Astralis defeat paiN to secure final Stage 2 spot

The Danes move on to the top-16 stage after winning their second match of the day.

Astralis have booked the final spot in Stage 2 of IEM Cologne 2025 with a hard-fought 2-1 victory against paiN, who came back from a disastrous showing on Nuke with their first win of the year on Ancient before coming up short in the final stages of Inferno.

It was a long day for the Danish team, who only managed to secure qualification on the second attempt. Asked by Jason "⁠moses⁠" O'Toole if his brain was fried after having also faced FURIA earlier in the day, the Danish IGL said: "Completely."

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2025 Stage 1
23/07/2025	Astralis Finished 2:0 B8	Match
25/07/2025	Astralis Finished 0:2 FURIA	Match
25/07/2025	Astralis Finished 2:1 paiN	Match

Astralis were in control for the entirety of Nuke, strolling to a 9-3 lead on the CT side of Nuke against a helpless paiN side that had in Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares the only player who looked like he could make something happen.

The Danish team didn't let up and continued racking up rounds after switching to the T side. One round was all that paiN could muster as Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen pulled off a miraculous 1v4 clutch in response to set Astralis up for a quick victory.

paiN had yet to win a game on Ancient in 2025 after three attempts, but they came out surprisingly sharp, limiting Astralis to just a solitary round on the offense. The Danish team were found lacking in opening kills, though they could have tallied up some more rounds if not for some late-round heroics from the Brazilians.

With a mountain to climb to turn the game around, Astralis began to work away at the deficit, but their comeback efforts fell short in the end as paiN put the game to rest with two great individual rounds from David "⁠dav1deuS⁠" Tapia Maldonado, who was in top shape on Ancient with a 1.65 rating.

The first half of Inferno ended in a 6-6 stalemate as Astralis recovered from a slow start to their CT side. As the sides switched, the game turned into a highlight reel: first it was Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia winning a pistol clutch, followed by a 4K on the A site. And then it was Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard who pulled off a stunning highlight-of-the-year candidate with a 1v4 Desert Eagle clutch.

paiN kept their cool after and responded immediately, but the game got away from them in the following round as they lost a 4v2 advantage to Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund and Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr. Astralis rode that momentum to a 12-9 lead before closing out the game in the final round of regulation in a 3v4 post-plant on B.

More highlights:

• nqz pulls off no-scope kill, wins 1v2

• nqz and snow with the 2v3 retake

• stavn almost gets ace clutch

• nqz nearly gets hero 1v4 clutch