IEM Cologne 2022: NAVI in the semifinals!

With a successful run in Group A, the Born to Win reached the playoffs of the most prestigious tournament of the summer — IEM Cologne 2022. On their path, the team confidently overcame MOUZ, NiP, and Movistar Riders.

In Cologne, NAVI made their entrance facing MOUZ. The European team is currently holding 18th place in HLTV.org rankings and was considered a tournament favorite, however, in very close games they came short against the black & yellow squad. After a solid start on MOUZ's map of choice Nuke (16:12), NAVI lost the comeback on Mirage (14:16) leading them to Inferno, where they secured their first win with a score of 16:6.

In the second round of the group stage, NAVI had to face NiP, who are now considered a strong tier-1 team that can put up a challenge to many teams. Though they had poor performance on two maps (3:16 on their pick: Overpass and 7:16 on Nuke), the Swedes fell down to the bottom bracket, while NAVI secured their spot in the playoffs. Notably, Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev had a great performance in this match: the Ukrainian was the frag leader for two maps and finished the game with a rating of 1.62.

In the final match of Group A, the Born to Win had to face Movistar Riders for the first time in the team's history. The Spaniards were very impressive in the tournament, but they could not break the six-match win streak: 9:16 on Inferno,  16:11 on Mirage, 16:10 on Overpass, and NAVI advanced to the tournament's semifinals. Our team's next game will be on July 16th at 15:30 CEST.

We'd like to wish our boys good luck in the semifinals and remind you that we're only two steps away from the coveted trophy! #ObsessedWe