Natus Vincere won another victory in the group stage of IEM Cologne, and thus will be able to start participation in the playoffs right from the semifinal match. Their opponents were Spain's Movistar Riders. The CIS team put up stubborn resistance, especially on the first maps, but by the final match NAVI's advantage was becoming more and more convincing. Thus, Natus Vincere ended the string of eight consecutive matches won by Movistar Riders, first at ESL Challenger Valencia and then at the play-in of the tournament in Cologne.
The first map of the match was Inferno, and Movistar took it seemingly without much trouble, losing to their opponents by only six rounds. At Mirage, Natus Vincere were inferior at first, but were able to even the score and then take the lead thanks to a series of won rounds. As a result, the map went to NAVI with a score of 16 – 11. A similar picture could be seen on Overpass, but here Natus Vincere took control at the very beginning. After the change of sides Movistar Riders played a few rounds, but it was not enough to win: 16 – 10 in favor of the CIS team. Perfecto and s1mple had a particularly impressive performance throughout the match, with the latter once again showing his mastery of the game by twice getting to his opponent with the knife.