Astralis have locked in the penultimate playoff berth at Esports World Cup after securing a 2-1 victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas in the lower bracket of Group B (13-3 Nuke, 10-13 Inferno, 13-7 Cache).
Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen's side carried their success from a semi-final run at BLAST Bounty Season 2 into the Paris LAN, managing to reset from a loss to Falcons in the upper bracket to cement their bracket stage berth.
"It's not the limit," HooXi told Freya "Freya" Spiers in a post-match interview. "We can go way further if we want. It depends on who shows up on the day, if it's the good or bad Astralis, but I think today was good so we'll try to catch the momentum."
Astralis were in cruise control from start to finish on Ninjas in Pyjamas' Nuke pick, rarely losing more than two players in their won rounds and dominating in opening duels in a masterclass first half. Ninjas in Pyjamas went into the swap with just three rounds to their name, one from the opening pistol win and another from turning a 3v5, and their fortunes didn't improve once on the defense.
Astralis won the pistol before an immaculate 1v4 clutch by Victor "Staehr" Staehr countered Roman "n0te" Hamze's Deagle triple that almost turned a force-buy for Ninjas in Pyjamas, and two more clutches in the rounds that followed added insult to injury as Astralis sealed a dominant victory.
Ninjas in Pyjamas hit back on Inferno by finally turning several of those late scenarios in their favor, with a quad kill and 1v2 clutch by Gytis "ryu" Glušauskas providing Astralis one of their few openings in between.
Ninjas in Pyjamas carried that momentum into a 7-2 lead before Astralis repeatedly cracked into B to close the gap, and gained the upper hand off a pistol win after the swap as NIP could only count on a force-buy quad-kill from Kacper "xKacpersky" Gabara for output. The Polish rifler was the one who stabilized the slide with a few crucial entries, and with the late rounds again going their way, Ninjas in Pyjamas closed out to force a Cache decider.
All of that hard work came undone on the decider, where Astralis countered xKacpersky and n0te's opening efforts and took another 6-1 lead. Again, Ninjas in Pyjamas recovered toward the end of the half, but weren't given the opportunity to claw back after the swap as a triple from Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard won Astralis the pistol and they romped to victory soon after.
Victor 'Staehr' StaehrPast 3 months
Rasmus 'HooXi' NielsenPast 3 months
Gytis 'ryu' GlušauskasPast 3 months
Roman 'n0te' HamzePast 3 months
Jakob 'jabbi' NygaardPast 3 months
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Martin 'stavn' Lund
Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck
Roman 'n0te' Hamze
Kacper 'xKacpersky' Gabara
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Freya 'Freya' SpiersPast 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
Kacper 'xKacpersky' GabaraPast 3 months