Astralis eliminate OG from BLAST Premier Spring Groups

The Danes will face BIG in the next round of play for a spot in the BLAST Premier Spring Finals.

Astralis eliminated OG from the BLAST Premier Spring group stage in a two-map series after the aforementioned teams lost their opening Group A matches to Ninjas in Pyjamas and BIG, respectively.

The Danes were quick to set the pace in the lower bracket match with a strong CT side on OG’s map pick, Dust2, although it wasn’t until extra rounds that they were able to close it out, 19-16, ahead of their own pick.

Inferno started out with an ace from Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen after which the Danish team positioned itself to snowball on the attacking side, going on to take an 11-4 lead at the half and running away on the CT side to secure the map and series on the defense, 16-6.

Up next for Astralis is BIG, as the German Squad lost the Group A winners’ match to Ninjas in Pyjamas, the first team in the group to qualify for the Spring Finals. The two teams will play a make-or-break match in a final chance at joining the Swedes in the Spring Finals and avoiding the same fate as OG, the BLAST Premier Showdown.

The series kicked off on Dust2, OG’s pick, although it was the Danes who won the first pistol round on the CT side, getting off to a 6-1 lead before a 1vs2 clutch by Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski put OG back on the board. Astralis stayed in control in the half, however, and hit double digits before switching sides.

Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen and company didn’t let up on the CT side and brought it back to a 10-10 tie before taking the lead for the first time since the start of the map, but OG fumbled when up 14-10 and gave Astralis map point. Although they were able to push the map into overtime, the European combine eventually fell 16-19 on their pick.

dupreeh aced the first pistol round of Inferno with five P250 headshots on the attacking side, after which Astralis took a 4-0 lead before conceding a round. The Danes continued to charge ahead, breaking OG’s economy and ran away with the half until mantuu had a big triple kill, although Astralis bounced right back to take it 11-4.

OG planted on A in a 3vs3 before securing the round to stay in the game, but their comeback dreams started to fade as they lost the anti-forcebuy, only managing to put up one more round before faltering 6-16 as Astralis assured their presence in the next round of play against BIG.