Astralis beat BetBoom to reach second consecutive grand final

A lights-out performance from device on Nuke ensured swift victory for the Danes.

Astralis are through to the grand final of FISSURE Playground 1 after dispatching of BetBoom 2-0 in the semi-finals (13-10 Mirage, 13-8 Nuke).

The Danes came into the tournament as one of the title favorites despite playing their last official two months ago, but encountered trouble in the group stage after losing to TYLOO in their group's winners' match. They recovered with a repeat win over MIBR to make the playoffs, and have now earned a chance at revenge over the Chinese side — who are now back to full strength with Dongkai "⁠Jee⁠" Ji — in the final.

Date	Matches
FISSURE Playground 1
20/07/2025	TYLOO 15:05 Astralis	Match

Astralis ran away with control on the opening half of Mirage, recovering from a pistol loss thanks to a Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr Deagle quad-kill that shut down a Catwalk hit by BetBoom.

A stalwart defense gave little room for the Russian side to respond until near the end of the half, and though they managed to claw back early after the side swap, Astralis stabilized and closed out the map after Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen bagged a triple to recover a 2v4.

Astralis' domination continued on Nuke, where openings from Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund and multis from Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz put their side ahead 5-1. Another late recovery from BetBoom let them close the gap to two rounds at the break, but device again stepped up on the defense, winning Astralis the second round force-buy with a quad kill to allow them to romp to victory.

Astralis make back-to-back finals with HooXi

Astralis' ended a labored first half of 2025 on a high at PGL Astana, reaching the grand final in their debut event with HooXi before falling to Spirit.

The Danes had failed to qualify for the BLAST.tv Austin Major before that and thus went into an early tournament break, during which they secured HooXi's signature until the end of the year.

The former G2 captain's addition has revitalized Astralis with stavn and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard showcasing the kind of consistency that was absent for much of their tenure on Astralis, and the team's strategic cohesion has now brought them to a second straight grand final.

BetBoom's debut with ArtFr0st at an end

BetBoom bow out of FISSURE Playground 1 after a solid run at their first event with Artem "⁠ArtFr0st⁠" Kharitonov, who joined the team as a stand-in on loan from PARIVISION as a replacement for Aleksandr "⁠zorte⁠" Zagodyrenko.

Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov's men beat HEROIC and BIG in the group stage and eliminated GamerLegion in the quarter-finals, but struggled to put up a fight against Astralis in the semis.

"We don't win our map pick in any match," Boombl4 began when asked about all of BetBoom's prior series going to three maps and their overall run.

"Today it was again a poor T side on Mirage, something goes wrong, and sometimes the communication was crucial for us. We did a great comeback on CT but still lost the map, and on Nuke, the last rounds were really shaky and I felt my teammates were nervous a little bit, and we lost."

ArtFr0st had been a pillar of consistency for much of his team's run in the tournament, but mustered a 0.78 rating against the Danes to end his debut on a sour note.

When asked whether ArtFr0st's loan could turn permanent, Boombl4 kept it simple.

"I don't know," he said.