NAVI end Movistar Riders' win streak and claim Cologne semi-final spot

Natus Vincere secured a spot in the semi-finals of IEM Cologne and are now just two wins away from lifting the title after beating Movistar Riders 2-1 in their final group stage game. That ended the Spaniards’ 8-match winning streak that stretched back to ESL Challenger Valencia and the Play-In stage of Cologne, but Alejandro “⁠mopoz⁠” Fernández-Quejo Cano and co. will still be in the playoffs, starting their run in the round of six.

The match itself started with an impressive showing on Inferno by Movistar Riders, who picked up the map win thanks to a flawless CT side. Natus Vincere fired back on Mirage despite a slow start from Denis “⁠electroNic⁠” Sharipov, and closed out on Overpass where they were in the driver’s seat from the start. Keeping them in the game throughout was s1mple, who posted near-identical scorelines across all three maps and once again proved his worth for Natus Vincere.

Inferno was a game of two halves, Natus Vincere looking good in the first one playing on the CT side, recovering from a lost pistol round when rifles came into play to dominate the middle portion of the half. Movistar Riders fired back in their final offensive rounds and brought the game to 9-6 before the switch, a result both teams could be fairly happy with. Unsurprisingly, s1mple was a standout player as most of Natus Vincere‘s success came through their point man’s multikills.

The second half was a completely different story as Movistar Riders won their second pistol of the map and ran away with Inferno with a flawless CT side. The majority-Ukrainian squad could not find an answer to the defensive puzzle that was spearheaded by mopoz who posted 11 opening kills on the map.

On Mirage, Natus Vincere put up a much better Terrorist side, but still struggled to find a consistent way to secure rounds against the Spanish side. Half of their six rounds they won came off the back of clutches, two for s1mple and one for Ilya “⁠Perfecto⁠” Zalutskiy, while electroNic struggled. The new in-game leader was sitting on just one kill until the 15th round when a triple kill set up his teammate to close out and ultimately make the score 9-6.

Alejandro “⁠alex⁠” Masanet‘s 1v4 clutch in the pistol was Movistar Riders‘ opportunity to grab control of the offense and perhaps close the map swiftly, but Natus Vincere fired back with a crucial force-buy to solidify on the defense. From that point onwards there was no looking back, s1mple was impeccable on the CT side and electroNic made up for his poor first half as Natus Vincere completed the comeback, 16-11.

By Overpass, it looked like David had missed their chance to take down Goliath as a peak-form s1mple showed up to wreak havoc since the start of the map. The superstar was on double-digit frags before round six, setting up a brilliant defensive half for his team. Natus Vincere were winning opening duels by a large margin and locked down the approaches on their way to a dominant 12-3 halftime score. After the switch, Movistar Riders showed a solid CT side, but lacked the breathing room to make the comeback and ultimately fell 16-10, with s1mple closing the series in style with a knife kill.