Astralis coast past ENCE in IEM Beijing-Haidian

The Finnish team were no match for their opponents on Joonas "⁠doto⁠" Forss' debut.

Astralis opened up their defence of last year's IEM Beijing title with a quick 2-0 victory over ENCE. The Finnish team, who were playing their first official match with doto, made a promising start but faded as the series went on as the Danes took the game by the throat after the interval on Dust2 and did not let go.

ENCE got off to a solid start on Dust2 as they pressed Astralis during a lively first half. With Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli leading the charge, the Finnish team were in control for most of their T side, but the Danes never let the game get out of hand and went into the break down by just three.

The second half began with a messy pistol round that ended up going ENCE's way, but there was no follow-up on their part as Astralis responded immediately with a clutch from Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth. That round kickstarted a period of dominance by the Danish team, who dictated the pace of the game for the rest of the map to storm to an easy victory.

ENCE once again picked up an early lead on Inferno, but Astralis took the reins of the game once they had guns in hand. Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz racked up 19 frags as his team dominated the rest of the half — never letting their opponents find their footing —, and he added seven more to his tally in a quick second half that was a one-way street.