Natus Vincere will face fnatic in the grand final of DreamHack Summer after beating Virtus.pro 2-0.
Having been able to best SK Gaming and ESC Gaming earlier in the tournament, all eyes were on Virtus.pro in their match against Natus Vincere to see if they could repeat their success.
With this in mind, Natus Vincere, who started out as CT on de_train, began by taking control over their Russian opponents, only allowing Virtus.pro to claim one round against their eight.
Mounting a rather short comback, Virtus.pro overpowered Na´Vi in the 10th round and racked up three rounds consecutively. With Sergey "starix" Ischuk and Arseniy "ceh9" Trynozhenko pulling a lot of weight, this was as far Virtus.pro would go in the first half, seeing Natus Vincere close it down at 11-4.
ceh9 was pivotal against Virtus.pro on de_train
Switching sides, the two squads shared the first four rounds brotherly, but Virtus.pro had other plans. Not discouraged by their huge deficit, the Russians went on a killing spree and prevented Natus Vincere from nailing the victory, taking it to overtime.
Now in the overtime, Natus Vincere got the better of their opponents, securing a 2-1 lead before the switch. Here, the Ukrainians proved too strong, ultimately settling the first map at a tense scoreline of 19-16.
Moving on to de_tuscan, Virtus.pro were nowhere close to being able to handle Natus Vincere's staggering Terrorist side. Leaving the Russian team with two rounds in total, Na´Vi closed down the first half with an impressive 13-2 score.
After winning the pistol round, Natus Vincere had no trouble claiming the remaining rounds for them to seal the victory at 16-2, ensuring them a spot for the grand final against fnatic.
DreamHack Summer 2012Best of 0 Virtus.pro
Matchpage 0 2 18th June 2012
Natus Vincere 16Train 19 2Tuscan 16
We got a hold of Arseniy "ceh9" Trynozhenko after their 2-0 victory and asked him about Virtus.pro's comeback on de_train. Trynozhenko blamed his team's own nervous mistakes.
"We were a bit nervous. We had a solid lead, but then they called a timeout and started taking out rounds. The reason to why they were able to strike back so hard was our own nervous mistakes."
Questioned whether he is impressed by Virtus.pro and what he thinks of Virtus.their performance, Trynozhenko said:
"Yes. They've put down a lot of work, which has proven to be good for them. If they continue to work as hard in the future, they can play on the top level."
With the grand final of DreamHack Summer 2012 coming up, we asked him what he thinks will be necessary for them to overcome fnatic, who he thinks is the world's strongest team.
"fnatic is really the strongest team in the world at the moment. They showed that they are a very hard team to beat in the group stage and versus SK Gaming in the Swedish Championship. But of course, we will try our best to overcome them. As long as we believe in ourselves and as a team, I think we can beat them."
Match statistics:
K - D | +/- | ADR | - |
---|
K - D | +/- | ADR | - |
---|