Astralis survive Sharks scare in Group B opener

Astralis are through to Group B's winners' match at the ECS Season 8 Finals following an overtime victory against Sharks on Nuke.

The Danish players breathed a sigh of relief after the match, for they knew just how close they came to being sent to their group's lower bracket in Arlington. Sharks came out with all guns blazing and at times pinned Astralis against the ropes, picking themselves up over and over again after making the sort of rookie mistakes that are so costly at this level of play.

The Latin American side even had one foot in the winners' match, but they were unable to close it out as Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth came to Astralis' rescue. The 'Clutch Minister' won three 1vsX situations in the game to help his team to pick up a surprisingly close victory against the lively Sharks, who still have plenty of positives to take as they prepare for a survival battle against the loser of the match between fnatic and MIBR.

A flawless CT pistol set Astralis up for a fast 3-0 start, but their economy was disrupted as soon as Sharks got their first round on the board, which came after a very late plant. The Brazilians utilized a variety of different paces to dissect the Astralis defense to grab a 4-3 lead, but it would not last as the Danes responded with some stellar outside control after putting an AWP in Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz's hands.

With the game starting to get away from Sharks, Luca "⁠Luken⁠" Nadotti pulled off a massive quad kill to keep the score level. The rest of the half would be highly contested, with Astralis taking a narrow 8-7 lead into the break.

Sharks made use of the range advantage of the USPs to win the second half pistol, bringing the scoreline to a 9-8 advantage, but Astralis responded with guns in hand and retook the lead off the back of a clutch from Xyp9x.

Jhonatan "⁠jnt⁠" Silva then stepped up to the plate on the AWP and played a key role as Sharks took control of proceedings and claimed a two-round lead. Astralis were able to break that streak in an eco round and went on a run of their own, but Sharks kept their defense very tight and hit match point at 15-14 before Xyp9x won the decisive 1v1 to force overtime.

Without surprise, Astralis took the upper hand in overtime and won three straight rounds on the Terrorist side before Xyp9x laid the game to rest with yet another clutch.