Natus Vincere completely dominated ENCE in the first quarterfinal match of ESL Pro League season 14 today, ending the best-of-three series in less than two hours, which is highly unlikely in CS:GO esports nowadays.
The CIS side gave ENCE no chance to succeed on their map pick, Ancient. They put up a nearly perfect CT side to secure a 13-2 advantage, with the younger talent Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi leading the troops with 20 kills and just five deaths. With that big of an advantage, there was nothing left for ENCE unless they won the pistol round, which Na’Vi claimed and then closed out the map 16-2.
Na’Vi kept up that pace on Nuke with a strong T side, which netted them 10 rounds, and carried the momentum into their defensive side, winning the first six rounds in a row to take the map and series. This time, it was Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy who fragged the most, finishing with a 22-12 K/D and 1.62 rating.
A lot of ENCE fans will be disappointed since their team didn’t offer much resistance. But, eventually, they’ll have to give some props to Na’Vi. The Russian-Ukrainian lineup is the best CS:GO team in the world right now and is becoming less dependent on Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev to carry. The superstar had a good game today, as usual, but all of his teammates contributed in the fragging department and their gameplan was well-executed.
With this win over ENCE, Na’Vi are just two victories away from securing the Intel Grand Slam season three title and its $1 million prize pool. “To complete this road we just need to play our game,” s1mple said in the post-match interview. “Everyone understands the importance of each game right now.”
Na’Vi will be back on the server tomorrow at 12:15pm CT to face the winner of Heroic vs. Team Liquid, a series that will be played today at 12:15pm CT. These two are some of the best teams in ESL Pro League season 14 and likely will keep the viewers entertained for more time than the Na’Vi vs. ENCE match.
