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Natus Vincere have secured themselves a top three finish after taking out Astana Dragons 2-1 (de_nuke 17-21, de_dust2 16-13, de_inferno 16-11) after a close battle of the two CIS-based teams.

The first pistol round saw Natus Vincere defending an upper attack successfully despite Kirill "ANGE1" Karasiow's attempt in a one-verus-three.

Even though the eco afterwards was dealt with quite easily, Astana Dragons managed to plant the bomb which paid off for the next round after a ramp push to lower.

A force buy on Na´Vi with a Nova in the hands of Denis "seized" Kostin was exchanged for a force buy on Astana Dragons' side, and with two upper attacks from Karasiow's team, the score was tied up at 3-3.

Not much went well for Na´Vi in the following three rounds, but two good ecos helped them secure a fourth round thanks to Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács' first attempt with the sniper, as well as two more after another gunround and an eco, tying it again on 6-6.

In the following round, Kovács and Sergey "starix" Ischuk saved the day for Na´Vi in a two-versus-three afterplant situation and with two agressive pushes by the Counter-Terrorists, two rounds were exchanged for a one round difference before switching sides in favor of Na´Vi.

GuardiaN was an instrumental part of the match

Ischuk was instrumental in the second pistol round as well, he opened up with two kills on upper, which helped Na´Vi take a six-round lead as Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko and Kovács combined for a win in a two-versus-four.

Three upper attempts from Na´Vi did not go through the Dragons' defense and with an eco, the score was sitting at 13-11. Kovács and Ischuk found themselves in yet another two-versus-four, but they did not push it through as two members of the opposing team were left with under twenty health points in total.

Two rounds were exchanged by the teams to make it 14-13, which was when an outside push from Na´Vi made a breakthrough for two map points. Karasiow managed to reply in both of the following rounds, taking six kills in those, saving the day for Astana Dragons and pushing it to an overtime.

There, it was very one-sided, Natus Vincere only managed to take one round thanks to Kostin's AWP play in the first half, as well as the second, all of the remaining ones went in the way of Astana Dragons, who won de_nuke with a 21-17 scoreline.

The Dragons have to go home after another close battle 

- AD putting only adren on the B bombsite, navi going mid, taking adren out, 3-0- 1v2 from zeus makes it 4-1 with a good defense on AD in the previous round, 5-1 eco- a tunnel push from ad backfired to 6-1- Dosia's saved AK and AdreN with a tripple defending B made it 6-3 with a gunround- markeloff tearing AD apart on short to 6-4, 6-5 after an eco- guardian's first frag on mid, a push B again backfired, 7-5- guardian with a tripple after pushin B, 8-5- guardian saving the day with them defending stairs, wins a 1v2 for 9-5- angel getting three lined up kills takes it to 9-6- starix getting three kills when AD rushed short, 10-6- edward's quad kill saves Na´Vi once again against an eco 12-6- a good defense of a long push puts navi two rounds away, ad replies with four in a row for 14-10- AD picking navi one by one, 14-11, but Na´Vi replies in the following round after a one-versus-one from starix, 15-11- attacking A wasnt the best of ideas for AD as navi placed four men there, but they still managed to win with a sliver of time, making it 15-13- an opener from guardian, navi picking off AD one by one for the victory on d2

After switching to de_dust2, Astana Dragons started off as Counter-Terrorists this time, and in the pistol round they only put Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev on the B bombsite, which backfired at his team as Na´Vi took him away to take an early lead 3-0.

An exchange in the following rounds ended up with Teslenko winning an unlikely one-versus-two, and with an eco and a failed tunnel push by Astana Dragons, Natus Vincere were up 6-1.

Astana did not get scared of that, as the following eco went into their hands thanks to Kystaubayev's triple while defending B bombsite all alone. Three more rounds for them mainly thanks to Yegor "markeloff" Markelov's AWPing brought the map to only a one round difference.

Kovács was the main factor for Na´Vi in three of the remaining four rounds, as he first fragged in the first and saved the day for his team twice in a row with three kills and a one-versus-two against a scary eco.

Before switching sides, Karasiow lined up three headshots on mid for 9-6 in favour of Natus Vincere. That was when Ischuk took three kills while defending a short push in the other pistol round.

Yet another scary eco by Astana Dragons was taken care of by Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev, but their opponents took four rounds afterwards in a row to make it 14-10.

Edward's return to Na´Vi might just be what they needed 

Even though Astana managed to get back on track, they were too far behind to get more than three rounds out of the remaining five, and they found themselves on the deciding map, de_inferno.

The map started off better for Natus Vincere, who took the first round for them after a B push, but the same strategy ran into a full stack of Astana Dragons for 2-1 in their favor.

Despite being on the less favorable side, Natus Vincere continued with good performances and took it to 2-4, although Astana Dragons finally replied in the following two gunrounds and took it back to 5-4.

That was only to tie it all up at 5-5 after early kills from Na´Vi, but Kystaubayev's spray while defending the B bomsite won the round for Astana Dragons. Only a one-round difference was before the teams switched sides, and it was in favour of the Counter-Terrorist team.

An A attack got the bomb planted, but the second pistol round went Na´Vi's way to make it 8-11 after a failed double fake by Karasiow's team.

Astana Dragons went for a B bombsite push in the following two rounds, and in the second one it was Markelov who managed to get two headshots in a two-versus-three to tie the game.

Nothing was left for them as another B bombsite push was a clean sweep by the defense, and it seemed the Dragons have not learned from their mistakes as Ischuk and Kostin combined for the last nail into their coffin while defending B once again. That put Astana up against four map points, but Natus Vincere only needed one to take the game at 16-11 on the last map.

SLTV StarSeries VIII FinalsBest of 3 Astana DragonsMatchpage 1 2 21st December 2013 Natus Vincere 21Nuke 17 13Dust2 16 11Inferno 16

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 1.0
Ladislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsGuardiaN	78 - 50	+28	-	1.27
Ioann 'Edward' SukharievEdward	67 - 69	-2	-	1.02
Denis 'seized' Kostinseized	67 - 71	-4	-	0.99
Sergey 'starix' Ischukstarix	63 - 66	-3	-	0.95
Danylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoZeus	58 - 64	-6	-	0.87

Astana Dragons	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 1.0
Emil 'kUcheR' AkhundovkUcheR	81 - 65	+16	-	1.21
Yegor 'markeloff' Markelovmarkeloff	68 - 67	+1	-	0.97
Kirill 'ANGE1' KarasiowANGE1	62 - 73	-11	-	0.91
Dauren 'AdreN' KystaubayevAdreN	55 - 66	-11	-	0.86
Mihail 'Dosia' StolyarovDosia	53 - 62	-9	-	0.81

The winner bracket final between GamePub and AGAiN was moved to 21:00 , so stay tuned to HLTV.org for more coverage of SLTV StarSeries VIII Finals.

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