On February 4, Natus Vincere lost their match against NIP in the BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2022 group stage. Now the CIS team has to hope for a win in the Last Chance stage, because if they fail in it, they will be eliminated in the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown.
NAVI were clearly not at their best at the start of the tournament, having suffered two defeats in Group B before facing NIP. It seemed that the win over Liquid that followed improved their standing a bit, but then NIP proved to be stronger.
Natus Vincere started the match with Nuke, which is usually a reliable and proven option for this team, but this time it was not as easy as CIS players could have expected. The first half ended with a score of 8 – 7 in favor of NIP, and only after the change of sides Natus Vincere was able to regain the advantage and win the map with a score of 16 – 11, largely thanks to the efforts of Alexander «s1mple» Kostylev.
On Overpass NIP took the lead almost immediately thanks to the coordinated actions of Hampus «hampus» Poser and Nicholas «Plopski» Gosales Zamora. Although Natus Vincere were close to equalizing several times after the change of sides, in the end NIP remained the leaders with a score of 16 – 11. Finally, on Mirage, the Swedish team's advantage was even more striking: 16 – 7. The further fate of Natus Vincere in the tournament will depend on the match «last chance», which will be held on February 6.