Natus Vincere successfully showed themselves in the match with Astralis, with a slight advantage winning two maps out of three. As a result, the Danish team fell to the bottom of the tournament, where it will soon face mousesports to compete for further participation in the competition.
For NAVI fans, this match was especially interesting, as it featured a new – player, Valery «B1T» Vakhovsky. It was announced just hours before the match that he would be the sixth man on the NAVI roster. In the draw of the first card (Inferno) he replaced Egor «flamie» Vasiliev.
At first the fight was almost equal. B1T was not too successful and, despite the efforts of the team leader Alexander «s1mple» Kostylev, the Danes managed to keep this map with the score 14 : 16. On the second map (Nuke) flamie regained his place on the team. The Astralis have also made the switch. However, the balance of power shifted in favor of NAVI as a result. Although at first the Danish team managed to go ahead quite confidently, achieving an advantage of 12: 6, Natus Vincere were able to turn the situation around, mainly thanks to the brilliant actions of s1mple, who realized a series of successful shots.
The decisive game was the Dust2 map draw. As in the previous one, one team or the other took the lead, but in the end Natus Vincere managed to keep the lead with a minimal advantage (16 : 14). Now the CIS team will have to play Vitality – this match will be held on Thursday. NAVI plans to continue using the extended roster scheme to train players for specific cards.
