Astralis beat NAVI to first spot at BLAST Bounty Finals

The Danes will travel to Malta later this week to play the LAN portion of the competition.

Astralis became the first team to secure a spot at the BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals after they took down NAVI 2-1 in the Round of 16 and eliminated the Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen-led side in the process.

They will join seven other teams in a continuation of the single-elimination format on LAN at the new BLAST studios in Malta, from August 14-17.

The Danes ultimately secured a relatively straightforward victory over a Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy-less Natus Vincere despite their attempt to force their opponents on an uncomfortable Dust2 backfiring.

Aleksib and company won their first game on the map since May after struggling to close it out from an 8-2 lead, doing so at the final hour thanks to a crucial round 21 quad-kill from Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and a ballsy B rush in the final round.

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz then took over Inferno with a 22-kill, 1.88-rated performance in which he found opening after opening and seven multi-kills to spearhead a 13-7 equalizer.

Nuke was a foregone conclusion, with a key 2v5 win by Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard and Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen at 3-0 and a 3v5 in round 11 ensuring a smooth start from the Danes, who ran away with the Terrorist half 10-2 and closed it three rounds later.