Astralis defeat mousesports 2-0 for a semi-final spot in Chicago

Astralis showed dominance on Train (16-5) and extended their unbeaten run on Nuke (16-13) to take down MOUZ 2-0 and advance to the semi-finals of IEM Chicago.

MOUZ started the game fast, rushing into B with all five to win the Terrorist pistol round on Train. Astralis went for a force buy in hopes of instantly replying, which is less and less common since the economy update, but the European mixture was able to overcome them and go 3-0 up.

In the first buy, Astralis rolled out the double AWP, backed up with a lot of utility, and started putting up a strong defense. They managed six rounds in a row before MOUZ were successful in trading out on the B site approach and securing the 3v3, however, their inability to follow it up in the next round, which came down to a 2v2, spelled disaster for the economy of Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný and co.

Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth cleaned up the anti-eco with three kills, and in the end, Astralis finished the half 10-5 up. MOUZ needed the CT pistol to make a game out of Train, but Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif's double in the Z connector continued the Danes momentum, who closed out the game without a single T round lost, 16-5.

After losing the pistol on the CT side of Nuke and going down 3-0, MOUZ looked good with the rifles, and won five out of the six following rounds, Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi being key to that with his 12 kills and a crucial Ramp hold. (5-4)

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander's team put an end to MOUZ' streak with a fast Secret push, that caught their opponents off guard, and edged out some tight rounds to close out the half with the lead, 8-7. Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk went huge in the pistol round, finding all five opponents, and hist team rolled on to an 11-8 lead off of it. Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz's quad-kill with the AUG started a streak of rounds going Astralis' way, tieing the score at 11-11, before the Danes lost an anti-eco which saw MOUZ take the lead again.

As the map was nearing its end, device came up huge for his side, grabbing an AWP quad-kill from secret, clutching a 1v1 against suNny and then adding two more multikill rounds with the sniper to help his team to a 16-13 win on Nuke.