Astralis have advanced to the Pinnacle Cup Championship grand final following a 2-0 victory over BIG.
The German side had Nils “k1to” Gruhne fly in last minute ahead of the first playoffs day in Lund after Krimbo tested positive for COVID and remained competitive despite the unfortunate situation, but giving up two large early leads meant they dropped to the consolidation final.
There, Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz‘s team will face off against Heroic on Saturday at 15:00 , before the winner locks horns with Astralis in the grand final at 20:00 .
Astralis will play their first grand final with the new lineup on Saturday
Astralis chose to start the series on Ancient and looked out of their depth at the beginning. They were staring down a 0-6 deficit on the T side, unable to convert several advantages against a resilient BIG, but once they got their first round on the board the tide suddenly turned in their favor.
Several close rounds in the opening run meant the German team’s economy was in shreds once they gave up just one, and that opened the flood gates. From that point on, tabseN‘s team only one more round, with the Danes winning the half despite the horrid start and picking up where they left off as CT to go on a 16-1 streak.
Dust2 was next with BIG once again getting off to a hot start, this time on the back of a round that could not have been more Astralis-like, as the Danes had Benjamin “blameF” Bremer open things up with a triple only to lose the following 5v2 situation to Tizian “tiziaN” Feldbusch and k1to.
Again, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander and company struggled to find footing early as they fell 0-7 to the Germans’ effective offense. They finally salvaged the half, pulling off a couple of close retakes on each bombsite and eventually clawing back to just a five-round deficit before heading over to the T side themselves.
There, blameF prevented BIG from getting early momentum, picking up a 1v1 clutch in the pistol round and later also turning a scary antieco situation in upper dark. With a Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth 1v2 to boot, Astralis took their first lead in the map as BIG looked stumped, and despite a late resurgence tabseN‘s side fell after giving up another big lead, 13-16.
