Astralis beat BIG to complete lower bracket gauntlet at BLAST, to face Vitality in grand final

The Danish powerhouse went 8-0 across a four-series run in the lower bracket en route to the grand final.

In the first encounter between the two teams in over a year, Astralis took down BIG 2-0 in the consolidation final at BLAST Premier Fall Finals, as they came back from a 6-14 deficit on the opening map, Nuke, and won Dust2 comfortably 16-6. The Danes are set to face Vitality in the grand final later on Sunday, at 20:30 .

For the first time since they started utilizing Lucas "⁠Bubzkji⁠" Andersen instead of Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth on Nuke earlier this month, Astralis picked the map against BIG and called upon the 22-year-old to step onto the server once again and help them pull off a massive comeback to kick off the best-of-three.

The Danes visibly struggled at the beginning of the opener, with some uncharacteristic mistakes giving BIG openings to win a couple of close retake rounds on lower, as the German side controlled most of the half to pick up a five-round lead. Once sides switched, BIG went on to extend their advantage on the back of a forcebuy win and got within two rounds of victory with plenty of space to close the map, but everything suddenly started going wrong.

Breaking BIG's dominant run with just pistols, Astralis put on a clinic of a defense, with the German team unable to find the openings they needed to reach either bombsite uncontested. Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander & co. did not even let the German team put down the bomb in the last ten rounds and survived a close 1v4 attempt from Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische in the penultimate, completing the incredible comeback at 16-14 to enter the series a map ahead.

Dust2 proved to be a much more comfortable affair for the Danes afterward. They seized control of the map early on on the CT side off of Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen's quad-kill in the pistol round as well as a 1v1 clutch a few rounds later, and they never let go, rallying to a quick 16-6 finish to give themselves two hours to prepare for the grand final.