Astralis is back on LAN!
The Danes grinded down FaZe after two close maps.
How will Astralis fare back on LAN? That was one of the key questions before IEM Cologne. Today we got the first hint.
The legendary Danish roster came out firing wild to immediately set things straight. On Dust2 they managed to find a 14-5 lead in such a dominant fashion, that it looked like Astralis back in their glory days.
But quickly FaZe pulled in the lead. Twistzz shut down the B-bombsite, and Astralis was struggling to find openings at the A-site. At 14-13 momentum had shifted very firmly to FaZe. But then dupreeh, gla1ve and Magisk reported in with a kill each to put Astralis ahead 15-13, and in the end, it was Magisk who won the final round for the Danes with two shots with the Desert Eagle.
Nuke was once the "Danish" map of Counter-Strike. An unheard success rate for the Danish teams laid a superb base for the Danish teams in their map pool. Today Astralis relied on their old-time friend to secure them a 2-0 win.
But in an almost reverse fashion, FaZe managed to go ahead 9-2 before Astralis woke up. The Danes fought back, and despite the fact, that dupreeh had a bit of an off day, the rest of the Astralis roster made an incredible comeback to force the match to overtime and then on to another. And another! All of the time it was the T-rounds that created problems for both teams. But in the third round it was Astralis who finally managed to win two T-rounds and take the victory.
Astralis - FaZe 2-0 | IEM Cologne
Dust2 (16-13) | 
Magisk 26-15 K-D / 87.3 ADR / 1.46 rating
Nuke (25-22) | gla1ve 39-31 K-D / 80.7 ADR / 1.20 rating
MVP:
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken 64-52 K-D / 91.5 ADR / 1.26 rating
Astralis will continue in the upper bracket, where they will face their Danish rivals from Heroic, who won their opening match against Spirit. The match went all three maps to be decided on Ancient. Here Heroic pulled through with TeSeS being the most consistent player throughout the match, while it was in-game leader Casper "cadiaN" Møller who put in the numbers in the last map to seal the win.
Spirit and FaZe will play an early elimination match tomorrow.
