Falcons and Natus Vincere have won their IEM Beijing lower-bracket semi-final matches 2-0 against HEROIC and B8, respectively, and will go up against each other for a spot in the playoffs when they meet in the final later on in the day.
Falcons were the first to punch their ticket after keeping HEROIC below double digits on either of the two maps played, Ancient (13-8) and Dust2 (13-6).
Maksim "kyousuke" Lukin was not overthinking this series and ended it as by far the highest-rated player of the match with a 1.90 rating, +7.08% swing, and 114.7 ADR. His Dust2, a 2.17-rated affair, was his third-highest at a big LAN.
Natus Vincere cleared B8 just minutes after Falcons' victory, as it took a little bit more work on the second map to clear the hurdle after closing the opening Ancient 13-8.
Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen and his teammates were well on the road to winning the match on Dust2 as they turned a 6-6 half into a 12-7 lead early on the T side, but a final push by the Ukrainian squad took the map the distance.
In the end, Natus Vincere closed out the map in the final round of regulation, 13-11, to win the series and clinch their spot in the final lower-bracket group stage decider.
B8
Alexey 'alex666' Yarmoshchuk
Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyi
Artem 'kensizor' Kapran
Dmytro 'esenthial' Tsvir
Danylo 's1zzi' Vinnyk
Ivan 'maddened' Iordanidi
Maksim 'kyousuke' LukinPast 3 months
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
HEROIC
Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin
Linus 'nilo' Bergman
Tim 'susp' Ångström
Antonio 'MartinezSa' Martinez
Christoffer 'Chr1zN' Storgaard
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Aleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenPast 3 months
Falcons
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Maksim 'kyousuke' Lukin
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen