On Saturday, it became known that Natus Vincere ingame leader Kirill «boombl4» Mikhailov will be able to continue participating in IEM Katowice, playing in the usual format. The player no longer needs to be quarantined after he tested negative twice for coronavirus.
He was previously expected to be quarantined for the entire group tournament as the self-isolation period is seven days under Polish law. However, after two negative PCR tests and consultations with local sanitary authorities, the player was allowed to join his teammates.
Despite the fact that boombl4 was forced to participate online in the first NAVI match at the tournament, the CIS team managed to beat ENCE with a score of 2 – 1, despite the fact that the European team played aggressively and dynamically, forcing Natus Vincere to defend and recover the lost advantage several times. On the first map (Mirage), NAVI showed overwhelming superiority (16 – 8), but then lost to Nuke themselves by an even wider margin (4 – 16). The outcome of the match was decided on Overpass, where the CIS players held the advantage with a minimal margin (16 – 14), thanks in large part to the efforts of Ilya «Perfecto» Zalutsky.