Natus Vincere were one map down in the semifinals of IEM Rio against a HEROIC team that seemed unstoppable.
On the second map, the score was 9 – 3 after the first half, which further increased everyone’s conviction that this was not Na’Vi’s tournament.
But despite all of this, Mihai “iM” Ivan and his teammates managed to turn the match around, winning 14 – 16 on Dust II and 6 – 13 on Mirage. The first map, Ancient, ended 13 – 9 in favor of HEROIC.
The best player on the server was Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy. But the highest KD score was achieved by Justinas “jL” Lekavicius: 60 – 47.
The Other Semifinal
Unfortunately for the Brazilian fans, their team, FURIA Esports, had no chance against MOUZ. The scores were 3 – 13 on Nuke and 3 – 13 on Mirage. Adam “torzsi” Torzsas was an absolute beast in this match, ending with a score of 40 – 10 and rating 2.0 of 2.06!
FURIA’s strategy was perfectly read by the Europeans, who probably studied their group stage matches and figured out most of their key tactics.
The Grand Final
In the Grand Final of IEM Rio 2024, Natus Vincere will have the opportunity to win their 4th S-tier trophy in 2024. The matchup clearly favors them. The two teams two times in 2024 and Na’Vi won both matches.
In the last three tournaments it competed in, the Ukrainian organization made it to the Grand Final. However, it only won one time. Both Team Vitality and G2 Esports proved that Na’Vi’s roster is not unbeatable.
But the problem here is that MOUZ did poorly at ESL Pro League S20 just one month ago, finishing 17th – 20th. Overall, their 2024 results have been good. They won EPL S19 and BetBoom Dacha Belgrade, and finished in the top four at five other events.
This will be a best-of-five Grand Final, so both teams will be tested on maps they’re not entirely comfortable with.
