Astralis beat mousesports to set up rematch with Heroic

After each team suffered one-sided defeats on their map picks, Astralis edged out an overtime victory over MOUZ on Nuke, taking the series win and continuing their ESL Pro League lower-bracket run.

The lower-bracket final series of ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe saw Astralis and MOUZ clash heads. The BO3 kicked off with two stomps, on Dust2 and Inferno, with each team winning their opponents' map pick handily.

Come Nuke, it looked like Astralis were going to run away with it after a 12-3 half, but MOUZ mounted an impressive CT-side comeback, forcing overtime. However, it wasn't enough, and Astralis were victorious as Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen, and Patrick "⁠es3tag⁠" Hansen all posted impressive numbers, outdoing Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool's 1.23 rated performance.

In the pre-match interview on ESL's steam, Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen mentioned that the team is continuing with a "mutual leadership between magisk and gla1ve", while device spoke about the team's level in the post match, saying Astralis "are not as consistent as we used to be, but that will come with time".

This results sees Astralis advance to the consolidation final, where they will play a against HEROIC who knocked them to the lower bracket on Wednesday, with a grand final spot on the line.

Astralis put their foot down early on Dust2. Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong got his side on the board with a double in round three (2-1), but MOUZ fell flat after that and the Danish side started rolling. Astralis was constantly one step ahead on the defense, while ropz and co. struggled to even get kills on the board, finishing the first half 12-3 behind.

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and dupreeh resolved a 2v2 in the second half pistol to bring the map to an early conclusion, 16-3, with Aurimas "⁠Bymas⁠" Pipiras being the only MOUZ player to break double digits on their map pick.

On Inferno, Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen picked up double kills in all of the first five rounds to get his team going after the Dust2 stomp, with Astralis only getting on board after a mixed-buy in round seven (6-1). gla1ve's men were locked out across the map, managing just one opening kill throughout the half and found themselves in a 14-1 disadvantage switching to the CT side.

A perfect pistol allowed Astralis to build up to six rounds, but a 3v5 won by their opponents brought Inferno to a conclusion, 16-6.

Following an early back and forth, where both teams were trying to force-buy their way to success, Astralis pulled into the lead on the CT side of the decider map, Nuke (8-3). MOUZ got into a few winnable situations down the stretch, but the Danes kept a clean sheet for the half and finished it 12-3 up.

An unlikely A site retake inspired MOUZ' comeback on the defense, with ropz leading the way as they narrowed the gap to just two (12-10). The European mixture took the lead after locking down an A split, with Astralis instantly replying to tie things back at 13-13. Rounds were traded from that point onwards, seeing the map head into overtime. In the end, Astralis pulled through, 19-16, to take the series.