OG come back from overtime loss to sweep NIP

Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen and company remain undefeated at ESL Pro League as they become the first semi-finalist of the tournament.

OG have secured their place in the ESL Pro League semi-finals, sending Ninjas in Pyjamas packing as they came back from an overtime loss on Overpass to go on hot streaks on Mirage and Dust2 to win the first quarter-final series.

The team around Aleksib continue their impressive form at the tournament, as they have claimed their sixth consecutive series victory following a flawless run in the group stage. OG will play in the semi-finals on Saturday, facing the winner of Gambit and Vitality.

"I guess it's the easy answer to say that we want to play against Vitality, but if you want to win one of the best tournaments, you want to beat every team, and I want to beat Gambit," Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan said in the post-match interview on the official broadcast on the topic of their next opponent.

After playing it safe in the veto with a Vertigo ban, Ninjas in Pyjamas didn't get the chance to pick Ancient this time, and so they went for Overpass as their top alternative. It was a slow start from the Swedes, but a near-1v4 from Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz in the fifth round allowed them to break OG's bank, climb back from the early deficit, and make it a close half.

It was very much thanks to Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner that Ninjas in Pyjamas had been able to keep OG at bay, and the 23-year-old's heroics continued in the second half as the two sides kept trading blows. Aleksib's team pulled away late into the map and were the first to reach map point with a couple of successful A executes, but despite having two chances to close it Ninjas in Pyjamas came back to take the opener to overtime, where they finally found some stability with four consecutive rounds.

With Mirage up next, the series was looking to be heading towards a 2-0 when Ninjas in Pyjamas got off to a successful start on the CT side, but the Swedish team's 8-3 lead quickly disappeared. OG found a lifeline towards the end of the first half, claiming four in a row, and only conceded the first three of the second due to Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser's quad-kill in the pistol round to then shut it down on the defense themselves.

With flameZ's triple in a low buy round giving OG the reins at 8-11, the European mix went on an unanswered run in which Ninjas in Pyjamas could not find ways through to either bombsite. hampus' entries gave the Swedes their 12th round, but other than that the half was firmly in the hands of Aleksib's team, with the Finn himself putting up three consecutive multikills to force the decider at 16-12.

Dust2 was a landslide after that, with OG keeping up the momentum from the dominant ending to Mirage to sweep the floor with Ninjas in Pyjamas on Dust2. After flameZ's quad-kill shifted the early stages of the map towards OG, the Swedes could only muster a couple of rounds with low buys, and with the half going 11-4 in favor of the European squad, the closing was just a matter of time.