Astralis beat NIP to move one step closer to Blast Premier Spring Finals

Astralis have moved to the second round of BLAST Premier Spring Groups with a stunning victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas. The Danish team overcame NIP 2-1 after rallying from a 1-0 deficit to win the best-of-three series with a convincing victory on Mirage and Ancient.

Match Summary

NIP jumped out to a massive 11-4 lead in the opening map Overpass as the Swedish CS:GO prodigy Fredrik ‘REZ’ Sterner put on a brilliant showing for his side. The Danish side tried to make a comeback, taking seven consecutive rounds to cut the deficit to a mere 11-13 before NIP landed the final blow to take the map 16-11.

To stage a comeback on the second map, the entire Danish team put forth a valiant team effort, but Benjamin “blameF” Bremer was the one who stood out with his exceptional fragging abilities. He recorded 27 kills, 117.4 ADR, and a 1.82 HLTV rating to help his team tie the series and force the decisive map. 

As the series progressed to the final and most crucial map, both sides continued to trade blows and win rounds throughout the first half. The score remained close throughout the second half before blameF came to rescue Astralis again and helped the team gain a 14-12 lead before rolling to a 16-12 victory. 

The success of the team in the best-of-three series is mostly credited to Nicolai “device” Reedtz and Andreas “Xyp9x” Hjsleth, but it would not be possible without blameF, who did an amazing job throughout the match. The Danish rifler, who has a 1.19 rating and is presently ranked eighth in the Blast Premier Spring Finals leaderboards, added a total of 73 kills to his total.

With this sounding victory, Astralis have secured their position in the second round of the knockout stage, where they will compete against the  OG, with a spot at the Spring Finals on the line. After two consecutive defeats, NIP, on the other hand, have been demoted to the EU BLAST Showdown where they will face off against other European teams in an effort to advance to the Spring Final following two straight losses.

Buzz is blending in well with the Danish team

Although Buzz had a shaky start in his debut event with Astralis, he played his best series in the event against the Swedish team. He amassed 49–50 kills with a rating of 0.94, giving the Danish team the support they required to sweep NIP.  Speaking with Fragster about his debut with Astralis, he commented:

“It’s been very easy and fun, I would say. Obviously, I already knew some of the players. I knew dev1ce and also casle was my coach for like two weeks in Mason Sonic before he joined Astralis. So I knew some of them beforehand, but everyone is super welcoming and from the get-go, I felt like I was pretty integrated into the team.”

Header: João Ferreira /SC PGL Esports