The team from the CIS, which currently ranks first in the world rankings, beat NIP in the “last chance” match. and thus increased the number of teams that qualified for the final stage of BLAST Premier Spring.
Before this, Natus Vincere's path at the tournament indicated that the team was not in the best shape: it lost to MIBR and Astralis in the first week of the competition, and a few days later it lost to NIP. However, at the same time, in confrontations that were of critical importance, NAVI still showed itself in full force: both in the group stage game against Liquid, and now in the second match with NIP, the team of Alexander “s1mple” Kostyleva won with a score of 2 – 0, thus solving the main problem – get a place in the final part of the tournament. On the first map (Nuke), NAVI won by a striking margin (16 – 8), on the second (Overpass) the fight was more equal, but the victory also went to the team from the CIS (16 – 14).
Commenting on the result in an interview after the match, Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov noted that the season started slowly for the team, but ultimately the players were happy with the result, as they were able to reach the finals. Now they plan to concentrate on preparing for IEM Katowice.
