Natus Vincere move past fnatic at EPL

Natus Vincere secured their second win of ESL Pro League Season 16 group stage after taking down fnatic 2-1. The Denis “⁠electroNic⁠” Sharipov-led lineup suffered a gut-wrenching 14-16 loss in the opening map before brushing the European combine aside to complete the reverse sweep.

electroNic was by far Natus Vincere‘s stand-out performer, with the captain putting up a deadly 1.34 rating across the three maps. Ilya “⁠Perfecto⁠” Zalutskiy wasn’t far behind, however, with the 22-year-old averaging a 1.27 rating throughout the series — a noticeable jump compared to his 1.06 rating in 2022.

Freddy “⁠KRIMZ⁠” Johansson had a particularly tough time versus the Ukrainian-majority team, posting just 39 kills in the three-map series. The European combine will look to bounce back in their next game versus Vitality on September 2 at 19:30 .

The series started on fnatic‘s choice of Ancient, though it was Natus Vincere who struck first, as the Ukrainian-majority roster jumped out to a 5-1 advantage to begin their CT-side. While fnatic started to find their footing towards the end of their offensive effort, electroNic and company continued to sit firmly in the driver’s seat as they posted a 10-5 lead by the swap. Natus Vincere owed a lot of their first-half success to Viktor “⁠sdy⁠” Orudzhev and Oleksandr “⁠s1mple⁠” Kostyliev, the pair combining for 30 kills at the half’s end.

The international mix slowly clawed their way back into the game once on the more favoured CT-side, repeatedly shutting down Natus Vincere‘s B site hits to bring the deficit to 10-12. This strong defense by fnatic continued to cause issues for Natus Vincere, with sporadic round wins by the CIS side being the only thing keeping them in the game at 14-14. In the end, a 1v2 by William “⁠mezii⁠” Merriman in the 30th round closed things out, allowing fnatic to complete the comeback and clinch Ancient 16-14.

The two teams moved over to Mirage for the second map of the matchup, with Natus Vincere‘s pick immediately paying dividends as they ran up another 5-1 lead to start. Spearheaded by the potent fragging power of electroNic and s1mple, Natus Vincere began running riot for much of the half, adding a six-round spree to secure double digits. fnatic finally found some respite, though, stealing the final two rounds of the half to have some positives to hold on to, as they went into the side swap 4-11 down.

Both squads traded blows at the beginning of the second half, with Natus Vincere using this to their favour as they inched ever closer to match-point at 14-7. This lead would eventually prove too difficut for fnatic to overcome, as s1mple added four more kills to his tally in the last two rounds to power his side to a 16-8 victory and tie things up.

electroNic took down four fnatic players on the A site defense to get Inferno rolling, with Natus Vincere converting the next two rounds to have the ideal 3-0 start. The Ukrainian-majority side didn’t look back for the rest of the half, laying down the law as they sent unrelenting waves of aggression to lock in an overpowering 11-4 defensive effort.

fnatic, now on the CT-side, overturned a Natus Vincere pistol round win with three of their own to get their comeback attempt underway. Alas, in spite of KRIMZ and mezii‘s solid individual efforts, Natus Vincere rallied together, attacking the B site with relative ease three rounds in a row to close out Inferno 16-7 and take the series.