Astralis navigates a victory over SK
SK and Astralis were the teams to face off in the first Group A Upper Bracket Semifinal, with the familiar foes looking to secure a spot into the Group A Final. The two teams took battle on Overpass, Mirage and Train.
Overpass began with Astralis taking the pistol round on their T-side, followed up with the two anti-eco rounds. But SK secured the first buy round before taking the next three rounds to secure a lead. But it was the Danish team to take advantage of their opponents as Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander's team chimed up the next five rounds to firmly take the lead.
With Nicolai "device" Reedtz and Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth turning up in style, the Danish team secured the lead in the half. Although Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo's side secured two of the last rounds in the half, it was Astralis to be 9-6 ahead before swapping sides.
The second half began with Astralis taking the pistol and two anti-ecos on their CT-side, before the two teams swapped rounds around the first full buy. SK then pushed to narrow the lead as Marcelo "coldzera" David tried to keep his team in the game.
But it was the Danes to take the map. New addition Emil "Magisk" Reif was a top performer for his team as they secured the two rounds they needed to take map point. Although SK picked up one round to delay Astralis' advance, it was the Danes to end it with a 16-12 win.
Mirage started off with SK taking the pistol round on their T-side, before Astralis secured a flawless Deagle-eco round to get straight onto the round. SK performed a similar feat with a set of pistols for the next round, but so did Astralis as they started a ten round unbeaten streak of rounds.
With gla1ve leading from the front for his team, he saw the likes of Xyp9x and Magisk follow right behind him to secure an extremely strong lead. SK secured one more round in the half, but Astralis clsoed it off entirely with a 12-3 lead.
The second half began with SK taking the pistol round and following two anti-ecos on their CT-side, before pushing on to the first full buy round, and two rounds following with Fernando "fer" Alvarenga starting to wake up. With SK starting to go forwards on evening the game up, Astralis secured a strong site take to keep their lead in tact.
With SK taking the round immediately following to destroy the Danish side's economy, Astralis secured a round on a mixed forcebuy thanks to gla1ve winning an extremely close 1vs4. They then moved on to take themselves to match point, before the Brazilians used their own forcebuy to prevent the game ending just yet.
From there SK kept on blocking Astralis' plays, even when the Danish side looked likely to claim the win. With Epitacio "TACO" de Melo acting clutch for his team, they took it all the way to the end of regulation time before fer secured three kills to win a 2vs4 to even the game up 15-15.
Overtime began with SK opening up their CT rounds with the win, before Astralis secured a round of their own. FalleN near-singlehandedly handed his team the lead for the second half of overtime. The second overtime half began with a strong display of Astralis' CT-side, before SK secured the final round of the half to cause double overtime.
The second set of overtime began with SK starting off on their T-side, before Astralis opened back up with a 1v2 clutch display from Xyp9x, then following it up with the next round to secure the lead. They followed up with a win on their T-side to claim match point once again, before SK prevented a win once again, with coldzera cracking open the site. But they couldn't complete the comeback, with Astralis finally secured the win with gla1ve and device securing a 22-20 win.
SKAstralis| SK |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Marcelo 'coldzera' David |
56 - 42 | +14 | 82.2 | 75.7% | 1.17 |
| Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga |
52 - 55 | -3 | 82.1 | 61.4% | 1.04 |
| Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo |
46 - 50 | -4 | 67.7 | 62.9% | 0.93 |
| Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo |
42 - 53 | -11 | 73.4 | 64.3% | 0.91 |
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
29 - 51 | -22 | 58.5 | 64.3% | 0.72 |
| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
58 - 47 | +11 | 80.8 | 68.6% | 1.21 |
| Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
55 - 46 | +9 | 82.8 | 71.4% | 1.19 |
| Emil 'Magisk' Reif |
46 - 45 | +1 | 85.6 | 75.7% | 1.12 |
| Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth |
47 - 46 | +1 | 81.1 | 77.1% | 1.12 |
| Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen |
45 - 43 | +2 | 58.1 | 68.6% | 0.93 |
This result sees Astralis through to the Group A Final, confirming a spot into the playoffs, and SK drops down to the Lower Bracket. Next up in Katowice will be a North American battle as Liquid will take on Cloud9.
