Heroic win Danish derby in overtime to go 2-0 in Düsseldorf

Big plays by Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck gave HEROIC wings when Astralis were closest to winning the series.

Astralis and HEROIC, two teams that won their opening ESL Pro League matches against the North American squads of Evil Geniuses and Complexity, respectively, played on the second day of Group D fixtures, with Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller and company coming out ahead after mounting a comeback in the second map and going to overtime in the decider.

HEROIC’s victory and proficient showing on Ancient in their opening match against Complexity didn’t put their Danish rivals off in the veto, as Martin "⁠trace⁠" Heldt’s men picked it as their home map, in which they had a convincing 4 win streak going back to IEM Katowice with victories over the likes of G2 and ENCE.

Astralis didn’t disappoint and got off to a good start on their pick, leading 6-2 on the attack, and although It took HEROIC a while to get back on track after the initial daze, they were finally able to bring it back to within one before switching sides.

HEROIC’s slow start came back to bite them on the offense, where despite retaking the lead after the pistol round and subsequent conversions, they stalled out early as a fearsome Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke tallied 112 ADR and 29 frags by the time Astralis brought things to a wrap, 16-12.

Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer and company took advantage of starting Overpass on the CT side, once again jumping first out of the gate to a sizable 10-3 lead before HEROIC closed the first half out with successive round wins.

HEROIC took the second pistol round to try and bring things closer on the attack, but once again Astralis were calm and collected, with all players showing up and blameF at the helm.

Everything turned sideways when sjuush won a showy 1vs4 when everything was at its lowest up against seven match points, 8-15, after which his team rallied taking it all the way to the last round of regulation, which they won to take the map to overtime.

cadiaN and company made it 11 rounds in a row after sweeping the first half of overtime, setting the scene for the comeback to be completed in the second half, which it was, 19-16, to force the series into Vertigo.

The skyscraper map quickly saw a stalemate settle after six rounds, the three first going the way of HEROIC followed by three Astralis defenses. Down 4-6 by the tenth round, HEROIC took their third timeout of the half, which paid dividends as they went up by one, 8-7, at half-time.

The final half of the series started off with a strong push by Astralis as they gained economic advantage on the attack to get ahead 12-8. Down 13-15 and once again against the ropes, sjuush came up big with an MP9 quad-kill to keep his team alive and pushing for overtime.

Overtime on Vertigo wasn’t as straightforward as the previous, as it went into double overtime, but by the end of it all it was HEROIC who once again came out on top, 22-19, to claim bragging rights over their local rivals while keeping a clean 2-0 record in the Pro League group stage.