Astralis breeze past Complexity to set up bout with Liquid

The Danes will now take on Liquid for a BLAST Premier Fall Final berth.

Astralis have put themselves within one victory of qualifying for the BLAST Fall Final in the Royal Arena, defeating Complexity 2-0 thanks to wins on Veritgo (16-12) and Overpass (16-4).

Liquid will take on Astralis at 18:30 on Saturday with Fall Final qualification on the line, whilst Complexity will get another shot in the BLAST Fall Showdown at the start of October.

Ultimately Astralis were good value for their victory, being in firm control of this series outside of the very early stages of Vertigo. Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer, Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and Christian "⁠Buzz⁠" Andersen were in particularly fine form throughout the match, although Complexity didn’t offer the stiffest resistance. Regardless, Astralis will carry some confidence into the Liquid game after such a convincing result, and there is a every chance the Danes will have enough about them to earn a spot in the Royal Arena.

Complexity will leave this event wondering what happened to them after they started their campaign so brightly. Since beating Ninjas in Pyjamas in their opening game they seemed to wane with each series, suffering a drubbing against Vitality before losing the rematch with Ninjas in Pyjamas. Ending their showing with this whimper against Astralis will be disappointing, and the North Americans will need to work hard moving forwards to develop the winner’s mentality Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski has been asking for.

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Astralis’ map choice of Vertigo opened the series, with the Danes starting on the T side. Complexity ran out to a dominant early lead off the back of some strong site holds from their rifle trio, making the score 7-2 before their opponents could find their feet. Astralis did eventually respond thanks to switching their focus to the B site, device providing some key multi-kills to get his team’s offence rolling, and they secured a narrow 8-7 lead heading into the second period.

A blistering rush into middle won Complexity their offensive pistol, and they avoided the ensuing Astralis gamble stacks to earn a 10-8 lead. From this point Astralis levelled up the scores by dominating the fight for ramp control and forcing Complexity to repeatedly hit B, where they found little traction. Complexity’s offense then ran out of steam, hampered in particular by a poor fragging performance by Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou, allowing Astralis to stroll to a 16-12 victory.

Next came Complexity’s choice of map, Overpass, where the NA side started on the T side. Despite sporting a reputation as a strong Overpass team, Complexity were utterly decimated by Astralis’ defense, the proactive approach of the Danes finding success early in the majority of rounds. Complexity simply couldn’t find the punching power required to crack open the bombsites, so much so that Håkon "⁠hallzerk⁠" Fjærli didn’t find a kill until the 12th round, and they slipped to a pitiful three-round return ahead of the second-half.

The brief glimmer of hope that was a Complexity pistol round victory was immediately quashed by an Astralis force-buy, and the Danes duly concluded a one-sided 16-4 win to close the series.