NAVI advance to WePlay! Clutch Island grand final; VP to face Spirit in consolidation final rematch

Natus Vincere reached the WePlay! Clutch Island grand final after beating Virtus.pro in a three map series, sending them to the consolidation where they will face Spirit.

The Group B winners, Virtus.pro, and the runners up, Natus Vincere, faced off in WePlay! Clutch Island for the first time in the playoffs' upper bracket final. To get there, VP beat Spirit and NAVI beat Nemiga in the first round of the bracket, both with a 2-1 scoreline. Earlier today Spirit and Nemiga played their lower bracket match, with Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev and company coming out ahead to earn a spot in the consolidation final. Unable to beat Natus Vincere in the upper bracket final, Virtus.pro will now go on to rematch Spirit for a spot in the grand final.

Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis and Sanjar "⁠SANJI⁠" Kuliev downed all five CT players on the Dust2 opening pistol round as Virtus.pro slid into the lead early on, which they were able to extend to 5-0 after the first full buy round and the ensuing anti-eco. Virtus.pro then hit the A site successfully with a split attack to keep their momentum going. A late B entry on the following round ended up in VP planting with a 3-2 advantage, further extending their lead to 7-0. Natus Vincere were able to get on the board in the eighth round for the first time, with a triple by Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy and double by Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev, trading rounds until the end of the half, ending it 4-11.

A triple by Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov kept NAVI in it on the Terrorist side, which quickly became a comeback as Virtus.pro were unable to put up a solid defense, getting overrun every round. Virtus.pro finally got on the board in the second half after losing the lead as a slow round by Natus Vincere ended up in the attacking squad not being able to plant the bomb, opening the door for VP to come back as they retook the lead, 13-12. Virtus.pro hit match point before the last round of regulation, breaking Natus Vincere’s economy, but couldn’t close it out as it went to overtime. Despite the slip, VP were the superior team in overtime, winning 19-17.

Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev took out three players in the first pistol round on Overpass to put Natus Vincere ahead on the attacking side as they charged on to a 6-2 lead. A strong showing by Alexey "⁠qikert⁠" Golubev on the B site helped VP not fall too far back, however, as they brought it to 7-8 before the half to keep their dreams of closing out the match in two maps alive.

Two opening kills by Denis "⁠electronic⁠" Sharipov helped Natus Vincere take the second pistol round to keep their lead on the CT side in hopes of pushing the series to a decider map. They then pushed it to 11-7 ahead of the first gun round, but were then unable to stop an A play by Virtus.pro. The attackers then pushed into B site, ending in a 2vs2, but were denied by s1mple’s AWP before they could plant the bomb. NAVI then got ahead 13-9, starting to run away with the map. VP then won two to try and bring it back, but four kills by Perfecto on B got NAVI back on track to win the map, 16-12.

Virtus.pro won the CT side pistol round on Train, but weren’t able to follow it up as s1mple killed four players in the forcebuy. NAVI then took control of the half early on, going up 5-1 before VP tallied a second. Despite a three-round streak midway through the half, Natus Vincere were the dominant force, setting up an 11-4 lead after what tends to be the harder side on Train.

Perfecto got two important kills against the last two surviving attackers in the second pistol round to defuse the bomb, clearing the way for Natus Vincere to win the map out, 16-4, and secure a spot in the WePlay! Clutch Island grand final.