Living up to their status as one of the favorites at CS:GO‘s PGL Stockholm Major, Natus Vincere have clinched a playoffs spot today with a 3-0 run in the Legends Stage, capped off with a victory over dev1ce and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Na’Vi looked keen to run away with map one on Nuke, taking a 7-0 start to their T-side thanks to some big contributions from the promoted academy star B1T. But NiP had an answer, locking down the sites and winning retakes to win six straight rounds of their own. Na’Vi ended up reaching halftime with only an 8-7 lead despite their hot start.
NiP’s own promoted academy player LNZ made an impact with three kills in their T-side pistol round to tie it at eight rounds each. Na’Vi fired back with a huge anti-eco round, however, with simple and B1T each getting two kills each with the Scout and Deagle, respectively. This let them rebuild the lead to 11-8 before the first full-buy round, which Na’Vi took with textbook control of the Outside area. They closed the map the way they started: winning eight of the last nine rounds to take their pick of Nuke 16-9.
On CT, Na’Vi took control of Overpass early after a hectic pistol round saw electronic clutch it out. Just like on Nuke, they jumped out to a quick start with four straight CT rounds via map-wide control and smart utility placement. Again similar to the first map, NiP answered back with a handful of rounds but not nearly as strongly as they did on Nuke, and Na’Vi took an 11-4 lead into half-time.
Hampus stepped up when NiP needed him at the start of their CT half, anchoring some key holds in the early rounds to take a chunk out of the Na’Vi lead. But just as the Ninjas started to get a run going, a couple of huge rounds from Boombl4 and s1mple shut the door on a potential comeback. Na’Vi secured four straight rounds (ending on a B1T knife kill) to close out Overpass 16-9, reaching playoffs without a single map dropped.
With the win, Na’Vi secured a playoff spot, joining G2 in the Champions Stage after a 3-0 run. The two sides can sit back until the quarterfinals kick off at the Avicii Arena on Thursday, Nov. 4.
