What to expect from Complexity v. Astralis

With the groups concluded, the teams that missed out on direct finals qualification will now play in the knockout stage, three single-elimination gauntlets. As Group A's third-best team, Complexity find themselves seeded against Group B's worst team, Astralis. The victor of their series will then face Group C's second-best team, Liquid, for a spot in the finals. Losers of both series will fall to the showdown.

EliGE found his form again, alongside hallzerk

In the match versus Vitality, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski appeared to have a poor series, however, that could be attributed to the strength of their opponent. When it came to their rematch with NIP, the American star returned to form, shinning at the top of the scoreboard. Alongside him, this time was also the team's local talent, Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærli, who had been missing in the first two series. Unfortunately, Michael "Grim" Wince was the one lacking in performance in the rematch.

• EliGE has shown that he is here to frag versus Europeans

• hallzerk finally remembered he's at home and can own

• NIP won the group in the end, so Astralis should be a piece of cake

• floppy continues to be consistent

blameF carries Astralis to somewhere?

With only two matches for the Danes so far, compared to Complexity's three, Astralis have seemed to struggle a bit, in a confusing fashion. Their NAVI match started off well but then went south, and then versus BIG there was even more confusion. Despite three Danes outperforming BIG's best player, across the series, they still were unable to claw back the final map and lost the series. At least Benjamin "blameF" Bremer carried the team in both series, with Nicolai "device" Reedtz also having good overall performance.

• device looks happy back on Astralis

• blameF could be a tall mountain that Complexity have to climb over

• Their other players either turn up or get lost on the way to the stage

• Maybe they get carried to another loss again?

Previous Matchups

The last time these two teams played each other was actually at another BLAST tournament, the Premier Spring Finals in June. There, blameF carried the Danes (as expected) again, but it was to yet another loss. The series was super closer though, with all three maps playing to the full 30 rounds, each ending 16-14. Since then Astralis have changed out Alexander "Altekz" Givskov with Victor "Staehr" Staehr, but will it matter?

Likely Vetoes

Last time, the teams played Vertigo (Complexity's pick), Ancient, and Overpass but we'll probably see at least one different map this time. Complexity seem to have dropped Mirage as their permaban, which didn't turn out great versus NIP so many they renege on that.

Astralis are likely to want to pick their extremely strong Ancient, which might be best for Complexity to ban first unless they are hiding it up their sleeve. Astralis can play Anubis, but they will likely want to ban it first, despite Complexity not having much success on the map.

If Astralis don't ban Overpass, then it will be a strong pick for Complexity, especially with Astralis' current four-map losing streak on the map. The rest is mostly a coin toss for me, based on not even being sure how the start of the veto will go.

• Astralis remove Anubis

• Complexity remove Ancient

• Astralis pick Vertigo

• Complexity pick Overpass

• Astralis remove Nuke

• Complexity remove Mirage

• Inferno will be the decider

Liquid and Astralis will meet today at 09:00AM in the first round of their knockout stage gauntlet. The winner will face Liquid in the gauntlet final.