Natus Vincere won another victory in the group stage of IEM Cologne, and thus will be able to begin participating in the playoffs immediately from the semi-final match. Their rivals were the Spanish Movistar Riders. She showed stubborn resistance to the CIS team, especially on the first maps, but by the end of the match, NAVI's advantage became more and more convincing. Thus, Natus Vincere put an end to the chain of eight matches in a row won by Movistar Riders, first at ESL Challenger Valencia, and then at the play-in tournament in Cologne.
The first map of the match was Inferno, and Movistar retained it, seemingly without any problems, losing only six rounds to their opponents. At Mirage, Natus Vincere initially lost, but were able to level the score and then take the lead thanks to a series of won rounds. As a result, the map went to NAVI with a score of 16 – 11. A similar picture could be seen on Overpass, but here Natus Vincere seized control at the very beginning. After switching sides, Movistar Riders played several rounds, but this was not enough to win: 16 – 10 in favor of the team from the CIS. Perfecto and s1mple were particularly impressive throughout the match, with the latter again showing his mastery of the game by getting to his opponent with a knife twice.
