Astralis beat Sashi and HOTU at Stake Pulse Beat III in their first event with siuhy and cmtry. The results were there, but the new signings are still finding their feet a month before the Major.
Astralis have made a winning start with their rebuilt lineup. In their first matches since signing siuhy and cmtry, the team beat Sashi 2-0 and HOTU 2-1 on Wednesday to win Group C at Stake Pulse Beat III in Stockholm and reach the playoffs.
The tournament is the first test of a rebuild that divided opinion. Astralis benched HooXi and jabbi last week, a month before the PGL Major in Singapore, and brought in siuhy from Liquid and cmtry from FUT Esports.
Two wins, two different stories
The opener against Sashi was closer than the scoreline suggests. Astralis needed overtime to take Nuke 16-13 before winning Mirage 13-9. siuhy had his best game of the day with a 1.20 rating, while cmtry finished on 0.91.
HOTU then took the first map in the winners’ match, beating Astralis 13-6 on Dust2. Astralis levelled with a 16-14 overtime win on their own pick, Ancient, and ran away with the decider, winning Nuke 13-2.
ryu carries the new five
The standout was not one of the new signings. ryu was the best player on the server in both series, with a 1.41 rating against Sashi and 1.55 against HOTU. That puts him second in the event’s rating charts so far.
| Player | vs Sashi | vs HOTU |
|---|---|---|
 ryu | 1.41 | 1.55 |
 Staehr | 1.07 | 1.33 |
 phzy | 1.28 | 1.00 |
 cmtry | 0.91 | 0.98 |
 siuhy | 1.20 | 0.75 |
siuhy went 35-47 against HOTU and ended the series with the lowest rating on the team. Both new players joined only days before the event, so Stockholm is effectively part of Astralis’ preparation for Singapore.
The club seemed to see it the same way. When the series went to a third map, the official Astralis account wrote: “We take all the prac we can get.”
Playoffs on Friday
Astralis now have a day off before the quarter-finals on Friday. The final is on Saturday 17 October.
Group C also produced its first casualties. fnatic beat Sashi 2-0 and then HOTU 2-0 in the decider, which ended HOTU’s run in Stockholm. Sashi, who are playing their first event as an Asian team after their move into the Asia region of Valve’s rankings, went out without winning a map.
For Astralis, the stakes are different from most of the field. Their place at the Major is already as good as secured through the Valve Regional Standings, so Stockholm is about giving the new lineup as many official matches as possible before December.
