Altekz powers Astralis to massive win over Liquid
Liquid's comeback from 0-2 to 3-2 was a remarkable run that showed incredible resilience and skill, but their disastrous loss to Apeks denied them a shot at making a deeper run. With nitr0 announcing his departure after IEM Dallas, the team comes into the event with the pressure off their shoulders. Meanwhile, the same event for Astralis is a ticket to prove they can hang with the best on LAN after a disappointing 2023 and a recent roster change, bringing in Altekz to replace Xyp9x.
Liquid started their CT side with a quick 2 rounds off the pistol win. And with an absolutely bizarre retake on the A site, Astralis fumbled away a 3rd to the NA side, perhaps as a parting gift to their long-time rival nitr0. The team quickly extended to 6. Astralis finally built into the half, taking the lead at 8-7 as their newest addition, Altekz, put up 15 frags in the half.
Pistol round win and clean conversions put Astralis onto 11 before rifles finally gave Liquid their 8th. BlameF turned a botched 5v2 back in Astralis' favour with a 1v1 against nitr0, and Altekz shut Liquid out of B to take Astralis to 13. A triple from NAF and an entry from ELiGE put Liquid up at 11. But they made the mistake of attacking Altekz in back-to-back rounds, with the rookie putting them in the ground to get match point. Liquid survived against Astralis' forcebuy to get 14. And the lack of a defuse kit forced Astralis to overtime.
OT gave Astralis two back-to-back defences with perfect grenades to end each round. Liquid tied up the game in the second OT half, but it was Astralis once again to get matchpoint thanks to Buzz's entry fragging. Device closed the game out 19-17 to give Astralis their first win.
Astralis will now face Cloud9 in the Upper Bracket of Group B at IEM Dallas.
LiquidAstralis| Liquid |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
31 - 28 | +3 | 93.7 | 66.7% | 1.22 |
 Keith 'NAF' Markovic |
27 - 24 | +3 | 92.7 | 75.0% | 1.17 |
 Nick 'nitr0' Cannella |
23 - 23 | +0 | 65.8 | 77.8% | 0.98 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
21 - 22 | -1 | 57.7 | 75.0% | 0.94 |
| Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
20 - 25 | -5 | 70.2 | 55.6% | 0.90 |
| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Alexander 'Altekz' Givskov |
29 - 25 | +4 | 96.4 | 69.4% | 1.30 |
| Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
32 - 20 | +12 | 83.1 | 69.4% | 1.25 |
| Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer |
28 - 22 | +6 | 83.2 | 72.2% | 1.21 |
| Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
17 - 25 | -8 | 63.9 | 69.4% | 0.93 |
| Christian 'Buzz' Andersen |
16 - 30 | -14 | 59.7 | 61.1% | 0.65 |
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