The first set of five matches at the Arbalet Cup Best of Four have concluded and the IEM World Champions Natus Vincere , showed their dominance winning 3 out of 5 maps over SK Gaming . The first map, de_dust2, looked close on paper with NaVi winning 16:14 but in fact it was a fairly convincing 16:11 win for them and they had saved out three rounds as CT also. With a large and excited crowd cheering for them after every kill and round win their momentum continued as NaVi won the next two matches of de_nuke and de_tuscan by large margins.

The fourth map in the series would be de_inferno and SK Gaming showed they were not going to give up with every map counting for points in the standings. Rasmus 'GuX' Ståhl played great in the second half of the match which allowed SK to keep it close. When Na`Vi started to get small leads SK would manage to come back and tie it up until the very end and the match ended in a tie awarding one point to each team.

The fifth and final map would be de_train where both teams lead for part of the match until the very end where it came down to the wire with SK winning 16:14.

SK Gaming 16:14 Natus Vincere (de_train – 6:9,10:5)

First Half

After trading some early kills Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg was up against two players and couldn’t get any kills as SK lost the pistol round. With no bomb plant SK would save until the fourth round, Na`Vi lead it early 3:0.

Some quick picks in the fourth round, and smart rotation in the fifth allowed SK to win both those rounds and make Na`Vi save in the sixth to tie the game up 3:3.

After those three quick wins Na`Vi played a stronger defensive setup and stopped SK on multiple occasions not allowing them to move in outside or inside. They strung four rounds together with good play by Sergey 'starix' Ishchuk 7:4 Na`vi.

To close out the half Jimmy 'allen' Allen and Johan 'face' Klasson planted the bomb outer and held it off to end the half 9:6 in favor of Na`Vi.


Second Half

To start the half Na`Vi decided to use a very slow pistol tactic and took their time until making a move. Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg got two important kills before dying allowing Johan 'face' Klasson to get the last kill to win the very important pistol round. With a bomb plant in the second round, Na`vi bought in the third but couldn’t break the defense of SK which tied to match up 9:9.

In the twentieth round it was all up to Rasmus 'GuX' Ståhl in a one versus two situation and the great play of GuX got him both kills and the bomb defuse to win the round and put SK ahead 11:9.

Na`Vi started to come back and forced SK to save a few rounds and took the lead 14:12. It looked as if it might be over until Johan 'face' Klasson heated up and started making very important plays like in the twenty-seventh round where he killed Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov with an amazing headshot to win the round.

In the twenty-seventh round Johan 'face' Klasson was left in a one versus two and got both the necessary kills to win the round and take the lead 15:14. In the final round SK held it perfect and won the match 16:14.


Highlight players

For NaVi nearly everyone took a turn at one point in the series to be the impact player. markeloff got some crucial kills early on, including a nuke where zeus was key in how he played outside and backed up ramp. starix played a great inferno and Edward put up big numbers on a couple of the maps.

For SK it was Gux in the last two maps who really helped to keep them in it, with face taking over in the second part of the last half as he won a number of clutch rounds which were must wins if SK was going to take their first and only map win of the series.

(Photograph copyright Proplay.ru)