Natus Vincere vs. Falcons at IEM Beijing 2026:NAVI's Bucharest Form Meets a Rested Falcons
NAVI arrive off their best run in a while; Falcons skipped Bucharest and have beaten this exact NAVI lineup twice this year, both times in three maps.
Natus Vincere come to Beijing off their best tournament in a while: a PGL Masters Bucharest run that included wins over Spirit and FURIA. Their opening match is against the team that has stopped this exact NAVI lineup twice this year, both times in three maps. Falcons also arrive rested, having skipped Bucharest.
Tournament
IEM Beijing 2026Stage
Group A · Opening Round
Date
November 2, 2026
Time
10:30 CET · 17:30 Beijing
Format
Best of 3
Player names link to their HLTV.org profiles.
Try our free CS2 capsule opening simulator
Budapest 2025 Legends Sticker Capsule
What Changed for NAVI in Bucharest
NAVI beat G2 and FURIA 2-0 in Bucharest, then beat Spirit 2-1 for the last playoff spot. According to HLTV, that was only their third win over Spirit in fifteen meetings. Vitality ended the run in the quarter-finals, 2-1. Coach Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy told HLTV afterwards that the team "haven't changed anything": the difference, he said, was sharper execution of the same ideas. The lineup itself hasn't changed in sixteen months.
Falcons Arrive Fresh
Falcons, the IEM Cologne Major champions, did not play in Bucharest. Their autumn has been solid without reaching the level of that June title: top eight at ESL Pro League Season 24 and fourth at the Thunderpick World Championship, with series losses to Aurora and BETBOOM there. m0NESY has been their standout. He was an EVP at the Pro League with a 1.28 Rating 3.0. HLTV's match page compares him with NAVI's AWPer w0nderful over the past three months: 1.34 against 1.16.
Two Meetings With These Ten Players
Since karrigan joined Falcons six months ago, the teams have played twice, both times with Monday's exact lineups. At the Cologne Major in June, Falcons won 2-1, with a 19-16 overtime on Anubis and a 13-3 Dust2 on either side of a NAVI win on Mirage. At the Pro League on October 6 it was 2-1 again: NAVI took Anubis 19-15 in overtime, Falcons won Mirage and Inferno. NAVI's last series win over Falcons came at BLAST Open Rotterdam in March, before karrigan joined.
The map pools leave each side something to aim for. NAVI's best recent map is Cache (83% over six maps), which Falcons haven't played in the past three months. Falcons' strongest are Inferno (80%) and Dust2 (69% over 13 maps).
What's at Stake
The winner meets the winner of FURIA vs. FaZe in Group A's upper-bracket semi-finals. The loser starts the lower bracket, where one more defeat means a 13th–16th place finish.
More IEM Beijing 2026 Coverage
See all 16 teams, both groups, the full schedule and every result.
