NAVI outlast Vitality; Heroic defeat Outsiders in IEM Rio Legends Stage

The first Swiss round of the IEM Rio Major Legends Stage is well underway, with Natus Vincere meeting with Vitality in a heavily-anticipated battle between s1mple and ZywOo. It was the Ukrainian side that came out on top in a close-fought game on Mirage, overcoming slow starts in both halves to close out the game 25-21 in triple overtime.

Natus Vincere‘s second-round opponents will be Cloud9 irrespective of other results, setting up their first matchup of the year, while FaZe and Vitality will clash in the 0-1 matchup.

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ZywOo vs. s1mple: A clash of titans to start the Legends Stage

On the B stream, Outsiders met with Heroic on Overpass. Rasmus “⁠sjuush⁠” Beck proved to be the difference maker for the Danish side, putting up 26 kills to help Heroic book their ticket in the 1-0 pool as they made the most out of a dominant 13-2 defensive half.

Vitality started their offense strongly, winning the pistol and converting it to a 4-0 lead with the help of Lotan “⁠Spinx⁠” Giladi‘s 1vs2 clutch. Natus Vincere answered back in a couple of rounds, s1mple starting their streak with a triple-kill. Ilya “⁠Perfecto⁠” Zalutskiy also turned up with a 1vs2 clutch of his own, with the Ukrainian side looking more comfortable by the round. They shut out the Vitality offense after that, allowing the European combine just one more round in the entire half. s1mple outshone his AWPing counterpart in the first half, with the 25-year-old sitting on 17 kills at the half.

Vitality won their second pistol of the game and got off to another quick start, tying up the scoreline at ten rounds each. Valeriy “⁠b1t⁠” Vakhovskiy and s1mple delivered the first round for Natus Vincere by converting a 2vs3 situation and turning the game’s momentum. The Ukrainian side won five in a row after that, getting up to match point in the process. ZywOo woke up in the dying moments of the game, dragging his team to a tie score at 15-15 and forcing out overtime.

Once in overtime, the teams remained incredibly close-matched throughout, as triple overtime was required to find the victor of the barnstorming game. Natus Vincere were able to find three T rounds in a row, putting them 24-21 up and in arm’s reach of the victory. Once switching over to the defense, they needed just one round to finally close out the marathon map, with s1mple hitting 40 in the last round of the game.

Heroic put together another dominant CT half on Overpass in the backstage game. It could have been a different story if not for Jakob “⁠jabbi⁠” Nygaard, who won a crucial 1vs3 clutch with the economy at breaking point for both sides. That was the final nail in the coffin for the Outsiders T side, who went into the interval behind by eleven rounds.

A quad-kill by Petr “⁠fame⁠” Bolyshev was the start of the Outsiders‘ comeback attempt, which lasted for just seven rounds. With the game seemingly slipping out of Heroic‘s control, sjuush showed up with two massive rounds to get his team over the line and into the 1-0 pool of teams.