroNic” Sharipov’s best efforts, Natus Vincere fell behind 6-9 at halftime. After switching sides, B1ad3’s team tied the game at 10-10 with another pistol victory and a vital Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov triple kill on the B bombsite, putting Natus Vincere in command. The Danes, on the other hand, showed to be more composed under duress, winning every round after René “TeSeS” won two 1v2 clutches. Madsen and cadiaN. Heroic won the map 16-10 and took a 1-0 lead in the series.
Second Map, where NAVI struggle: Ancient
Natus Vincere, who is faced with elimination, needed a strong offensive performance on their selection of Ancient to stay in the tournament, and they delivered. Boombl4’s squad took an early lead thanks to a third consecutive pistol victory, although neither squad had it easy. ElectroNic completed an unimaginable 1v3 clutch on the A bombsite on the final round of the half to give Natus Vincere a 9-6 lead at halftime. Heroic won the opening pistol round of the series on the T side of Ancient, but they were unable to gain the map lead as Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy, and electroNic began to take over the server. It was not an easy game, but Natus Vincere’s CT team prevailed with a tight 16-14 victory, sending the series to a decider.
Decider Map: Nuke
Nuke was substantially more one-sided after two great levels. With one of electroNic’s greatest performances of the tournament, Natus Vincere seized an early lead in the decider, kicking off an immensely dominant CT side. The Danes had no reaction to the defense and sat on the bench for the entire first half as Boombl4 and co. pushed them to a 3-12 disadvantage. Heroic would only take the pistol and a four-round streak after that before being ousted with an 8-16 score.
In the semi-finals, NAVI will face ENCE. Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer’s squad played well throughout the tournament and advanced to the semi-finals following a 2-0 win against the Copenhagen Flames on Friday.
Read more: Spirit beat FURIA easily and made their way to PGL Major Semi-Finals!
