jabbi: "We knew we could come down here and beat the teams"

The Danish player confirmed that improvements were seen in practice in the lead-up to the event.

Astralis booked the first semi-final spot at the BLAST Premier World Final on Thursday after taking down MOUZ 2-0 in Group A's upper bracket final.

The Danish team, ranked 17th in the world, continues to defy expectations in Singapore. Heading into the event, Astralis had not won a single match in their first two tournaments with Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller. Here, they have managed to top a group that also included Natus Vincere and FaZe without dropping a single map.

"It feels good, obviously," Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard told HLTV after the match. "We beat two really good teams and it's a pretty stacked tournament, so yeah, it's just a good feeling.

"It's also BO3, not BO1. I think it shows we are on the right path. We just got some more practice."

On media day, cadiaN argued that the best version of Astralis would not come before 2025 and went as far as to say that "nobody is expecting us to do much against them" after the disappointing results at the BLAST Fall Final and IEM Rio.

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cadiaN: "The best version of Astralis is not going to happen in 2024"

Like his captain, jabbi said that this is far from the final form of Astralis, but he admitted that he could see the team improving in practice before the trip to Singapore.

"I think the way we play takes a lot of time to become good at and really understand every situation," he explained. "It takes a lot of time and we haven't had that time yet.

"Obviously, we knew we could come down here and beat the teams. It's just about the confidence. We know what we're capable of."

Astralis will now have one day to rest and prepare for Saturday's semi-final bout in front of a packed arena. "We obviously want to go for the win, but we take it game by game and we don't know who we'll meet yet," he said.

A deep run in Singapore comes as a timely boost for the Danish outfit ahead of the Europe RMRs. Astralis have missed the last three Majors, but jabbi is confident the team will end that streak in Shanghai.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier World Final 2024
02/11/2024	Astralis 13:55 Spirit	Match

"The RMR is pretty deadly and every team that is in there is good and it's best-of-ones," jabbi said. "It's a tough tournament. But every time in HEROIC we managed to do well. I'm not worried, actually. We're just going to focus on the RMR after this tournament."