FURIA stun Astralis to secure playoff spot in London

FURIA came back from a map down to beat Astralis 2-1 and secure progression to the semi-finals at the ECS Season 7 Finals.

The Brazilians continued their impressive form with another victory over back-to-back ECS champions Astralis, this time in a best-of-three setting. The Danes left it late to win Inferno but were clearly the better side on that map, where at one point they enjoyed a 14-5 lead. FURIA responded in kind with a convincing Mirage victory before completing the reverse sweep on Nuke - the same map where they had defeated Astralis on Thursday -, to set alarm bells ringing in the Danish side, who are now three tournaments in a row without a victory.

This is the first time that Astralis are unable to get out of the group stage of a Big Event with best-of-threes with their current line-up, and while talk of crisis may be a little bit premature, Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander's troops showed the kind of shaky play that the Danish tactician had publicly identified in our media day interview. With only 11 days left before their next tournament, the ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, they will need to work extremely hard to cut out the mistakes that they somehow keep making.

Astralis came out of the gate looking scary and raced to a 10-2 lead on Inferno after giving FURIA's players very little room to operate. Things were starting to look ugly for the Brazilians, but then they picked up the pace, winning the last three rounds of the half to keep themselves in the game.

Astralis were unimpressed with FURIA's resurgence and picked up four rounds right off to bat to get within touching distance of victory. It looked like the game was nearing its end, but all of a sudden the Danes ran out of steam.

FURIA took advantage of their opponents' misgivings and went on a dominant run after constantly shutting down the Astralis offense. Despite calling some tactical pauses, the Danes could not find a way to get out of their slump, but Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif came to the team's rescue in the 27th round with three kills inside B, and Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth followed it up with a trio of frags of his own to end a surprisingly hard-fought game.

Next up was Mirage, where FURIA got off to a promising start as they raced to a 5-0 on the Terrorist side. However, the rest of the half was all about Astralis' water-tight defence as the Danes immediately countered any round won by their opponents to bring the deficit to a solitary round before the break.

The Danish side carried that momentum into the second half and instantly traded back FURIA's pistol round victory, which propelled them into a 10-9 lead. But once FURIA got money to work with, it was all over for Astralis, as Vinicius "⁠VINI⁠" Figueiredo showed some stellar play with the AUG to power his team to win seven rounds in a row en route to a 16-10 success.

The early stages of Nuke were played at a frantic pace, with rounds going back and forth as neither side was able to stamp their authority on the game. However, Astralis greatly improved from the mid-point of the half and took a 9-6 lead.

Now playing on the Terrorist side, Astralis took the pistol round, but there was no follow-up as they were caught off-guard by FURIA's force buy. The Brazilians rode that momentum to a 13-10 lead, putting a considerable amount of pressure on Astralis' shoulders.

The Danish team fought back and brought the deficit to a minimum, but then lost control of game when VINI and Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato turned a 2v4 situation around. With two match points in the bag, the Brazilians kept their composure and locked down the ramps in the following round to secure the victory.