Astralis advanced through the lower bracket of the BLAST Fall Finals after their victory over FaZe Clan, delighting the Danish crowd in attendance and securing their spot at the BLAST World Final in December with their new-look roster.
Astralis jumped off to a hot start on Mirage, taking the pistol and building that lead on the back of huge back-to-back rounds from new addition Lucky. The Danes won six straight before FaZe got on the board with an unlikely eco, but the fans in Copenhagen only got louder as Astralis bounced right back and built a big lead on their CT side. Astralis took a 12-3 lead into halftime, with 20 and 18 coming from blameF and Lucky, respectively.
FaZe won a much-needed pistol round to start out their CT half and keep the crowd from getting any louder. FaZe reduced the lead to 12-8 before a k0nfig clutch delivered Astralis their first T-side round. But FaZe bounced back instantly, with a Twistzz-rain connector play shutting down Astralis and breaking the Danish bank. Astralis finally got their 14th round by countering FaZe’s connector play, and in the process, bankrupted the FaZe side before stealing away their opponents’ Mirage pick 16-10. BlameF finished with 30 frags to punctuate a successful return to Mirage for Astralis, who had not played the map since 2019.
Rain started out hot on Nuke and FaZe rode that momentum to a quick 5-0 lead on their CT side. Astralis got on the board with some Deagle heroics from Lucky, but FaZe consistently relied on rain to get entry kills with the veteran able to deliver. Rain finished the first half with 22 kills, providing the catalyst for FaZe’s 11-4 lead at halftime.
Twistzz made the task much harder for Astralis with a triple kill on FaZe’s T-side pistol round. Astralis was unable to string together the consecutive CT rounds they needed to really fuel a comeback attempt, as FaZe rolled over Astralis on Nuke 16-6. Rain finished with 26 kills and only 10 deaths, with karrigan chipping in 20 kills of his own as well.
A near flawless pistol round from Astralis to start their CT side of Dust2 sent the Copenhagen crowd into a frenzy. FaZe fired back with two straight rounds won via opening duels, but yet again Lucky delivered in a pivotal early round with a massive hold on B. K0nfig followed that up with an AWP quad kill on the A site, allowing Astralis to continue building a big lead up to 11-4 at halftime.
FaZe reduced the Astralis lead to 11-8, before Lucky got Astralis on the board in the second half winning a close one-vs-one against Twistzz. Then Astralis got lucky by challenging broky’s AWP and surviving, increasing their lead up to 14-8. A gutsy quad kill from k0nfig put Astralis up on match point and gla1ve’s AWP finally drove the dagger into FaZe.
The results so far at the Fall Finals has to make the folks at the Astralis camp happy. At their first tournament since their big roster swap, they defeated former superstar dev1ce and his NiP allies before beating FaZe today, even with both blameF and gla1ve playing under the weather. Given the teams still in contention in Copenhagen, and the ones already qualified for the World Final, Astralis has now secured a spot for December, regardless of how the rest of the Fall Finals unfolds.
