# IEM Beijing Playoffs Set as NAVI Send Falcons Home > NAVI knocked Falcons out of the IEM Beijing group stage, The MongolZ beat FURIA in a seeding match, and six teams reached a playoff bracket that opens on November 6. - Source: https://esports.observer/iem-beijing-2026-playoffs-set-navi-send-falcons-home - Published: 2026-11-04 - Section: Competition - Category: Tournaments - Game: Counter-Strike 2 - Publisher: Esports Observer (https://esports.observer/) --- Natus Vincere knocked Team Falcons out of IEM Beijing on Wednesday, November 4, and The MongolZ beat FURIA in a Group A seeding match, as the Counter-Strike 2 event in the Chinese capital finished its group stage. HLTV reported both results on the day and set out the playoff bracket that followed. Six teams remain, and their quarterfinals begin on Friday, November 6. The biggest story is the team that is no longer there. Falcons arrived in Beijing as Major champions and left in the group stage, beaten twice by the same opponent. The other surprise came in a match that did not eliminate anyone: the world's top-ranked team lost to a lineup that HLTV ranks 15th.
6teams reached the playoffs
13-3NAVI's winning score on Mirage
7games in FURIA's ended winning streak

Playoff places, the Mirage score and the streak come from HLTV's reports of November 4.

## How the group stage worked ESL's event page lists 16 invited teams, split into two groups of eight. Each group is a double-elimination bracket, which means a team is out after its second defeat, and every match is a best-of-three, so the first side to win two maps takes the series. The top three teams of each group advance, which is why six teams reach the playoffs. The organizer gives the total prize pool as US$1,250,000. The group stage ran from Monday, November 2 to Wednesday, November 4, and the playoffs run from November 6 to November 8. A Russian-language esports outlet that previewed the event on October 30 described it as the first IEM stop in Beijing since 2019 and as the last event of the ESL Pro Tour season. The same preview said the prize pool is split between prize money for players and club rewards for teams.
Worth knowing

A seeding match decides who skips the quarterfinals

In a double-elimination group, the teams that win their opening matches meet again to settle the top seed. HLTV said the matches between PARIVISION and MOUZ, and between The MongolZ and FURIA, decided which already-qualified teams would skip the quarterfinals.

