Astralis eliminate Ninjas in Pyjamas from BLAST World Final
Astralis move on in the lower bracket after securing a 2-1 victory in the elimination match against NiP.
Astralis have survived another day at the BLAST Premier World Final, eliminating NiP from the event following a 2-1 victory. Next up, the Danes will face the winner between Gambit and Liquid in the lower semi-finals of the event.
Inferno started off as the ground for the first elimination match of the day, which saw the Danes get off to a wonderful start on the CT-side, picking up a 9-3 lead before going to halftime with a massive 12-3 advantage. The Danes already hit match point three rounds in on the T-side and left NiP with little hope once they allowed them to bag five rounds in a row. However, it was all a little to late as REZ and company were too far behind and Astralis were able to find the last round they needed to pick up the opening map 16-8.
The second map, Mirage, started out a much closer affair, with the beginning of the first half going the way of NiP, as they won the pistol round on the CT-side and took a 4-0 lead before Astralis started answering back by securing six rounds of their own. Both teams then traded rounds back-and-forth, but the Danes were able to finish off the first half with a one-round advantage. With the help of REZ, NiP got back on the driver’s seat in the second half, as they controlled the map all the way to a 13-9 lead. Astralis grinded their way back on the scoreboard and closed the gap to just one round at 14-15. Although it looked like gla1ve’s men would force overtime, NiP went on to close the map 16-14 to force the decider.
Nuke saw a nail-biting fight between the two squads who followed each other all the way up to 14-14. Then, NiP’s es3tag delivered a heroic play by taking down three Astralis players who tried to surprise them with a lobby crunch. The crucial play from the Dane sat his team on match point.
A b-site execute failed for the Swedes in the very last round, and instead, gla1ve’s men pushed the game into overtime. In OT, gla1ve himself was so close to wrapping up the series with a beautiful NiKo style flank to heaven, from where he killed two opponents, before a molly from the last standing NiP player managed to burn him to death while he defused the bomb. That didn’t matter as Astralis just moments after closed the map with a 19-16 result.
Inferno: 16-8 ~ blameF ~ 1.47 Rating ~ 19-12 K/D ~ 107.0 ADR
Mirage: 14-16 ~ REZ ~ 1.49 Rating ~ 28-21 K/D ~ 108.2 ADR
Nuke: 19-16 ~ gla1ve ~ 1.41 Rating ~ 28-19 K/D ~ 88.2 ADR
MVP:
Benjamin “blameF” Bremer ~
