Natus Vincere secured a spot in the IEM Cologne playoffs with a convincing victory over Sweden's NIP on July 8. The team of Alexander «s1mple» Kostylev and Viktor «sdy» Orudzhev demonstrated a brilliant result, not allowing their opponent to score double-digit points on any of the two maps.
On Overpass, the advantage of the CIS team was overwhelming already at the start: Natus Vincere won ten rounds in a row. After that, the Swedish team managed to mount a few attacks, but soon after the change of sides, the map was left to NAVI with a score of 16 – 3. The undisputed stars of this part of the match were s1mple and sdy, who managed to hit the opponent 18 and 17 times respectively. On Nuke Natus Vincere also immediately took the lead, but the opponent managed to close the gap several times, and at some point the score was 8 – 7. However, after a change of sides, the efforts of s1mple and Perfecto finally decided the fate of the match. Successful defense of the opponent did not allow the Swedes to win any more rounds, and the final score on this map was 16 – 7.
Thus, Natus Vincere passes at least to the quarterfinals of the tournament. Her next group stage match will be against Movistar Riders, who defeated Vitality. For NIP, the fight for the opportunity to continue in the tournament is not over yet either. The team advances to the lower set of the tournament and will face G2 on July 9.