North to DreamHack Open Summer semi-finals over AGO

North have advanced to the semi-finals at DreamHack Open Summer after edging out AGO 2-1 (Dust2 22-20, Train 13-16, Inferno 16-10) in Group A's deciding match.

Group A's deciding series began on North's pick, Dust2, where the Danes grabbed a 3-0 lead as Terrorists after converting the pistol round. They quickly started to fall behind once Mateusz "⁠TOAO⁠" Zawistowski clutched a 1v2 and Damian "⁠Furlan⁠" Kislowski put in a triple in a 2v3 in retake scenarios on A, which led to a nine-round streak, as North couldn't establish long control.

Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen's team finally put their foot down to end the half with three in a row before adding the second pistol round to their tally to equalize things at 9-9, with Daniel "⁠mertz⁠" Mertz starting to come alive. The AWPer's triple helped North secure the first gunround and soon grab a 13-9 lead, but closing the match proved troublesome.

AGO got on their feet and secured six out of the last eight rounds, surviving two map points to take the match to overtime. There, each team grabbed two on the defense as the game went into double OT, where the Danish squad put in a perfect defense to clinch the first map 22-20.

Train followed as AGO's pick, with the Poles getting off to a slow start into the second map, as North went on a 7-0 streak as Terrorists at the beginning, winning the pistol and the first two gunrounds.

With Michał "⁠snatchie⁠" Rudzki and TOAO grabbing key multikills, they finally got on the board and looked to secure the rest of the half. They managed to do so, with only mertz's triple on A in the following round standing in their way, locking down the last five rounds for a 7-8 half.

Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye's 1v2 in the second pistol pushed North to 10-7, although this time AGO didn't let their opponents run away with it, as snatchie's quad-kill and a few important pick-offs helped the Polish side take their first lead on the map at 12-10.

mertz grabbed four kills over the next two rounds to equalize the scoreline, but snatchie replied with two of his own to break the Danish squad and soon grabbed another double in a 2v2 situation to lock the second map 16-13 and level the series at 1-1.

Inferno decided it all. North once again got off to a flying start with another 7-0 lead, that time on the Counter-Terrorist side. AGO got back on their feet, as Dominik "⁠GruBy⁠" Swiderski and snatchie combined their efforts to clinch four in a row, but they only ended up with five in the half due to a couple of key plays from Kjaerbye on each bombsite.

North got their sixth pistol round in the series to reach their 13th round after surviving the following anti-ecos. There was still life left in AGO, who only let go of one of the following six rounds to reach double-digits on the back of big plays from Tomasz "⁠phr⁠" Wójcik, snatchie, and Furlan.

However, a half-buy victory on A gave North the match point, which they immediately converted into a spot in the semi-finals, defending AGO's retake attempt on the B bombsite for 16-10, 2-1.