BLAST Spring Finals: Astralis eliminated after dissapointing defeat

It was one step forward and two steps back for Astralis in NA. The Danish team showed promising signs at IEM Dallas last week, but ended up on a sour note after losing four straight matches in a row in Dallas and Washington at BLAST Spring Finals.

The last nail in the coffin was the 2-1 defeat at the hands of Complexity, who played the match with a stand-in. Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek replaced Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærli during their stint in the US after the Norwegian had visa issues. The match was closely fought with all three maps going the distance.

Complexity won Vertigo 16-14 before Astralis equalized the score on Ancient, leaving Overpass as the decider. Here Complexity managed to win nine rounds on their T-side to set themselves up for victory on the CT-sided map. Astralis came very close, but in the end, Complexity won a clean round at 16-14 to eliminate the Danes. Complexity will represent NA on the big stage later today when they play in the quarter-final against Imperial.

Astralis - Complexity 1-2 | BLAST Spring Finals Group B

The clock had passed midnight in Washington before Heroic and FaZe ended their match in the upper final of group B. Once again Heroic proved too strong in the group phase with another win against FaZe. A good team effort from the Danes saw them winning 19-16, 16-10. Heroic will face the winner of Complexity vs Imperial in the semi-final, while FaZe later today takes on Team Vitality.

Heroic - FaZe 2-0 | BLAST Spring Finals Group B

Group A also delivered two intense matches, where it was small things that separated the two teams. In the elimination match between Team Vitality and Cloud9, we saw Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut back in form, while Emil "Magisk" Reif gave the defending Major champions the last push on Anubis to settle the score.

Team Vitality - Cloud9 2-0 | BLAST Spring Finals Group A

The group final of Group A turned out to be a much bigger brawl than expected. Imperial has been the big positive surprise at the Spring Finals taking down Vitality in the first round. Against G2 the Brazilians came close to making another upset. On the last map of Nuke at 13-13, Imperial had the chance to break G2, but the Brazilians came short in firepower, and with their economy in shambles it did not take G2 long to finish them off. The highlight of the match was a crazy clutch from Hooxi on Inferno, while Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač's first half on Ancient will go over in history as one of the best with the Bosnian going 30-4 in K-D!

G2 - Imperial 2-1 | BLAST Spring Finals Group A

Today's schedule: (CEST)

19.00: Complexity - Imperial
22.45: Vitality - FaZe