Astralis punish FURIA for sloppy play with Katowice elimination

The Brazilians had the game in their hands twice on the Nuke decider but squandered their advantages.

Astralis have kept their Katowice campaign alive after scraping past FURIA in a three-map series, recovering from 3-7 and 8-11 deficits on Inferno and the Nuke decider, respectively, to end the Brazilian team's campaign in Poland.

FURIA will lament the way the series ended after costly mistakes in the dying moments of Nuke with Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo making a questionable rotation against a force-buy and FURIA losing a 5v3 in Lower two rounds later allowed Astralis to take control of the economy and storm to victory off the back of three A executes in a row.

"Overall I think it was a good game, both teams played well," FalleN said to James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks in an interview after the game. "We could have won Inferno as well, I think we had Nuke as well, but props to them, they played risky at the very end and it paid off."

Astralis will next face GamerLegion in the lower bracket and would then require a win over the winner of Spirit vs. Liquid to advance to the playoffs — which looks a tall task after the level of play shown throughout this series.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2025
04/02/2025	GamerLegion 13:30 Astralis	Match

Astralis showed resilience but can't be too happy with this series

Astralis may have come out the victor to stay alive in Katowice, but neither team looked convincing or played high-quality Counter-Strike.

FURIA let a strong lead slip on Inferno, repeatedly missed Outside smokes on Nuke, and made poor late-round decisions that left them fighting back from a deficit on the crucial decider.

Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr stepped up massively on Inferno to power Astralis' recovery while Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund struggled for early impact, the former only coming online on Dust2 and the latter not stepping up until the Nuke decider.

FURIA and Astralis both looked uncomfortable in numerous rounds and made several costly mistakes throughout the series, but FURIA will be haunted by the ones they made at the end of Nuke that ultimately cost them the win.

They squandered favorable situations early on the map but still mustered six rounds on the T side, and quickly closed in on victory after winning the pistol.

With Astralis on a force-buy at 10-7, FalleN got caught out rotating up Ramp to give the Danes back some control, and two rounds later FURIA lost a 5v3 that crushed their economy and let Astralis abuse A to close out the game.

"Both tournaments we went out of in the early season, we lost because of one round, so of course it's going to sting and feel like we didn't play well," FalleN said.

chelo records the second-worst LAN of his career

Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes demolished Imperial Valkyries upon arriving in Katowice but had a miserable time after that in both the Play-in and Stage 2.

He managed just one map in the green against Wildcard (1.49 rating) on either side of dismal 0.64 and 0.78 showings, and that only got worse against Natus Vincere (0.44 and 0.40 ratings).

Against Astralis he repeatedly got caught out, made poor decisions and re-aggressions, and floundered on Inferno (0.44 rating, 4-17 K-D) and Dust2 (0.79 rating, 9-13 K-D).

He was on track for the worst LAN of his entire career heading into Nuke (0.51 rating over four maps, 0.29 KPR) but found early impact at the start of FURIA's offensive effort.

He ended the map as the team's highest-rated player (1.11) to finish the event with a 0.64 average — his second-lowest-rated LAN after IEM Cologne 2024 (0.57).