The Danes are back on top!

Astralis looked strong in the beginning rounds of the first map and the Danes powered through to an 8-0 lead on CT-side with device going 18-0 in K/D before mousesports managed to get their first round and take down device. The karrigan-led team started to play aggressively, picking up the pace which paid off and resulted in 5 rounds for mousesports right before halftime. The Danes showed no mercy in the second half as they completely smashed down mousesport’s CT defense and won all of the last rounds not giving a single one away to ropz and company. Astralis closed out the first map of the game on Train with a 16-5 score. 25-year-old device was on fire and proved why he is one of the best players in the game, finishing on top with a rating of 1.81, 105.6 ADR, and a 26-8 score. His performance was praised by Maniac on Twitter. 

karrigan’s troops swung back on Inferno and stepped up after being smashed on Train. The international squad started off well on Astralis’ map pick Inferno, with an early lead by 6-0 and ropz being on fire, making his best device impression with a 20-4 score right before half time. Astralis only managed to get 3 rounds before halftime and not much did change in the second half as mousesports dominated the Danes out of their own map pick on the second map of the series with a 16-3 victory to equalize the score. 

The third map of the series was Nuke and the game ended up being a close affair compared to the two beginning maps. Astralis substituted Xypn9x with Bubzkji and didn’t play their best CT-side as mouz pulled themselves up to six rounds right before halftime and could switch sides being happy with their T-side performance on a map that is very difficult for the terrorists. Despite it being mouz who won the pistol round and secured the two rounds afterward, the Danes broke their economy and took the close rounds in the end by provoking and capitalizing mousesports’ mistakes. 

Going into Vertigo as the fourth map of the series that could be the map that either break karrigan’s troops or take the game into the decider on Dust2. The Danes have played Vertigo 6 times more than mousesports and definitely have more experience on it, but mouz still looked very strong throughout the whole game and build up a stunning round run, right before losing close rounds in the end that took the game into overtime. A good performance by Astralis in the first overtime wasn’t enough as mouz pushed their way through and took the game into double overtime, which unfortunately didn’t go well for ropz and company because of an excellent from device that saw him and his team closed out the double-overtime with a 22-19 victory to wrap up a nail-biting series 3-1. 

device was the best overall player of the four maps and managed to get over 100 kills in total. He finished the series with a rating of 1.37, 93.6 ADR, and 102-67 K/D. 

Astralis take home the DreamHack Masters Winter EU title and $60.000 in earnings, while mousesports finish in 2nd place and $30.000.