Natus Vincere have yet to lose a map at ESL Pro League Season 18 heading into the title decider.
Natus Vincere have defeated Monte 2-0 to advance to the grand final at ESL Pro League Season 18. Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and company will meet the winner of the ENCE-MOUZ semi-final in the best-of-five title decider in Malta, set to take place on Sunday at 16:00 .
| Date | Matches | |
|---|---|---|
| ESL Pro League Season 18 | ||
| 01/10/2023 | Natus Vincere 16:00  MOUZ | Match |
NAVI continued a flawless run through the tournament with their victory against Monte, yet to lose a map after wins over 5yclone, Apeks, and FaZe in the group stage, and Eternal Fire in the quarter-finals.
The campaign marks the first time this Natus Vincere roster has reached a grand final following the controversial international move in the summer off-season, and the organization's first grand final appearance since the IEM Cologne loss to FaZe in July 2022.
"It's very nice, not only just because it's the last grand final in CS:GO, it's also because I don't remember the last time when we played the final," s1mple said following the match.
The semi-final win was perhaps the hardest of the bunch so far for Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen's team. Monte were leading 11-7 on the favored Terrorist side of Anubis and 9-4 on the CT side of Mirage, but it looked as if the pressure got to the rather inexperienced squad.
On both maps Natus Vincere's nerves of steel made the difference in clutch scenarios and, especially on Mirage, in several late retakes where they were at a disadvantage.
"I feel like they were really feeling the pressure because they kept losing these afterplants," Aleksib said when asked about a round in which he abused Monte's passive stance in a 3v2 retake scenario to reach series point on Mirage.
"After Valerchik [b1t] won that 1v3, I think that was the nail in the coffin. Then you just felt invincible, like, how can we even win this round?"
ESL Pro League Season 18Best of 3
Monte
Matchpage 0 2 30th September 2023 
Natus Vincere 12Anubis 16 10Mirage 16 | Monte | K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhevsdy | 40 - 35 | +5 | 84.6 | 1.19 |
| Volodymyr 'Woro2k' VeletniukWoro2k | 41 - 37 | +4 | 85.1 | 1.15 |
 Alexander 'br0' Brobr0 | 33 - 34 | -1 | 65.4 | 1.02 |
 Szymon 'kRaSnaL' MrozekkRaSnaL | 29 - 34 | -5 | 57.3 | 0.87 |
| Sergiy 'DemQQ' DemchenkoDemQQ | 31 - 41 | -10 | 67.7 | 0.86 |
| Natus Vincere | K - D | +/- | ADR | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiyb1t | 43 - 36 | +7 | 73.5 | 1.18 |
 Aleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenAleksib | 38 - 31 | +7 | 76.3 | 1.13 |
 Mihai 'iM' IvaniM | 35 - 35 | 0 | 85.1 | 1.13 |
| Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple | 37 - 33 | +4 | 61.9 | 1.04 |
 Justinas 'jL' LekaviciusjL | 28 - 39 | -11 | 59.1 | 0.86 |
Eternal Fire #25 Engin 'MAJ3R' KüpeliIsmailcan 'XANTARES' DörtkardeşÖzgür 'woxic' EkerBuğra 'Calyx' ArkınAli 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalçın Sezgin 'Fabre' Kalaycı 
5yclone #28 Zhuo 'advent' Liang
Andrew 'kaze' KhongYi 'JamYoung' YangJingxiang 'Mercury' WangQianhao 'Moseyuh' Chen Xielin 'k4Mi' Zhu 
ENCE #2 Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Guy 'NertZ' Iluz
Pavle 'Maden' BoškovićPaweł 'dycha' Dycha
Álvaro 'SunPayus' García Eetu 'sAw' Saha Natus Vincere #7 Oleksandr 's1mple' KostylievAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenMihai 'iM' IvanValeriy 'b1t' VakhovskiyJustinas 'jL' Lekavicius Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy 
FaZe #6 Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants Filip 'NEO' Kubski Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen 
Age: 26 Team: Natus Vincere Rating 1.0: 0.95 Maps played: 1191 KPR: 0.63 DPR: 0.65 
Apeks #21 
Martin 'STYKO' StykJoakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad
Tim 'nawwk' Jonasson
Aleksandar 'CacaNito' KjulukoskiDamjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski Torbjørn 'mithR' Nyborg 
MOUZ #11 David 'frozen' ČerňanskýKamil 'siuhy' Szkaradek
Ádám 'torzsi' TorzsásJimi 'Jimpphat' SaloDorian 'xertioN' Berman Dennis 'sycrone' Nielsen Time is adjusted to your selected timezone Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev 
Age: 25 Team: Natus Vincere Rating 1.0: 1.24 Maps played: 1721 KPR: 0.85 DPR: 0.63 
Monte #13 Viktor 'sdy' OrudzhevAlexander 'br0' BroVolodymyr 'Woro2k' VeletniukSergiy 'DemQQ' DemchenkoSzymon 'kRaSnaL' Mrozek Sergey 'lmbt' Bezhanov (责任编辑：cs cases free)
