NaVi, Vitality lead six teams headed to IEM Cologne playoffs

Natus Vincere and Team Vitality won their respective groups at the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne event on Tuesday in Germany, which lets them jump straight to the playoff semifinals.

Natus Vincere rallied to beat SAW 2-1 in the Group A upper-bracket final, and Vitality swept MOUZ 2-0 in the Group B final.

NaVi and Vitality will be joined by SAW, MOUZ, G2 Esports and FaZe Clan in the playoff stage after G2 and FaZe Clan clinched third place in their groups Tuesday. All other teams have been eliminated.

Sixteen teams began play in the double-elimination play-in stage of the $1 million Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament.

The group stage ran Saturday through Tuesday and 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 will run this Friday through Sunday. All tournament matches are best-of-three with the exception of the grand final, which will be best-of-five. The champion earns berths in the IEM Katowice event and the BLAST Premier World Final while also pocketing $400,000.

On Tuesday, SAW opened their match with a 13-9 win on Nuke, but NaVi turned the tide by running away 13-2 on Ancient and 13-6 on Inferno. Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov of Ukraine led the winning side with 52 kills on a plus-25 kills-to-deaths differential.

In Group B, Vitality took Dust II 13-6 before eking out a 16-13 overtime win on Vertigo to finish off MOUZ. Shahar "flameZ" Shushan of Israel tallied 43 kills on a plus-12 K-D while Vitality teammate Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut of France had 38 kills on a plus-13.

The Group A lower-bracket final saw G2 Esports demolish paiN Gaming, winning 13-6 on Nuke and 13-1 on Mirage for the sweep. Russian Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov had 31 kills and a plus-17 to pace G2.

And in Group B's lower-bracket final, FaZe outlasted Team Liquid 2-1. FaZe opened with a 13-9 victory on Inferno before Liquid answered 16-13 in overtime on Nuke. The final map, Mirage, also needed overtime, with FaZe earning a 16-13 victory. David "frozen" Cernansky of Slovakia piled up 66 kills on a plus-15 for FaZe.

Earlier Tuesday, FaZe swept Team Falcons 2-0 and Liquid did the same to Complexity Gaming to advance to the lower-bracket final.

The tournament picks up Friday with the two quarterfinal matches:

--MOUZ vs. G2 Esports

--SAW vs. FaZe Clan

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

5-6. $40,000, 500 points

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