Natus Vincere have overcome Falcons in stunning fashion to qualify for IEM Beijing's quarter-finals.
In a rematch of their series from day one, where Natus Vincere won 2-0, Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov and company were in supreme form as they crushed Falcons on Inferno and ran away with a 12-0 lead on the decider of Mirage.
w0nderful ended the series with a 1.58 rating, and Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy on 1.78, as they simply refused to miss another playoffs.
"I'm feeling amazing, I'm glad we qualified to playoffs," b1t said post-game. "We gained so much speed as a team, we were in flow state, everything worked for us."
On the other side of the server, Maksim "kyousuke" Lukin had been in similarly red-hot form in this group stage and it was his 130 ADR first half on map one that saved Falcons from another 2-0 defeat.
But they were rarely anywhere near their average level, let alone their best, as Natus Vincere made Inferno and Mirage into a walk in the park.
As good as NAVI were, Falcons didn't help themselves. In quick succession as Mirage went awry, they lost a 5v3, 5v2, and even let kyousuke get knifed by Drin "makazze" Shaqiri.
The group-stage exit is a huge blow to Falcons ahead of their defense of their Major title in Singapore, in front of what was functionally a home crowd.
Their slump already has them out of the top five of the world ranking, and Finn "karrigan" Andersen's 0.64 rating will do the team no favors as they fight to prove their Cologne success is repeatable.
NiKo: "I don't remember the last time we got smacked like this"
It's Falcons' first group stage exit of the season on LAN, and Nikola "NiKo" Kovač spoke to Janko "YNk" Paunović post-game to talk it through.
"I don't remember the last time we got smacked like this," to be honest. "It felt like they were much better on Mirage and Inferno. Everything we tried, we got punished."
The team lost yet another map pick, as w0nderful ran riot with a 25-4 K-D on Inferno, before b1t took over Mirage. Falcons are known for their superstars, but the two brightest lights today were on the other side of the server.
"We knew before this event that we were not a title contender team," NiKo admitted. "We wanted to show improvement but we failed to do so. It's a rough season for us."
An unfortunate record for NAVI, but they won't mind
Only twice in MVP events has a team had two players above a 1.75 rating and not won the map. First was Natus Vincere against HEROIC in 2024, and the second was Natus Vincere here on Ancient, with both w0nderful and b1t over that mark.
According to HLTV Brain, teams won 99.93% of map appearances where at least two teammates each had a Rating 3.0 of 1.75 or higher: 6,957 wins in 6,962 qualifying team-map appearances.
Fortunately for NAVI, the duo carried their form into Inferno and Mirage, and it did not matter in the end.
Drin 'makazze' ShaqiriPast 3 months
Maksim 'kyousuke' LukinPast 3 months
Janko 'YNk' PaunovićPast 3 months
Falcons
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Maksim 'kyousuke' Lukin
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen
Valeriy 'b1t' VakhovskiyPast 3 months
HEROIC
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski
Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck
Guy 'NertZ' Iluz
Abdul 'degster' Gasanov
Nikola 'NiKo' KovačPast 3 months
Finn 'karrigan' AndersenPast 3 months
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' ZhdanovPast 3 months