forZe, ranked 25th in the world, secured a 2-0 victory over Natus Vincere in the match which was originally scheduled for Sunday, but ended up postponed after Perfecto tested positive for coronavirus.
The postponment was criticized by forZe players on Twitter, led to a reponse by s1mple, and added fuel to an already hot matchup – as the result had huge implications on the fate of the group. Despite being big underdogs, forZe exploited Natus Vincere‘s shaky form and won the series 2-0, across Inferno (16-12) and Dust2 (16-9).
Jerry’s squad picked up a crucial win in the fight for the playoffs
forZe ran up a 6-0 lead on to start off their Terrorist side on Inferno, but Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy and s1mple powered Natus Vincere‘s late resurgence, allowing them to fight their way to a 9-6 deficit at half time.
After the switch, Andrey “Jerry” Mekhryakov and co. won the pistol with a three-man B stack, but Natus Vincere‘s fast A strat netted them the following force-buy. Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy‘s team climbed back into the lead, 12-10, before multikills from Bogdan “xsepower” Chernikov and Evgeny “FL1T” Lebedev completely locked them out, seeing forZe take the map 16-12.
The CT pistol won and two aggressive mid plays gave forZe the 5-0 lead on Dust2. s1mple‘s quad kill got Natus Vincere on board after that, but the Russian-Ukrainian team was unable to build on it, going down 10-1.
Things only started rolling for Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov and co. on Dust2 after they found themselves 14-2 down. Seven rounds in a row and it seemed like Natus Vincere could mount the comeback, but forZe broke through into B with a pistol-armor buy and closed out the match for a 16-9 win.
Things are still open in Group A of IEM New York CIS, where Virtus.pro, Espada, forZe, and Natus Vincere are fighting for the three playoff spots, with the last round of matches deciding who will progress in the tournament.
Source: https://www.hltv.org/news/30498/forze-take-down-navi-in-iem-new-york-cis
