NAVI sweep Falcons to reach IEM Beijing quarterfinals

Natus Vincere defeated Falcons 2-0 in their IEM Beijing rematch and advanced to the quarterfinals. NAVI won Inferno before opening Mirage with 12 consecutive T-side rounds.

The teams had also met on the first day of the event, when NAVI won 2-0. In the rematch, NAVI controlled Inferno and Mirage from the opening rounds.

Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov finished the series with a 1.58 rating, while Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy recorded a 1.78 rating. W0nderful posted 25 kills and four deaths on Inferno. B1t led NAVI on Mirage.

“I’m feeling amazing, I’m glad we qualified to playoffs,” b1t said after the match. “We gained so much speed as a team, we were in flow state, everything worked for us.”

Falcons avoided a second straight 2-0 defeat after Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin recorded 130 average damage per round in the first half of Inferno. He could not maintain that level on Mirage, where Falcons lost 5v3 and 5v2 advantages. Drin “makazze” Shaqiri also knifed kyousuke in one round.

Nikola “NiKo” Kovač described the series as one of Falcons’ heaviest defeats. “I don’t remember the last time we got smacked like this,” he said. “It felt like they were much better on Mirage and Inferno. Everything we tried, we got punished.”

Falcons’ group-stage exit is their first on LAN this season. The team is scheduled to defend its Major title in Singapore. Falcons had already dropped out of the world’s top five before the match, while Finn “karrigan” Andersen finished the series with a 0.64 rating.

“We knew before this event that we were not a title contender team,” NiKo said. “We wanted to show improvement but we failed to do so. It’s a rough season for us.”

NAVI had previously lost Ancient despite both w0nderful and b1t recording ratings above 1.75. The pair carried that form into the two winning maps, allowing NAVI to complete the sweep.

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Reviewed and fact-checked by Alex Panasenko on November 4.