A night after going 33-59 against FURIA, NAVI’s IGL ran Ancient, and B8 won three of the four pistol rounds but little after them.
NAVI beat B8 13-8 on Ancient and 13-11 on Dust2 in the Group A lower bracket semi-final of IEM Beijing 2026 on Wednesday morning, with their in-game leader at the front of it. B8 go home in ninth to 12th place with $25,000, and NAVI play Team Falcons for a quarter-final spot at .
NAVI2-0
B8StatsAncient 13-8, Dust2 13-11
makazzeFrom 33-59 to the top of Ancient
Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen came into the match with Tuesday’s defeat to FURIA still fresh. NAVI had led Nuke 9-3 at the half and lost it in overtime, and the Finn finished that series 33-59, the worst K-D on the server. He arrived at this one as one of the five lowest-rated players at the event. Before the first map he kept it simple on ESL’s broadcast: “It’s a new day now. Two games and we need to win them both.”
On NAVI’s own Ancient pick he went 18-10 with 107.0 ADR, the best on the server, and b1t added 21-9. B8 won the pistol round and raced to 5-1 on the CT side, winning fight after fight in mid. Then NAVI found the gaps, took six rounds in a row and went into the break 7-5 up.
B8 took the second pistol and the anti-eco to level at 7-7, and NAVI answered by winning six of the last seven rounds. Aleksib was at the centre of most of them, holding Cave for a four-kill round and throwing the double flash that handed iM an easy triple.
Pistols for B8, rifles for NAVI
The whole series ran to that pattern. B8 won three of the four pistol rounds and usually the conversion after. Once both teams had full buys, NAVI won the mid-round fights, and coach B1ad3’s timeouts kept paying off: NAVI came out of almost every one with a round.
NAVI used their first ban on Mirage, B8’s most-picked map, and left Dust2 for B8 to pick. B8 opened it 4-0, NAVI hit back with four in a row, and makazze held off a B8 attack with four kills to keep the CT half level at 6-6.
w0nderful went 24-14 with 107.2 ADR on Dust2 and finished the series 40-26. NAVI won the second-half pistol, their only one of the day, and at 10-7 iM won the last duel on 16 HP after B8 had stacked B with pistols. A round later, Aleksib tapped a B8 player through a smoke to bring up match point.
B8 then won four in a row to make it 12-11, but NAVI broke into B cleanly in the last round of regulation.
B8 head home without a Major
alex666 was B8’s best player with 33-33 and 82.4 ADR, while AWPer s1zzi went 16-30 with 35.4 ADR. In his exit interview, alex666 said B8 had never beaten NAVI in practice or in official matches, “but I think this game was the closest one”. With no place at the Singapore Major, he expects B8 to train at home and play tier two events before the end of the year.
Falcons again, this time for the playoffs
NAVI beat Falcons 2-0 on Monday (Ancient 13-5, Mirage 13-11) to open the group. Falcons have since beaten FaZe and HEROIC. The Group A lower bracket final starts at . The winner reaches the quarter-finals on 6 November, and the loser is out. We follow every result on our IEM Beijing 2026 page.
