Natus Vincere have secured a crucial opening victory at PGL Masters Bucharest, scraping by G2 on two maps that rested on a knife's edge (Nuke 13-11, Dust2 22-19).
The win comes as a massive boost for the team, who had fallen to 33rd place on Valve Regional Standings to enter dangerous territory with just over a week to go before the PGL Major Singapore invite deadline.
They have now gained 83 points and jumped 10 spots on the ranking, which means they are projected to finish just inside the invite spots as things stand, with plenty of opportunity to improve further across the group stage and the HyperX Retake tournament they signed up for.
The pressure is still very much on and it won't get easier from here on out in Bucharest, however, as Natus Vincere are set to meet FURIA in the second round after coming in with the low seed.
The match itself was a chaotic one, certainly in large part because of the veto: G2 had apparently chosen to give up Cache to bring Nuke back into their pool for the first time in over a year, while NAVI's Dust2 has not seen play since the last season, and both teams opted for the punish picks.
Despite their lack of experience, G2 put up a solid fight on the Nuke opener, and may have well come away with the win if one of the pistols went their way, but starting the two sides down 0-4 and 0-3 meant they were just outdone by the end.
Meanwhile, on Dust2, Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač and Nikita "HeavyGod" Martynenko did all they could to keep G2 afloat with highlight after highlight, only to falter in third overtime.
Nemanja 'huNter-' KovačPast 3 months
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
G2
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
Guy 'NertZ' Iluz
Artem 'r1nkle' Moroz
Nikita 'HeavyGod' Martynenko
Matúš 'MATYS' Šimko
Eetu 'sAw' Saha
Nikita 'HeavyGod' MartynenkoPast 3 months
FURIA
Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo
Yuri 'yuurih' Santos
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato
Danil 'molodoy' Golubenko
Sid 'sidde' Macedo