2023 has started promising for Astralis. The former powerhouse of CS:GO managed to secure a spot at the BLAST Spring Finals early on, and today they followed up by booking a ticket to IEM Dallas as well.
The Danes won the upper final at the closed qualifier against Cloud9 and ended the CIS teams’ seven-match streak.
Astralis had to fight off a phenomenal playing sh1ro, who kept Cloud9 in the match despite some lackluster performances from his teammates. The Russian AWP’er was 65-25 in K-D after the first two maps of Ancient and Mirage. Astralis won Ancient 19-16, while Cloud9 took Mirage comfortably 16-7.
Overpass was left as the decider. This time Astralis managed to keep sh1ro quiet, which left Cloud9 in shambles. A 10-5 lead at the break saw the Danes take a fine lead into their T-side. Here Astralis found themselves in several good afterplant situations, but multiple times Cloud9 found a way back into the match.
Astralis had five matchpoints at 15-11 and closed off the match at 16-13 after winning a semi-eco round. device finished off the match with his 34th kill on Overpass. A monumental victory for the Danes, who at certain maps look like a dangerous team on the server.
Astralis – Cloud9 2-1 | IEM Dallas Closed Qualifier
MVP: {cflag:RU} Dmitry ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov
