Danskerbrag: Can Astralis bridge the gap to Heroic?

IEM Cologne 2023's second quarter-final will feature the first Danish derby since January.

Plenty has changed in the 195 days since Astralis last played HEROIC. Nearly all of that change, however, has occured to the former.

Four key personnel are different now. Three figures at the heart of Astralis' 2018-2019 era in the form of Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth, Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander, and Kasper Hvidt are no longer on the team. Nicolai "⁠HUNDEN⁠" Petersen, albeit after a shorter stint, suffered the same fate.

The new look Astralis only have one piece from that era now, but it is it's brightest spark: Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz. After a long break, it would have been reasonable to expect a slightly diminished version of Denmark's greatest sniper for the first few months. Instead, he has been rejuvenated. His top 30 rating for the year is 1.22, one point higher than his 1.21 at his peak in 2019.

There is new blood in the form of Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr and Christian "⁠Buzz⁠" Andersen, two young talents that offer some future proofing to an organization that has lacked that very trait since its star began to wane.

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Astralis have got their man, but can Staehr ignite their rebuild?

Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup has replaced Xyp9x as the side's anchor, a move that came out of left field but makes perfect sense. b0RUP, left in the relative wilderness of the tier two Danish scene after HEROIC benched him in 2021, has spent the past two years "practicing and trying to master" his anchor roles, hoping that his skillset meant that offers would eventually arrive. And arrive they did.

Holding all of this together is the IGL-Coach duo of Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer and Peter "⁠casle⁠" Ardenskjold. Replacing the four-time Major champion gla1ve as captain should be a hard task, but blameF's impact has been felt immediately. "He knows everything about everyone," device told us during IEM Cologne's media day.

This new Astralis constellation looks greater than the sum of its parts for the first time since it housed the greatest team of all time. On debut, they qualified for BLAST Fall Finals in Copenhagen. At IEM Cologne, they progressed through the play-in and then qualified as the third team from Group B over teams like FaZe, MOUZ, and Natus Vincere.

"I think we overachieved maybe a little bit," was device's assessment. "The dream is just to be in the arena. It's been a long time since I've been in such a big arena. We're not the favourites this time around, 2018, 2019, maybe we were, but who knows, maybe we can do a really sick underdog story."

Astralis have proved that they can be competitive with a visibly improved team atmosphere and on-server chemistry, but we should not get carried away. They are clear underdogs, even more so in a stacked playoff bracket.

Standing in their way, in the first round, is HEROIC. While Astralis have been in flux, HEROIC's Danish hegemony has been cemented. They added another BLAST seasonal trophy in Washington to their cabinet and spent the tournament break ranked No. 1 in the world.

Sir Alex Ferguson famously promised to "knock Liverpool off their perch" before kick-starting an era of dominance for Manchester United in the 1990s. The one problem was that he never really had a chance to; Liverpool fell off their perch before Manchester United could push them off it.

A similar thing happened in Denmark's Counter-Strike scene. As HEROIC rose, Astralis fell. The Danish derby, or Danskerbrag, has more been a rivalry because of out of the server dramas: HUNDEN's move to Astralis, gla1ve and Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller's Twitter spats, and now Kasper Straube's move from HEROIC to join Astralis as their new Sporting Director — a move device called a "big steal."

On the server, it's been one way traffic. HEROIC haven't dropped out of the top three on our world ranking since November 7, 2022. Astralis' peak in that time is No. 10, reached last week. The two sides have simply been operating in different stratospheres.

Because of this, Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck thinks the rivalry is a bit overplayed. "Astralis has been the number one team in the world, but they are not anymore," he says. "Both of us want to be the best in Denmark, both of us want to beat each other, but it's only because we're Danish."

device, too, was quick to downplay the actual rivalry. "I've never really been a part of it, the rivalry started after I left for NIP, I don't really think too much about it. We're both Danish teams, so the narrative is obviously going to be Danish derby, but I don't really know if anyone thinks like that. It could only be blameF, but I promise you he doesn't care too much."

Counter-Strike, like any sport, is better for its rivalries. The passion they evoke in players, fans, and the community at large, is unmissable. But the truly great rivalries are always sporting ones; regional similarities and off-field drama can only take you so far. They are the ones players talk up, rather than down, in interviews.

Ninjas in Pyjamas and fnatic battled in Major finals, as did the later fnatic and the French core of Envy. SK and FaZe traded trophies in late 2017. Astralis and Liquid were the first two teams to win Intel Grand Slams. FaZe dethroned Natus Vincere in 2022.

These are rivalries that Astralis and HEROIC cannot compete with, and that is down to Astralis' struggles in the post-COVID era. For this to be a truly historic rivalry, it needs to be one on the server.

Astralis have beaten HEROIC in a honeymoon before, in their first showing with blameF and Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke at BLAST Fall Final in 2021. But they have not stuck around. They faded out of the top ten, as HEROIC built upon their previous successes with more and more top four finishes.

Astralis lingered too long, in hindsight, with the core of their formerly great roster. Talents like sjuush and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard were allowed to move to HEROIC. Their indecision has left them leagues behind, starting another re-build as HEROIC define the meta and hunt for the biggest prizes.

But HEROIC are not invincible. Their loss to GamerLegion in Paris proved as much. If Counter-Strike operated with a 38-game league season, HEROIC, more likely than not, would win it. In our usual single elimination brackets, however, cracks form.

Star player Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund drops from a 1.20 average rating to a 1.07 in big arenas. cadiaN, sometimes, forces plays he would not need to in a group stage — like his infamous attempt to deny the bomb plant in round 30 of the Major semi-final.

Astralis have a fearsome home map in Ancient, winning seven of their eight matches on it with the new roster. In blameF and device, they have the two highest rated Danish players. There are not entirely unreasonable angles in which to see chances of an upset for Astralis.

Yet, even if Astralis do expose the chinks in HEROIC's armor and march past them into the semi-finals, we will need to see more. HEROIC's body of work is an incredibly hard one to match.

Truly historic rivalries are born in the blood of battle on stages like the LANXESS arena and in tournaments like IEM Cologne. For too long, this has been a rivalry fought on social media and in the forums. Astralis, in only their second event together, have the chance to make it more than that; to begin the long climb towards knocking HEROIC off their perch as the best team in Denmark.

If Astralis would have their way, this match could be the start of that. In the Cathedral, the sins of the last few years could be forgiven. It is within their power to make this the first chapter in their renaissance, to overachieve once again and reassert themselves as one of the best teams in the world.

If they fail, they risk being mere footnotes in the tale of HEROIC's dominance. They risk being the team that could not rebuild; the team that sat and waited as the world changed around them; the team that could not catch up.

Success is improbable, such is the size of HEROIC's advantage. But what if, just maybe, Astralis could close the gap? What if this was the start of another great rivalry, one of the game's last intranational tug-of-wars?

For that to happen, this first meeting is all-important. Astralis have already exceeded expectations, but need to prove that the chasm between the two teams has narrowed. HEROIC should be aiming for the trophy, and be capable of swatting the new Astralis aside.

It is more important for both teams to make it to the semi-finals than it is to beat their regional partner. The intensity of the matchup has cooled off as Astralis have rebuilt. But, make no mistake: This rivalry is a tinderbox that is ready to spark into life. Who can blame us for lighting a match?

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
04/08/2023	HEROIC 19:10 Astralis	Match