Falcons are through to the playoffs of Esports World Cup after a two-map series victory over Astralis, making light work of Ancient (13-7) and scraping a win on Dust2 (13-11) after an immensely sloppy and chaotic map from both sides.
The Cologne Major champions have earned a week to prepare for their playoff match as the Round of 16 doesn't begin until August 19, while Astralis will look to secure a bracket stage berth on their second try on Sunday in the lower bracket against the winner of BetBoom vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas.
A hot start from Nikola "NiKo" Kovač allowed Falcons to race out to a 6-1 lead on Ancient, only for Astralis to tie the score at halftime as Gytis "ryu" Glušauskas cracked open Middle and Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard outdueled his former HEROIC teammate, René "TeSeS" Madsen.
But another pistol win ensured Falcons never truly had cause for concern, and NiKo remained atop the board as Falcons lost just one round after the swap before securing victory.
Neither team will be proud of their showings on Dust2, which was thrown into chaos from the second round as Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov turned a force-buy with two Scout headshots. The teams wrestled for control as the game devolved, with Victor "Staehr" Staehr shining bright with a few individual highlights, both teams winning low buys and ecos, and Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen even taking a bullet for TeSeS.
Despite the mess that was the first half, Falcons looked set to run away with victory after the swap as they won their third pistol of the series and survived a few more messy late-round situations to hit match point, 12-6, after a 1v2 from TeSeS.
In a post-match interview, NiKo admitted that Falcons tried to close the game out too early from that point, and a fumbled 5v3 marked the start of a slide as Astralis began to claw back from disadvantageous situations and brought the map all the way to round 24, only for their effort to go to waste as NiKo and m0NESY found doubles to clinch victory, 13-11.
Rasmus 'HooXi' NielsenPast 3 months
Victor 'Staehr' StaehrPast 3 months
Gytis 'ryu' GlušauskasPast 3 months
René 'TeSeS' MadsenPast 3 months
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Martin 'stavn' Lund
Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck
Roman 'n0te' Hamze
Kacper 'xKacpersky' Gabara
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Jakob 'jabbi' NygaardPast 3 months
Astralis
Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Gytis 'ryu' Glušauskas
Filip 'NEO' Kubski
Falcons
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Maksim 'kyousuke' Lukin
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen
Nikola 'NiKo' KovačPast 3 months
BetBoom
Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov
Aleksandr 'zorte' Zagodyrenko
Pavel 'S1ren' Ogloblin
Daniil 'd1Ledez' Kustov
Kirill 'Magnojez' Rodnov
Artem 'Fierce' Ivanov
Ilya 'm0NESY' OsipovPast 3 months
HEROIC
Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin
Linus 'nilo' Bergman
Tim 'susp' Ångström
Antonio 'MartinezSa' Martinez
Christoffer 'Chr1zN' Storgaard
Joonas 'doto' Forss