Astralis survive mousesports scare

The winners' match of Group B in DreamHack ZOWIE Open Leipzig hosted Astralis who beat their Danish fellow man, and mousesports, who upset Virtus.pro. The map was de_mirage and Astralis started out on the CT-side as mousesports wanted to prove that their last win wasn't a fluke.

Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong got the opening kills on Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth which paved the way for his team to win the pistol round without losing a player. The Danes couldn't cause too much disturbance in the following two rounds as they went into the first gun round with full equipments.

Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač almost clutched a 1v5 in the fifth round, getting the first four kills, but running out of time as Astralis got their second round and started a streak. mouz lost a crucial round that was important for the economy of both teams as they couldn't hold on to a 5v2 advantage (8-4).

In the fourteenth round, mouz took a huge risk when they rotated from the A-site entrance to B-site with less than thirty seconds left and planted the bomb at the last moment. chrisJ's and Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter's kills secured the round for their team. karrigan & co led 10-5 at halftime.

mouz started the second half with a lockdown, winning the first five rounds as CTs. They went ahead 12-11 but lost an unbelievable round as Xyp9x planted the bomb in the B-site in a 1v2 situation but mousesports players wasted their time, thinking the bomb was planted in A (12-12).

Subsequently, karrigan asked for a tactical timeout but they lost the two following rounds. Just when everything seemed right for mouz, Xyp9x and karrigan won another 2v5 in an incredible fashion and got their team to a one round difference (14-13).

mouz managed to get to the match point, though, putting the Danes in a really dreadful position with not enough equipment (15-13). However, karrigan & co won another important round when they were in a 3v5 situation. On the thirtieth round, mousesports were devastated when they couldn't close out the match even though they had a man advantage (15-15).

Astralis went ahead 18-17 in overtime and had a 2v1 advantage but couldn't capitalize and finish off the game as NiKo clutched and got four kills in this round, meaning the second overtime was in order. mouz were not able to pass the finish-line and lost 22-19 which meant Astralis were going to the semis.

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22nd January 2016

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mouz will go up against the winner of Virtus.pro vs. dignitas in a match that will decide the opponent of Na`Vi in the semis. In the other semi-final Astralis will play the winner of FaZe vs. Luminosity/SK. Tune in to HLTV.org for live coverage from Germany.

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