Astralis through to IEM Global Challenge playoffs over Vitality

The Danes got trounced on Nuke and barely survived elimination after two overtimes on Dust2, but they were clearly superior on Inferno to stay alive in the last tournament of the year.

Vitality and Astralis played a rematch of the BLAST Premier Fall Finals grand final, which the French team won, although now it was to make it through to the IEM Global Challenge playoffs as both teams lost to BIG in Group A. This time around Astralis were able to take revenge on the Frenchmen, securing a hard-fought series despite a slow start to advance to the next round of play.

The French squad made a statement on Nuke, Astralis’ map pick, embarrassing the Danes with an incredibly solid 13-2 half before taking the map cleanly on the attack, making it 16-2. It looked like Astralis were on the path to breeze past Vitality on Dust2, taking a 10-3 lead early on, but Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut single-handedly thwarted the Danes’ plans and Vitality came back to bring the map to a tie after 30 rounds.

Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen's men were able to push the map to a decider after two overtimes and they took a 10-5 lead on the attacking side of Inferno before cleanly taking it as CTs, breaking a nine-map win streak on it by Vitality, who were undefeated on Inferno since bringing on Nabil "⁠Nivera⁠" Benrlitom. Now through to the playoffs, they will go on to play the Group B top seed, Natus Vincere, in the semi-finals on Saturday.

Vitality got off to a flying start on the CT side of Nuke, taking a 4-1 lead before a triple by Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire in vents kept his team well in the lead. The Frenchmen doubled down and scored another four rounds in a row before Astralis could once again secure a successful attack, although Vitality hit double digits the following round without skipping a beat. A quad-kill by ZywOo followed by a triple from Nivera took their team to a 13-2 lead at the half. ZywOo then opened up the A site with a glock kill in the second pistol round, hitting 20 frags in his personal tally, as Vitality continued charging ahead to victory, 16-2.

Astralis took the lead on Dust2, 3-0, but ZywOo clutched a 1vs3 afterplant on A to get his team on the board. The Frenchmen followed it up, but then lost back-to-back afterplant situations as Astralis started to run away with the half, going up 10-3 before two clutches by ZywOo closed the half 5-10. Vitality then won a long-range battle on A long to keep bridging the gap, and won four of the first five rounds of the second half to make it 9-11, but Astralis hit B twice to maintain a lead heading into the final stretch of the map. Despite the lead, the Danes weren’t able to stop a red-hot ZywOo from carrying his team to a 14-14 tie, with a stalemate on the board remaining after 30 rounds.

The two teams traded rounds, but the Danes took the lead in the first half of extra rounds thanks to a 1vs2 clutch by Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz. Astralis kept their lead all the way to the last round of the second half, but a 1vs2 clutch, this time by apEX, pushed it to double OT. Astralis hit map point once again off the back of a four-kill round by Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif, and this time around the Danes were able to convert on it in the second set of extra rounds to tie the series up and force a decider map.

Astralis won the first pistol round on the attacking side of Inferno, but were taken down by Vitality in the forcebuy. The French team took a 3-1 lead before dropping the first gun round, but Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier then downed four in an A defense to keep his team ahead. Astralis then won a double-fake on an eco to swing the half around, taking control and winning the half 10-5. They then took the second pistol round and completely took over on the defense, winning the map cleanly, 16-5, to secure a spot in the playoff bracket.