Natus Vincere secured the final playoff spot at PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 by beating Spirit 2-1 in a best-of-three. They won Cache (13-2) and Anubis (13-3) comfortably and lost Dust2 narrowly, 10-13.
It was only Natus Vincere's third win over Spirit in fifteen matches, and the previous one came in the group stage of IEM Katowice 2025. Drin "makazze" Shaqiri and Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov were the standouts, finishing with ratings of 1.63 and 1.40 respectively.
The result sends Natus Vincere into a playoff for the first time since their title run at IEM Atlanta. It is also a confidence boost after a poor start to the Fall season.
On Cache, Natus Vincere surprised Spirit with the map pick, and Spirit made repeated mistakes on the T side, winning only two rounds, with three lost clutches adding to the damage. Spirit recovered in the second half of Dust2 to take the map, with sh1ro and magixx among the key players.
On Anubis, Natus Vincere returned to form, and w0nderful hit a 4k with the AWP on 1HP late in the half. donk finished that map with a 0.41 rating, the fifth-lowest of his LAN map career.