After a disappointing start in the group stage of IEM Cologne 2023, Natus Vincere managed to avoid an early elimination by winning against OG with a score of 2:1. The Ukrainian club won on Anubis 16:13 (OG pick) and lost Inferno 11:16 (pick NAVI), but triumphed on the decisive Ancient thanks to a strong CT-side – 16:10.

The best player of this bo3 was Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy– his performance has been the most stable recently since the radical change in the roster. He managed to score 63 frags with 46 deaths. His final rating was 6.6.

Quadro by jL on Ancient

Triple from F1KU in the aftermath of the bomb

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Parallel result

Meanwhile, G2 completely crushed FaZe. Despite difficulties against Astralis, HooXi and the crew were simply a different team today – on their Inferno they swept FaZe 16:4, and on Ancient the opponents put up more resistance, but the final score was 16:12.

Nemanja "huNter" Kovač deserves all sorts of praise today, playing 31% better than his usual form. An average damage per round of 103 speaks for itself.

A 1v2 clutch from huNter

IEM Cologne 2023 is taking place from July 26 to August 6 in Germany. Teams are competing for a prize pool of one million dollars and a slot at IEM Katowice 2024. You can follow the schedule and results of the championship here.