## Natus Vincere end Falcons' run The decisive match was a lower-bracket series with a playoff place at stake. It was a rematch of a day-one series that Natus Vincere, usually shortened to NAVI, had won 2-0, according to HLTV. This time Falcons took the opening map, Ancient, 13-11. HLTV credited a first half from Maksim "kyousuke" Lukin, who produced 130 average damage per round, for saving Falcons from a second straight sweep. That was the end of the contest. NAVI took Inferno 13-4 and then built a 12-0 lead on the Mirage decider before closing it out 13-3. HLTV described Falcons as rarely anywhere near their average level on the two maps NAVI won. The match report points to the way Falcons lost rounds as well as the score. As Mirage went wrong, they lost a round in which they held a five-versus-three player advantage, then another with a five-versus-two advantage. HLTV also noted that NAVI's Drin "makazze" Shaqiri killed kyousuke with a knife, a humiliating kill in which a player uses the knife rather than a gun. The group-stage exit is Falcons' first of the season at a LAN event, the in-person format played on stage, HLTV reported. ## Two NAVI players carry the series Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov and Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy decided the series. HLTV's Rating 3.0, its per-player performance score where 1.00 is roughly average, gave b1t 1.78 and w0nderful 1.58 across the three maps. Over the series, b1t finished 54-22 in kills and deaths and w0nderful 59-28. On Inferno alone, w0nderful went 25-4. HLTV said b1t then took over on Mirage. The match report also carried a statistic from HLTV Brain, the site's own data tool. Teams won 99.93% of the map appearances in which at least two teammates each rated 1.75 or higher: 6,957 wins in 6,962 qualifying team-map appearances, so five losses. HLTV pointed out that NAVI were among the rare teams to lose a map in that situation, and it happened on Ancient against Falcons, a 13-11 defeat. "I'm feeling amazing, I'm glad we qualified to playoffs," b1t said after the match, according to HLTV. NAVI's other three players had quieter series. Drin "makazze" Shaqiri finished on 1.26, Mihai "iM" Ivan on 1.11 and Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen on 0.85. ## The MongolZ stop FURIA In the same group, The MongolZ beat FURIA 2-1 in the seeding match, which did not eliminate either team. HLTV still called the result a big achievement, because it ended a seven-game winning streak for FURIA, whom it described as the world number one. FURIA took the first map, Inferno, 13-10, after a performance from Danil "molodoy" Golubenko pulled them back into it. The MongolZ had opened that series with an ace clutch from Sodbayar "Techno" Munkhbold. The second map, Cache, was a map The MongolZ had lost four times in a row, and HLTV said every sign pointed to a comfortable FURIA win. Instead Garidmagnai "bLitz" Byambasuren produced a Deagle double kill, a 1v2 clutch and a 1.97 rating on the map, and The MongolZ won it 13-8. On the Dust2 decider Usukhbayar "910" Banzragch recorded 26 kills in regulation, and The MongolZ won 13-11 against a FURIA side in which Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis was in good form with his Five-SeveN pistol. Over the series 910 rated 1.44, Techno 1.38 and bLitz 1.24, while molodoy led FURIA on 1.31. HLTV credited coach Erdenedalai "maaRaa" Bayanbat and bLitz with an ability to rebuild lineups into playoff contenders, and called this one probably their least likely rebuild yet. The MongolZ line-up is described by HLTV as new-look, and the team is ranked 15th on HLTV's list. ## The bracket The seeding results shaped the bracket. HLTV noted that MOUZ and FURIA sit on the same side of the playoffs after FURIA's loss, which leaves a clearer path for a resurgent NAVI. NAVI face PARIVISION in the quarterfinals, and the winner meets The MongolZ in a semifinal. HLTV observed that these are two teams that recently made roster changes. BetBoom is the last team in the field and will try to deny a MOUZ-FURIA semifinal by beating FURIA in the quarterfinals. MOUZ had earned their place a day earlier. HLTV reported on November 3 that they clinched a playoff spot with a 2-0 win over BetBoom, 13-6 on Ancient and 16-14 in overtime on Mirage, and called it their third straight playoff appearance. The same report listed torzsi at the top of the scoreboard with a 1.46 rating, ahead of xelex and Spinx on 1.20 each. BetBoom dropped to the lower bracket, where HLTV's schedule for the final day paired them with Aurora in a Group B elimination series. HLTV's bracket report on November 4 then named BetBoom as the final team in the playoffs. That final day was crowded. HLTV's preview listed Liquid against TYLOO and Aurora against BetBoom as Group B elimination matches, with one playoff place available among those four teams. In Group A, the preview showed NAVI and B8 in the lower bracket, with Falcons also still in the draw. Two seeding matches, PARIVISION against MOUZ and The MongolZ against FURIA, would decide which qualified teams skipped the first playoff round.
The six playoff teamsHLTV world ranking as last updated November 2
TeamRankingNext match
MOUZNo. 4Semifinal, November 7, against the FURIA-BetBoom winner
The MongolZNo. 15Semifinal, November 7, against the PARIVISION-NAVI winner
FURIANo. 1Quarterfinal, November 6, against BetBoom
BetBoomNo. 7Quarterfinal, November 6, against FURIA
Natus VincereNo. 10Quarterfinal, November 6, against PARIVISION
PARIVISIONNo. 13Quarterfinal, November 6, against Natus Vincere

Rankings are HLTV's world ranking as last updated on November 2. The bracket is HLTV's, published on November 4.

The grand final is scheduled for Sunday, November 8. ## What the exit means for Falcons Falcons arrived as the reigning Major champions, which is why the exit stands out. HLTV said the slump already has Falcons out of the top five of its world ranking. Its report also noted Finn "karrigan" Andersen's 0.64 rating in the series against NAVI, the lowest of any Falcons player, and said the result will not help the team as it fights to show that its Cologne success is repeatable. The other Falcons ratings in the series were Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov 0.95, Nikola "NiKo" Kovač 0.86 and both kyousuke and René "TeSeS" Madsen 0.77. The timing matters because Falcons are due to defend their Major title at the Singapore Major, which HLTV described as in front of what was functionally a home crowd. Speaking to Janko "YNk" Paunović after the match, NiKo said, "We knew before this event that we were not a title contender team." He added that the team had wanted to show improvement and failed to do so, and called it a rough season for Falcons. ## What comes next The quarterfinals are on November 6, the semifinals on November 7 and the grand final on November 8. FURIA meet BetBoom at 10:45 on November 6 after PARIVISION face NAVI at 07:30, with a semifinal against The MongolZ waiting for the PARIVISION-NAVI winner and MOUZ for the other. The team that lifts the trophy will end the season of ESL's CS2 tour in Beijing, with a Major to follow in Singapore.