Astralis takes the battle of attrition over SK Gaming, NiP smashes Cloud9
The highlight match of Group A, SK vs Astralis, had an interesting start, as three Astralis members saved on the pistol. SK started their play very slow, and cleanly closed out the first three rounds. They continued with a powerful T side, winning the first eight rounds in a row until Astralis finally put together a defense in round nine. Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander helped pull his team back into the match, finishing the half 6-9.
Like the previous half, SK started off strong, taking the first three rounds of the second half. Fernando "fer" Alvarenga advanced NiP's lead to eight rounds, leaving little room for Astralis to make errors. Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth stepped up in the next rounds, allowing Astralis to string a few together. Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen also seemed to wake up after his poor first half, and helped his team fight back to 15-15, securing overtime at the last second.
SK swept the first half of overtime, making the score 18-15 going into the second half. The Danish team didn't let the game go so easily however, as Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye put in a solid performance to keep his team in it, before Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen secured a 1v2 clutch to force double overtime.
The second overtime saw a solid team performance from the Danes, finally grabbing themselves a lead in the match, if only for a moment. Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo took three kills to bring the Brazilians back to a draw before the Danes once again took the advantage. The second half saw Astralis regain the lead, before finally reaching match point for themselves. The Danes were unable to keep their lead into the final rounds as SK managed to take it to a third set of overtime as the rounds were at 21-21.
Astralis appeared to instantly bat back their previous losses and start a new vein of form, with gla1ve topping the scoreboard for his team with a solid 45 kills, taking themselves to 24-21. An absolute slog followed on in the next round, but the Danes managed to win the battle of attrition by taking the final round and winning 25-21.
This result sees Astralis keeping a strong chance of getting to the play-offs, sitting on a 2-2 record. SK on the other hand were secure in their tournament spot, but cement it by picking up an overtime loss.
SKAstralis| SK |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga |
34 - 37 | -3 | 88.0 | 76.1% | 1.16 |
| Marcelo 'coldzera' David |
38 - 32 | +6 | 79.7 | 76.1% | 1.15 |
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
32 - 33 | -1 | 80.8 | 73.9% | 1.05 |
| Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo |
32 - 31 | +1 | 73.4 | 69.6% | 1.01 |
| Epitacio 'TACO' de Melo |
21 - 33 | -12 | 44.2 | 58.7% | 0.66 |
| Astralis |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
45 - 33 | +12 | 88.7 | 76.1% | 1.36 |
| Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth |
36 - 30 | +6 | 93.7 | 80.4% | 1.25 |
| Markus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye |
31 - 34 | -3 | 75.1 | 73.9% | 1.01 |
| Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen |
28 - 30 | -2 | 68.1 | 63.0% | 0.99 |
| Nicolai 'device' Reedtz |
26 - 30 | -4 | 60.2 | 71.7% | 0.91 |
Jake "Stewie2K" Yip kicked off his match against NiP with a 1v4 clutch to win the first round. NiP took the gun round however, and quickly equalized the score at 3-3. The rounds stayed close, until William "draken" Sundin allowed NiP to finally pull ahead for a 7-4 lead. Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg also put in work, furthering his team's lead to seven rounds by the of the half for a scoreline of 11-4.
NiP kept up their momentum from the first half, and won the pistol round in dominant fashion. Cloud9 were unable to post up a worthy defense on Overpass, and the map finished 16-4.
Ninjas in PyjamasCloud9| Ninjas in Pyjamas |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg |
24 - 7 | +17 | 109.4 | 90.0% | 1.87 |
| William 'draken' Sundin |
23 - 7 | +16 | 104.0 | 90.0% | 1.82 |
| Fredrik 'REZ' Sterner |
18 - 11 | +7 | 96.1 | 90.0% | 1.53 |
| Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund |
10 - 10 | +0 | 66.2 | 80.0% | 1.00 |
| Richard 'Xizt' Landström |
9 - 11 | -2 | 59.4 | 80.0% | 0.94 |
| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jake 'Stewie2K' Yip |
13 - 15 | -2 | 75.9 | 60.0% | 1.01 |
| Timothy 'autimatic' Ta |
12 - 17 | -5 | 55.6 | 75.0% | 0.90 |
| Tarik 'tarik' Celik |
11 - 19 | -8 | 70.8 | 60.0% | 0.73 |
| Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham |
7 - 16 | -9 | 45.9 | 45.0% | 0.49 |
| William 'RUSH' Wierzba |
3 - 17 | -14 | 33.5 | 40.0% | 0.39 |
NiP and Cloud9 now both posess 2-1 records in Group A, and will face The MongolZ and EnVyUs next, respectively. As the end of the group stage nears, each game becomes more important if the teams wish to advance to the playoffs.
