Cloud9 fall to Astralis in Group A opener
The first game of Group A took off on Train, with Cloud9 and Astralis facing off for a spot in the winners match. Astralis had much to prove as they faced the best in North America with Ruben "RUBINO" Villarroel standing-in for their star player Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, who won't compete until the beginning of next year due to a bout of illness.
Cloud9 secured the pistol on their T side to immediately put pressure on the economy of the Danes, and used their monetary advantage to move up to six rounds without contest. Two opening frags with a saved AWP from Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen gave Astralis a small window of opportunity to break through the offense, and Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjaerbye followed up with two deagle frags of his own to give Astralis their first round. Astralis moved themselves up to three rounds before Cloud9 picked up another round for themselves, with Timothy "autimatic" Ta bringing his team back from a three-on-five. Cloud9 drastically slowed their pace down from early in the match, with the latter portion of the half seeing them get picked apart by Astralis' double AWP setups. The Danes won the half 8-7 in the end, despite starting the match down 0-6.
The North Americans took the second pistol round of the match as well, and once again took the lead — though Astralis were able to secure a bomb plant to give themselves an early buy. The first gun round also went Cloud9's way, but once again pistols tore them apart to stop their streak of rounds. Astralis took the ensuing round as well, crushing Cloud9's economy with a fast outside take to tie up the match once again. Cloud9 replied back with pistols of their own, finding three frags with USPs to swing the momentum in their favor, but Astralis had no intentions of letting the match slip out of their hands. A quick inside take from the Danes tore Cloud9's economy apart yet again, and this time Cloud9 had no reply. Their lead conceded, Cloud9 were picked apart by Astralis for the remainder of the match to give Astralis the victory.
Cloud9Astralis| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
20 - 20 | +0 | 86.9 | 70.4% | 1.10 |
| William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
15 - 22 | -7 | 71.1 | 74.1% | 0.92 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
20 - 21 | -1 | 71.1 | 51.9% | 0.90 |
| Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
15 - 22 | -7 | 64.5 | 63.0% | 0.84 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham |
13 - 17 | -4 | 46.0 | 66.7% | 0.75 |
| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen |
27 - 17 | +10 | 93.1 | 77.8% | 1.49 |
| Markus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye |
23 - 19 | +4 | 93.8 | 77.8% | 1.34 |
| Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth |
18 - 13 | +5 | 76.3 | 85.2% | 1.23 |
 Ruben 'RUBINO' Villarroel |
19 - 15 | +4 | 66.9 | 77.8% | 1.20 |
| Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
15 - 19 | -4 | 64.7 | 74.1% | 0.98 |
Cloud9 wil face elimination when they face the loser of Liquid and FaZe, with the victor of the same matchup taking on Astralis to see who advances to the playoffs.
