Natus Vincere advanced to the grand final at ESL One New York after securing a 2-1 victory against Liquid (7-16 on Cobblestone, 16-13 on Train, and 16-10 on Dust2).

The first semi-final at ESL One New York was between Natus Vincere and Liquid—two teams who met in the group stage match which was won by the Ukrainian side.

The CT-sided Liquid had a powerful start to the first map of the best-of-three series—Cobblestone—as they locked up the pistol round with a 2vs2 victory and secured the first weapon round to make it 4-0.

s1mple & company take the win against Liquid

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev clutched a 1vs1 against Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin to get his team their first round but Liquid answered swiftly with Hiko's double kill and extended their lead to 8-1. Natus Vincere managed to get three more rounds towards the end of the first half which they lost 4-11.

The B-site take turned out to be a success for Liquid in the second half pistol round and the American team went on to take the first map with a 16-7 final score.

Train—a very strong map for Natus Vincere—was the second map and the T-sided Natus Vincere kicked it off by winning the first three rounds. Liquid replied with four rounds in a row and back-to-back 1vs1 clutches extended their lead to 6-3 but The Ukrainian team came back to win the half 8-7.

flamie dominated Train

Natus Vincere took the first four rounds of the second half which was answered by Liquid's own four round streak (12-11). Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev, who was on fire throughout the map, got a double kill to earn his team two map points and Na'Vi finished off the map 16-13.

s1mple's triple kill clinched the pistol round for his team on the T-side of Dust2—the third and last map of the series—and they also managed to resist Liquid's early third round buy, extending their lead to 3-0.

s1mple showed no mercy to his former team as he went 18:3 in the first half, leading his team to a 13-2 half victory. Natus Vincere closed out the map 16-10 after Liquid delayed the inevitable by denying match point after match point.

ESL One New York 2016Best of 3 Natus VincereMatchpage 2 1 2nd October 2016 Liquid 7Cobblestone 16 16Train 13 16Dust2 10

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Egor 'flamie' Vasilyevflamie	76 - 55	+21	104.1	1.41
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostylievs1mple	68 - 47	+21	87.5	1.33
Denis 'seized' Kostinseized	47 - 59	-12	80.9	0.98
Ioann 'Edward' SukharievEdward	48 - 54	-6	58.3	0.87
Ladislav 'GuardiaN' KovácsGuardiaN	40 - 56	-16	60.1	0.84

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	63 - 53	+10	92.7	1.21
Jacob 'Pimp' WinnechePimp	57 - 55	+2	75.4	1.04
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	51 - 55	-4	71.6	1.03
Spencer 'Hiko' MartinHiko	53 - 59	-6	76.4	0.99
Josh 'jdm64' Marzanojdm64	47 - 57	-10	61.8	0.95

The second semi-final is next in New York where SK and Virtus.pro will face off.

BenjaCS is a staff writer at HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.