Astralis have reached the semi-finals of the BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals, beating paiN 2-1 in a series that ran to overtime on both closing maps. The win reverses the two-map defeat the Danish-majority roster took to the same opponent in Stage 2 of the Cologne Major, and sends Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen's team to their first LAN semi-final since PGL Bucharest.
It was not a clean win. Astralis wasted ten map points across Inferno and Mirage, handing paiN a route back into both games before eventually closing them out in extra rounds.
They played really well and had some good rounds, and that's why we went to overtime. You started sweating a bit, but then you have some breathing room.
paiN took the opening map. Astralis started strongly on the CT side of Nuke and refused to let their opponents string rounds together, but Rodrigo “biguzera” Bittencourt’s side improved as the half wore on and reached the break with six rounds after a late run. Astralis hit double figures early in the second half off a won pistol round and a quick recovery from a failed conversion, then lost the map to a 6-0 paiN run led by Vinicius “vsm” Moreira and João “snow” Vinicius.
Inferno was the Astralis pick and they looked far more settled on it, opening an 8-2 lead on the T side before paiN won two in a row to keep the scoreline honest. The Brazilian side then survived five Astralis map points — two in regulation and three in overtime — before Astralis finally took the map in double overtime on the back of key clutch rounds.
Mirage followed the same script. Astralis raced to a 6-0 start, paiN again refused to fold and fought back from 7-12 down, and the map went to overtime for the second time in the series before Astralis closed it out.
A sterner test now awaits in the semi-finals.
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