Buzz carries Astralis to the LANXESS Arena over NaVi
NaVi's international roster took on Astralis' overhauled young lineup with both teams eyeing the final spot in the Cathedral of Counter-Strike. With the first map extending to 48 rounds and both teams giving it their all, the thrilling series concluded with a one-sided Overpass as Astralis' 20-year-old rifler Buzz dominated NaVi to elimination.
Astralis started with a 3-round haul on Mirage thanks to the pistol win, but NaVi replied in the gun rounds. NaVi’s defence strung together 9 in a row before Astralis closed the half out with 3 more wins. A clean pistol conversion and a gun round win put Astralis in the lead at 10-9. NaVi got back into the rhythm as the two teams started going back and forth. Economic woes for both sides decided the fate of the map with the Danes being forced down to pistols after securing matchpoint. With S1mple fragging his way through the Astrali's defence, NaVi locked in Overtime.
Traded blows continued in OT, with neither team willing to give up as rounds kept stacking up. Aleksib and BlameF were not only fighting in leadership but also in clutches across the map as Astralis found a matchpoint in OT3. NaVi denied the win for two more rounds before Device, who had been quiet by his standard the whole map, opened the B site in round 48 and allowed b0RUP to smash his way through NaVi to lock in the map.
Reminding us that this is indeed a Bo3, the two teams moved over to Nuke. This time it was NaVi’s turn to get the pistol win Astralis taking two gun rounds back to back. Once NaVi got going, they picked up 5 gun rounds in a row before Astralis answered back with an equal streak to close the half out 7-8. Moving to the second half, jL continued to be the driving force for NaVi as even with lower weaponry he pulled out multifrags to keep NaVi in the lead. The international squad quickly reached matchpoint with the trio of jL b1t and s1mple dominating Astralis and they closed it out 16-9.
Final map of the group stage, Astralis started with a pistol round win and their attack was unstoppable as they smashed through NaVi’s defence time and time again. Buzz was having the game of his career with 20 kills in the half as the Danes closed the half 11-4. One last pistol round for Astralis as they extended their lead to 13-4. Nobody on NaVi had even hit double digits while Buzz continued his form, taking 3 kills and the clutch to put Astralis at 14-5. iM and jL found frags on both extremes of the map to give NaVi a gun round and take away the economy from Astralis and allow themselves to extend to 8.
With just Deagles surrounding Device's AWP, Astralis locked in matchpoint. Another set of back-to-back rounds for NaVi once again put Astralis on a low buy. Finally on the A site, Astralis locked in their playoffs spot, proving that they Danes are slowly building back to their full form.
AstralisNatus Vincere| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Christian 'Buzz' Andersen |
78 - 64 | +14 | 89.4 | 70.3% | 1.23 |
| Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer |
67 - 49 | +18 | 70.4 | 75.2% | 1.15 |
| Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
65 - 60 | +5 | 69.2 | 78.2% | 1.09 |
| Victor 'Staehr' Staehr |
57 - 62 | -5 | 67.9 | 77.2% | 1.00 |
| Johannes 'b0RUP' Borup |
57 - 69 | -12 | 65.8 | 66.3% | 0.94 |
| Natus Vincere |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev |
70 - 62 | +8 | 75.3 | 68.3% | 1.09 |
| Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy |
59 - 61 | -2 | 67.7 | 70.3% | 1.01 |
 Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius |
66 - 70 | -4 | 71.6 | 69.3% | 0.98 |
 Mihai 'iM' Ivan |
54 - 72 | -18 | 69.6 | 70.3% | 0.92 |
 Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen |
54 - 62 | -8 | 57.0 | 70.3% | 0.88 |
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