Heroic and Natus Vincere have secured early entry into the semi-finals of the “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” tournament IEM Katowice.
In the first major LAN event of the year, teams top their groups and go into the playoffs as favorites.
“Of course it means a lot to us. Katowice was the first big title I won with the team,” said Navi announcer Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov in an interview after the last group game. “We will give everything to win this tournament because we are in our own era at the moment.”
FaZe awards match points against Navi
In the final of his own group, Navi had beaten FaZe 2:1 (13:16; 16:13; 22:19), but the defending champion didn’t have it easy. At FaZe, newcomer Robin “ropz” only returned to the lineup on Saturday after a corona infection, but only just missed the win against Navi.
Heroic was also in top form. After recent rather mixed results, the Danish team defeated the new team Vitality, who missed the playoffs, and also secured the semifinals with a clear 2:0 (16:10; 16:5) against Virtus.pro.
Mouz with unlucky substitutes
Mouz, on the other hand, did not make it into the playoffs. For the first time since 2017, the Hamburg organization played with Jon “JDC” de Castro from its own youth team with a German player because a player with Corona had failed.
Despite the circumstances, the team made it to the main tournament and eliminated OG, but lost 2-0 to Ninjas in Pajamas in the lower bracket.