Astralis beat Renegades, G2 deny Sharks comeback

The third round of matches in Odense is complete, with Astralis moving on in the upper bracket of Group B after beating Renegades 16-8 on Inferno, while G2 joined them after denying Sharks a heroic comeback attempt with a 16-13 victory on the same map.

Continuing from the previous round's theme, the third round of matches in Odense started out just as one-sided, with the newly acquired Renegades team finding themselves fighting an uphill battle on Inferno up against the No.1 team in the world, Astralis.

After losing the opening pistol round, the Danish side immediately recovered with a second-round forcebuy and went on to dominate the rest of the half, only letting go of two more rounds, one of which saw Liam "⁠malta⁠" Schembri clutch a 1v3.

The opening of the second half saw the pistol round replayed due to one of the new agent models being used by Grayhound, who won the replayed round nonetheless to close the gap. Astralis were left undeterred, though, pushing the last four rounds through for a 16-8 victory.

The match on the B stream started off similarly and took place on the same map, Inferno, with G2 dominating the first 12 rounds on the back of an all-around great performance, particularly from Audric "⁠JACKZ⁠" Jug and Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač, while none of Sharks' players put up more than five kills as they started the match down 1-11.

The Brazilian-Argentinian squad made a heroic effort to come back into contention with two more rounds to their name before the half ended and a great start in the second half, but G2 ultimately managed to clinch the victory when things got dangerous at 16-13, breathing a sigh of relief.