Na’Vi and Fnatic finish European RMR A with a perfect record

It seems that Natus Vincere have improved a lot since the last time we saw them at an important CS:GO event. Winning a European qualifier for a Major is no easy feat, especially when you need to beat FaZe Clan in a best-of-three to do it.

The other team that finished European RMR A with a perfect record was Fnatic. However, it’s hard to regard their result as exceptional, simply because they didn’t have to face a single tier-1 opponent. All of their matches happened to be against tier-2 teams who are decent but can’t be compared to the likes of Na’Vi and FaZe.

Natus Vincere’s run

Na’Vi started European RMR A with a hard-earned victory against Into The Breach. The match needed extra rounds to conclude and Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s team came very close to losing despite ending the first half with 11 points. The final score was 22-19.

The second match was the exact opposite of the first. The first half was a bit tough (9-6) but the second half was brutal. Na’Vi didn’t lose a single round. Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy finished with 25 kills and just 8 deaths. His rating 2.0 was 1.95!

The third match was supposed to be the big test. After all, FaZe Clan were the strongest team in the world. They had just won ESL Pro League Season 17 and the Intel Grand Slam. In a best-of-three series, Na’Vi were expected to lose at least one map. But they didn’t.

On Inferno, they won 16-7. On Ancient they did slightly worse but were still very dominant: 16-11. What’s even more surprising is that Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi, Na’Vi’s newest player, turned out to be the MVP with 41 kills and 27 deaths.

Fnatic’s run

Fnatic started with a long match against Viperio, which ended with a score of 22-20. Just like Na’Vi, the Swedes dominated the first half (10-5) but then struggled for the rest of the match and barely won.

The next opponent was 1win, who were expected to cause an upset. This is Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov’s new team and their potential is quite high. But in this particular match against Fnatic, they were not able to play the way they wanted. The first half was an absolute disaster (13-2), so the end result wasn’t bad at all: 16-12.

In their third match, Fnatic played against B8 and struggled on Nuke (which they lost 16-11) and Ancient (13-16). But in the end, victory was theirs.

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