Natus Vincere beat Evil Geniuses 16-5 on Mirage, followed by 16-11 on Nuke to book themselves a spot in the Semi-Finals of ESL Pro League Season 10.
ESL Pro League Season 10 held in Odense saw Natus Vincere take on heavy favorites Evil Geniuses in the upper bracket finals with a semi-final spot on stake. Both sides came into this match up with a clean record, without dropping a single map. NaVi were ranked 14th coming into this tournament which was an understatement considering the performance they delivered.
MAP 1: Mirage(Evil Geniuses’s Pick)
NaVi had a strong start to their defense, winning 4 rounds on the trot before EG broke their duck to get on board. EG continued their streak till 6 rounds which they followed by trading round-for-round only to have Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz close the first half with a 3K and a 9-6 scoreline in their favour. Once EG swapped side, NaVi seem to be able to put up a much better fight against them. But, Tvsetelin ‘CeRq’ Dmitrov’s AWP came alive which made the difference to give EG the upper hand against NaVi. CeRq delivered two 3Ks in two rounds to snatch away the first map with a 12-16 scoreline.
MAP 2: Dust 2(NaVi’s Pick)
Dust 2 was a fine pick for NaVi as they looked much refined. The boys in yellow came out all guns blazing, on their T-Side only dropping four rounds in the first half. The CIS roster had EG’s number, although EG came close on many occasions but individual brilliance, one from the likes of Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov where he had to clutch a 1v3 in the pistol round bailed them out tough situation time and time again. CeRq on the final round of the first half showed up with a 3K to close the half with an 11-4 scoreline. NaVi’s defense started with a clinical 4K from Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev and they kept building upon it. EG weren’t allowed more than 1 round from them as NaVi leveled the series after dominating Dust 2 16-5.
MAP 3: Nuke(Decider)
The deciding MAP started with NaVi on the defense. NaVi heavily focused on defending the sites, giving the outer control for free on many occasions, which let EG call for last-minute rotations quite often which came back to haunt NaVi. Nuke is considered as a CT sided map and NaVi winning only 7 rounds is a disappointing start to their deciding map. EG coming confidently into the CT in the second half didn’t expect what NaVi had in store for them. s1mple and Igor ‘flamie’ Vasilyev came onto their own dropping 26 and 25 bombs respectively. They ran over the North Americans on the T side winning 9 rounds with perfect executes and effective trading as they booked a place in the semi-finals with a 16-11 scoreline.
