NAVI miss playoffs for the first time since 2017
Coming into today, fans knew one of these two giants would be leaving Paris without playing a game in the Accor Arena, but seeing FaZe and NAVI battle it out in the server, looking stronger than they looked during the previous days, just felt wrong.
Still, one would need to be eliminated. Would FaZe be able to come back from a 0-2 record in the Legends stage or would NAVI prevent the European squad from making playoffs?
Despite an ugly loss against Bad News Eagles the day before on Overpass, FaZe chose to play the map, while NAVI decided to play Mirage and Anubis would be left as the decider.
Straight away, FaZe improved their performance from yesterday on their own pick. A respectable 6-9 half would see the European squad running after the deficit on the CT-side. The difference maker, in the end, would be the second half pistol round. NAVI managed to win it and convert the following two rounds, increasing the lead to 12-6. FaZe managed to almost tie the game 14-13, but then the Ukrainian squad closed the map 16-13.
Mirage was the other way around. While Overpass was a very close map, NAVI's pick seemed to fall flat for the home team. Despite losing the pistol round on the CT-side and the following round, FaZe went on a nine round streak and after NAVI scored a couple, FaZe did the same. 11-4 at the half going to CT-side isn't impossible to recover, but Finn "karrigan" Andersen wouldn't let his team choke like they almost did yesterday. 16-5 would be the final score as things headed out to Anubis.
The first half of Anubis couldn't be any closer. Both teams went back and forth not giving each other much space to breathe and the half finished with NAVI leading 8-7. In spite of a CT-side pistol round win for FaZe, NAVI's T-side plan was proving to be too strong to contain, with the Ukrainian team getting a 14-8 lead. FaZe got one back after a messy round from NAVI, and mounted a comeback good enough to reach the 15-15 mark.
In typical fashion, NAVI won the first round of overtime but then weren't able to get any more rounds until its second half where they sent the game to another OT. After not being able to close the map on the T-side, FaZe started the second OT with a T-side win. Ultimately, FaZe managed to win it after a solid CT-side. 22-19 was the final score.
FaZeNatus Vincere| FaZe |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Helvijs 'broky' Saukants |
78 - 50 | +28 | 89.8 | 82.4% | 1.33 |
 Håvard 'rain' Nygaard |
62 - 59 | +3 | 79.9 | 71.4% | 1.12 |
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
58 - 62 | -4 | 77.9 | 79.1% | 1.10 |
 Finn 'karrigan' Andersen |
63 - 64 | -1 | 73.8 | 71.4% | 1.03 |
 Robin 'ropz' Kool |
55 - 50 | +5 | 64.7 | 65.9% | 0.97 |
| Natus Vincere |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ilya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy |
59 - 55 | +4 | 72.1 | 74.7% | 1.06 |
 Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev |
62 - 66 | -4 | 73.9 | 68.1% | 1.02 |
| Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy |
56 - 65 | -9 | 76.2 | 69.2% | 1.00 |
| Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov |
61 - 69 | -8 | 71.4 | 58.2% | 0.98 |
| Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyi |
45 - 64 | -19 | 57.5 | 57.1% | 0.78 |
