Heroic edge out Hard Legion; advance to playoffs at DreamHack Open Rotterdam

HEROIC recovered from a loss on the opening map to defeat Hard Legion 2-1 in the decider series of group A.

Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller's triple on the CT pistol pushed HEROIC towards a 2-0 start on Hard Legion's map pick, Dust2. The Russian side got on the board shortly, with Igor "⁠Forester⁠" Bezotecheskiy's 3K in a key 4v5 after-plant giving them the momentum early, resulting in a 7-3 lead.

The Danes fought back to a 9-6 score at the half time, but the back and forth at the start of the second half ended up going Hard Legion's way, giving them the economic advantage. The Russians ran up a lead shortly, with Vladislav "⁠Krad⁠" Kravchenko's triple kill bringing the map to an end, 16-8.

A clean pistol round win for HEROIC established the Danes on their map pick, Vertigo, and they looked comfortable, winning early trades and manipulating rotations successfully to go 7-0 up. Being on the back foot early, Hard Legion finally got on the board after countering HEROIC's default with four players on the A ramp, while Krad's AWP proved influential as the Russian side started bringing the score back.

However, a slow start meant that Hard Legion could only manage five rounds in total before switching to the offense. Patrick "⁠es3tag⁠" Hansen's quick double set up HEROIC to win the pistol round and establish themselves on the defense. With a massive round and economy advantage, HEROIC closed out the map convincingly, 16-6.

To decide the series, Overpass was left, where Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup's quad-kill on the pistol gave HEROIC the head start, but one that was quickly caught up on by Hard Legion after a couple of close rounds went their way. The score was 6-3 when HEROIC penetrated the defenses with a pistol buy, seeing the score almost equalized, 6-5. Hard Legion still kept the lead for the rest of their CT half, concluding it up 9-6.

Despite losing the second pistol, the Russian side was holding on to the lead throughout the second half as well, pulling in front every time HEROIC would add a couple of rounds to their tally. cadiaN's team woke up at the crucial moment, as they were 14-11 down, and thanks to some heroics from Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund and a 1v1 clutch in the last round, won the map 16-14 and took the series 2-1.