Vitality moves past Astralis to secure Upper Final spot
A three map drama is what was needed before Vitality were able to secure the victory versus the Danes
The second upper-semifinal of the day sees hometown heroes of Astralis take on the Frenchmen of Vitality, who are rumored to sign two former stars of Astralis.
The first map was the choice of Astralis and saw the Bo3-series start on Nuke. After the impressive performance yesterday against NiP, it was no surprise that the new-look Astralis roster wanted to start the Bo3-series, this time against Vitality, on Nuke once more. It was Astralis to start the first half the strongest as they strung together a 3-1 lead from early doors. Almost immediately, however, the French Vitality roster, led by “ZywOo” and a fierce “apEX” announced their presence. Going back and forth the half ended at the scoreline of 9-6, favoring the French boys of Vitality.
The second half started very shakily with none of the teams being able to string two rounds together before Astralis was finally able to go on a five-round win streak. Vitality kept their claws in and were the first to reach map point, but the Danes were too stubborn to go down in regulation, and thus forced the map into overtime.
The first map of the series needed double overtime before the Frenchmen were able to close it out 22-18.
The second map-up was Dust2, a pick that you will often see if you watch a lot of Vitality matches. Despite Dust2 being a classic for the French side, it was the Danes that started best, going 10-0 in the first ten rounds of the map.
The massive advantage that the Astralis squad had secured soon started to dwindle, as Vitality turned the tables and took ten straight to make the scoreline 10-10. The Danes did not look coordinated on their T-side, which is not surprising considering how little time this squad has played together. It looked all but done after Vitality had taken the lead 14-11 when Astralis chose to turn up the pace massively, and suddenly it was 14-14 with Vitality being reduced to pistols. The Danes also managed to secure the last two rounds and thereby steal away the pick of Vitality, sending us into a third decider map.
Inferno was, as we often see, the map left over as the decider. After the knife round win, Astralis chose to start on the CT-side.
The Danes started out flying with “Lucky” getting a quad-kill in the pistol round. They also took the following five with “Lucky” continuing to have a massive impact, sporting a 15-1 K-D after only six rounds. The Danes eventually slowed down, which allowed the French side to get six rounds wins before the break.
Vitality was dominating from the start of the second half, taking advantage of an Astralis T-side that again looked unconvincing. The Danes only managed two round wins in the second half and thus Vitality closed out the map at 16-11.
This means that Vitality will be moving on to the Upper Final where they will meet Na'Vi, while Astralis is relegated to the Lower Semi-final.
Astralis – Vitality (1-2) | BLAST Fall Final 2021 (Upper Bracket)
18-22 (Nuke) |
16-14 (Dust 2) |
11-16 (Inferno) |
ZywOo – 1.53 Rating / 23-13 K-D / 86.6 ADR
MVP:
Play of the match:
