Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy stepped up for NAVI with strong showings on Dust2 and Nuke.

Natus Vincere have advanced to the semi-finals of PGL Major Stockholm after emerging victorious in a two-map series over Vitality. The win continues NAVI's undefeated run in the tournament, where they have yet to drop a map, and also extended their unbeaten streak on Nuke to 17 maps in a row.

b1t continued to be a shining star for the CIS team in the playoffs, where he was joined by Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev and Perfecto at the top of the board. The trio will hope to maintain their form as they are next set to take on their domestic rivals from Gambit in the semi-finals on Saturday at 20:00 , a matchup where Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov's side hold a winning record, coming out on top in three out of their four last meetings.

" I hope so," answered s1mple when asked if he thinks that the match against Gambit will play out different on stage than it has online. "First of all, they always veto Nuke, so there's going to be some different maps, but yeah I'm looking forward for a good game. We did our first step, we're looking forward for our second."

Regarding NAVI being favorites to win the Major, s1mple said that the team are trying to put it out of their minds. "A lot of people say this, but we're trying to forget about this," the Ukrainian star stated. "As we said before, it's just another tournament for us, and that was our first step. Today we felt our setup, finally we felt the crowd, and for tomorrow I hope we will be much better."

Vitality took an early lead with a pistol win on their map pick, Dust2, but were quickly put on the back foot after a force-buy saw Natus Vincere answer back. Triples from b1t and Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov allowed the CIS side to extend their lead to 3-1 before multi-kill rounds from Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut gave Vitality a slight edge, with a brawl near the end of the half seeing the Frenchmen edge out an 8-7 lead at the break.

Although ZywOo was establishing dominance in head-to-head duels over s1mple, it was Perfecto who was the force to be reckoned with from the NAVI side. A triple kill from Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov in the second pistol set up a spree of rounds for his team, and it was Perfecto who was key in securing openings for side. A flawless streak of eight rounds went NAVI's way, helped by a quad kill round from Perfecto on long, and Vitality were only able to briefly halt that streak with three rounds of their own before NAVI took things over the line, 16-11.

Nuke kicked off with another triple kill round from Boombl4 as Natus Vincere pushed up to a 3-0 lead, but they were left in the dust after Vitality won seven in a row to gain the upper hand. It was only at the end of the half that Natus Vincere were able to stabilize, helped by triple kill rounds from s1mple and Perfecto, but strong form from ZywOo throughout the half proved key as Vitality were the ones to take the lead, 9-6, at the side swap.

The move over to the defense turned the tides for NAVI. who quickly gained momentum following another pistol win. Despite Vitality initially contesting for the lead, and even moving up to a 13-10 scoreline, the Frenchmen were unable to outmatch the multi-fragging output from the entire NAVI roster. s1mple and company put up wall to stall Vitality out, and it was six rounds in a row that went their way as they stole away the map win, 16-13, to take the series.

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Ilya 'Perfecto' ZalutskiyPerfecto	50 - 28	+22	88.1	1.44
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	43 - 29	+14	77.0	1.25
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiyb1t	44 - 34	+10	82.0	1.20
Denis 'electroNic' SharipovelectroNic	39 - 38	+1	83.5	1.17
Kirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovBoombl4	32 - 31	+1	61.9	1.05

Vitality	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Mathieu 'ZywOo' HerbautZywOo	44 - 40	+4	84.3	1.15
Kévin 'misutaaa' Rabiermisutaaa	37 - 42	-5	75.9	1.00
Dan 'apEX' MadesclaireapEX	32 - 42	-10	73.2	0.87
Richard 'shox' Papillonshox	30 - 40	-10	53.7	0.73
Jayson 'Kyojin' Nguyen VanKyojin	16 - 44	-28	44.2	0.48