Astralis have secured the penultimate Esports World Cup playoff berth, beating Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 in the Group B lower bracket. HLTV reported the map scores as 13-3 on Nuke, 10-13 on Inferno and 13-7 on Cache.
Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen's side arrived in Paris off a semi-final run at BLAST Bounty Season 2 and had to reset after losing to Falcons in the upper bracket. The win over Ninjas in Pyjamas converts that second chance into a bracket-stage place.
It's not the limit. We can go way further if we want. It depends on who shows up on the day, if it's the good or bad Astralis, but I think today was good so we'll try to catch the momentum.
A one-sided Nuke, then a Cache decider
Nuke was Ninjas in Pyjamas' own map pick and never looked competitive. Astralis rarely lost more than two players in the rounds they won and dominated the opening duels through a first half HLTV called a masterclass. Ninjas in Pyjamas reached the swap with three rounds, one from the opening pistol and another from turning a 3v5.
Their defensive half brought no relief. Astralis took the pistol, and an immaculate 1v4 clutch from Victor "Staehr" Staehr answered a Deagle triple by Roman "n0te" Hamze that had almost salvaged a Ninjas in Pyjamas force-buy. Two further clutches in the rounds that followed closed the map out.
Inferno went the other way. Ninjas in Pyjamas finally began converting the late-round scenarios that had gone against them, and built a 7-2 lead before Astralis repeatedly broke into the B site to close the gap. A quad kill and a 1v2 clutch from Gytis "ryu" Glusauskas were among the few Astralis openings.
Astralis took the upper hand off a pistol win after the swap, with Kacper "xKacpersky" Gabara's force-buy quad kill the main source of Ninjas in Pyjamas output. The Polish rifler steadied the slide with several crucial entries and, with the late rounds again falling their way, Ninjas in Pyjamas forced a Cache decider.
That work unravelled on the third map. Astralis countered the opening efforts of xKacpersky and n0te to build a 6-1 lead, and although Ninjas in Pyjamas recovered toward the end of the half, a triple from Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard won Astralis the pistol after the swap and the map was settled shortly afterwards.
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