HEROIC won Stake Pulse Beat II in Stockholm on Saturday, beating 100 Thieves 2-1 in a final the Danish-majority side took after dropping the opening map, HLTV reported.
100 Thieves took Dust2 to open the series and then pushed HEROIC to the edge on Ancient, recovering from a 5-7 deficit and reaching championship point off a 6-0 run on the T side, with Havard "rain" Nygaard posting a 2.24 rating and a +14.23% round swing. HEROIC equalized the score and closed the map out in double overtime.
The decider was one-sided. HEROIC led Inferno 11-0 before 100 Thieves picked up a consolation round, and Tim "susp" Angstrom came close to going deathless across the first half. HEROIC failed to convert after a dominant pistol round but finished the map 13-4, with a 2v3 clutch from Linus "nilo" Bergman and Antonio "MartinezSa" Martinez ending the series.
A second trophy since the summer signings
It is HEROIC's second LAN title since Ludvig "Brollan" Brolin and MartinezSa arrived in the summer, after the team won Stake Ranked Episode 3 in Barcelona in July. The title-winning run moved HEROIC up ten places to 17th in the world and 13th in Europe.
Both finalists reached the last two through a quarter-final round in which every favorite advanced at the $60,000 Swedish LAN. HEROIC came from behind against fnatic, and Astralis did the same against Betclic, completing that turnaround with a 13-0 win on Cache. 100 Thieves moved past BBL with back-to-back 13-9 results.
That set up a semi-final between 100 Thieves and Astralis which put Nicolai "device" Reedtz up against his former team for the first time since he joined 100 Thieves at the start of the year. HEROIC's own semi-final was against Sangal, who had beaten JiJieHao in two maps behind a 1.47 series rating from Bartosz "bnox" Niebisz.
The runners-up leave Stockholm with 127 Valve points and a 14-place climb to 27th in the global VRS.
