NAVI defeat Fluxo in BLAST Fall Final opener

Natus Vincere began their BLAST Fall Final campaign with a victory over Fluxo, winning a close-fought Dust2 (16-14) before dominating Mirage (16-7). Oleksandr “⁠s1mple⁠” Kostyliev was unsurprisingly the star of the show, racking up 48 kills and a 1.35 rating.

Natus Vincere fielded Viktor “⁠sdy⁠” Orudzhev in the series, despite making it no secret that spots on their roster are up for grabs in pre-tournament interviews. Head coach Andrey “⁠B1ad3⁠” Gorodenskiy confirmed that academy product Andrii “⁠nipl⁠” Kukharskyi will get some action at the BLAST World Final in December, while the team are also rumored to be exploring other external options heading into the new year.

The Ukrainian side will now face the winner of the match between Liquid and G2 in the upper-bracket final, while Fluxo will face the loser of the same matchup on Thursday.

sdy won several amazing clutches in the series

The first map of the series was the outgoing Dust2, where Natus Vincere kicked things off with a successful 5vs5 retake in the pistol round. The Ukrainian team looked comfortable in the opening exchanges, going 4-1 up with a couple of dominant rounds. Fluxo got over their LAN jitters soon enough and started racking up rounds of their own. Adriano “⁠WOOD7⁠” Cerato won a few duels against s1mple at the mid doors, giving his team a platform to build a successful half. The Brazilian combine won seven out of the next nine rounds, relentlessly attacking the A site as Natus Vincere looked shell-shocked. The No. 3 team in the world stabilized at the end of their CT half to go into the interval with a slender one-round lead.

Natus Vincere continued to look far from their best at the start of the second half as they went 12-9 down to the Brazilian squad. With Natus Vincere‘s backs against the wall, it was s1mple who first delivered a crucial entry and followed that up with an ace in the next round. The Ukrainian AWPer kept up his stellar performance towards the end of the game, his 26 kills getting NAVI over the line with an unexpectedly close 16-14 win.

Next up was Natus Vincere‘s pick of Mirage. A chaotic pistol round went the way of Fluxo, with neither team able to take control of the map at the start. As the scores were tied up at 4-4, sdy won a seemingly impossible 1vs4 clutch to completely turn the tide of the game, and Natus Vincere lost just one more round in the half after that. sdy got just seven frags in the first half but still found massive impact, as he won two clutches in crucial moments of the game.

Fluxo won the second pistol round of the map to give themselves a small chance, which was soon shut down by the Natus Vincere CT side. The Ukrainian powerhouse won five in a row with the help of yet another sdy clutch, reaching match point in the process. s1mple converted a 1vs2 situation to put the final nail in the coffin for the Brazilian team, with Natus Vincere winning 16-7 to get off to a successful start in Group B, with the upper-bracket final awaiting them on Thursday at 16:00 .