Natus Vincere and Team Vitality both cruised to 2-0 sweeps on Saturday in the semifinals of the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne playoffs in Germany.
The two teams will meet in Sunday’s grand final, with the winner earning berths to the IEM Katowice event and the BLAST Premier World Final while also pocketing $400,000.
Natus Vincere downed MOUZ, while Team Vitality knocked off SAW.
Sixteen teams competed in the double-elimination play-in stage of the $1 million Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament.
The group stage featured two double-elimination groups of eight. The group winners moved directly to the playoff semifinals, the group runners-up advanced to the playoff quarterfinals as high seeds and the third-place teams advanced to the playoff quarterfinals as low seeds.
The single-elimination playoffs started Friday and conclude on Sunday. All tournament matches up to this point have been best-of-three, but the grand final is best-of-five.
On Saturday, Natus Vincere took Inferno 16-14 and Mirage 13-11. Ukraine’s Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy led the winners with 47 kills and a plus-11 kill-death differential.
France’s Dan “apEX” Madesclaire put up 36 kills against just 14 deaths as Team Vitality prevailed 13-6 on Nuke and 13-5 on Dust II.
The tournament ends on Sunday with the grand final:
–Natus Vincere vs. Team Vitality
Intel Extreme Masters Cologne prize pool, with money and BLAST Premier points:
1. $400,000, 3,000 points
2. $180,000, 2,000 points
3-4. $80,000, 1,200 points — MOUZ, SAW
5-6. $40,000, 500 points — G2 Esports, FaZe Clan
7-8. $24,000, 300 points — paiN Gaming, Team Liquid
9-12. $16,000, no points — The MongolZ, Astralis, Team Falcons, Complexity Gaming
13-16. $10,000, no points — 9z Team, Team Spirit, Virtus.pro, FURIA Esports
17-20. $4,500, no points — BIG, HEROIC, MIBR, Eternal Fire
21-24. $2,500, no points — ALTERNATE aTTaX, 3DMAX, Imperial Esports, FlyQuest
–Field Level Media
