Cold start from NAVI in Cologne
Two new line-ups faced in the Group Stages of IEM Cologne 2023 as MOUZ took on Natus Vincere (NAVI) in the Group B upper bracket quarter-final.
The opening map was MOUZ's pick of Ancient with NAVI taking the opening pistol starting on the CT side thanks to a s1mple double. MOUZ responded immediately with the force buy and were up 3-1 before NAVI brought out the guns. NAVI took a 4-3 lead and seemed like they would run away with the half but with frozen coming in with crucial multi-kill rounds, MOUZ ended the half with a 8-7 lead taking four straight rounds to close the first half.
MOUZ retook a 4v5 situation on the B site to pick the second pistol to keep their lead. MOUZ got six in a row to go 14-7 up as siuhy was reading NAVI like a book. It was a b1t triple that saw NAVI put up their first T round but MOUZ responded immediately as Jimpphat and frozen came in with crucial kills late round to put MOUZ on map point. MOUZ closed the map at 16-9. It was MOUZ's oldest standing member frozen who topped the scoreboard on Ancient with 28 kills.
The second map was NAVI's pick of Overpass with siuhy and his boys starting on the CT side. MOUZ picked up the opening pistol and the following eco from NAVI before a double opener from s1mple saw NAVI take their first T round. NAVI tied the game at 2-2 but siuhy denied s1mple a 1v2 to put MOUZ back in the lead. Both sides kept trading rounds but MOUZ ended the half with three on the trot to take a 9-6 lead.
MOUZ secured their tenth after taking the second pistol and a clean conversion against the eco saw them go 11-6 up. NAVI picked up the first gun round thanks to a Aleksib and iM multi-kill. NAVI made it five in a row to tie the game at 12-12. MOUZ finally responded with two of their own as torzsi and xertioN came in with crucial multi-kills. MOUZ secured series point as they saw off a force buy from NAVI and closed the map at 16-12. It was xertioN on top of the scoreboard for MOUZ with 24 kills while frozen topped the series scoreboard with 48 kills across the two maps.
NAVI now drops to the lower bracket and are one BO3 loss away from elimination.
Natus VincereMOUZ| Natus Vincere |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius |
40 - 36 | +4 | 75.8 | 71.7% | 1.11 |
 Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev |
30 - 33 | -3 | 66.8 | 69.8% | 0.95 |
| Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy |
33 - 38 | -5 | 74.4 | 60.4% | 0.94 |
 Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen |
22 - 35 | -13 | 54.4 | 66.0% | 0.76 |
 Mihai 'iM' Ivan |
23 - 36 | -13 | 45.7 | 60.4% | 0.67 |
| MOUZ |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 David 'frozen' Čerňanský |
48 - 32 | +16 | 91.8 | 67.9% | 1.38 |
 Dorian 'xertioN' Berman |
43 - 34 | +9 | 90.6 | 75.5% | 1.27 |
| Jimi 'Jimpphat' Salo |
29 - 24 | +5 | 63.3 | 86.8% | 1.16 |
 Ádám 'torzsi' Torzsás |
28 - 25 | +3 | 64.6 | 73.6% | 1.07 |
 Kamil 'siuhy' Szkaradek |
28 - 34 | -6 | 69.6 | 66.0% | 0.89 |
Also read
