Astralis seem to be on the right path toward claiming major CS:GO titles once again. The Danish squad struggled at the start of the season and removed Philip “Lucky” Ewald after IEM Katowice in February for the arrival of former FunPlus Phoenix AWPer Asger “farlig” Jensen.
It took some months and mixed results, but Astralis have shown consistent form in June. They finished second in the Pinnacle Cup Championship and made a semifinals run at Roobet Cup last week. Such results have provided a morale boost ahead of the $1 million IEM Cologne, according to farlig.
“I think after we had a period of some rough results, we are actually on an upswing right now,” farlig said in a press conference prior to the start of IEM Cologne. “We have somewhat of a joke in the team that we made pretty OK results. We just made the finals in [Pinnacle Cup Championship], and we made the semis of [Roobet Cup]. Obviously, we still want better results, but right now, we are in a period of delivering better than we did beforehand. There’s some optimism in the team off the back of these achievements.”
The results in the Pinnacle Cup Championship and Roobet Cup were after IEM Dallas, where Astralis were eliminated on the second day of the competition at the hands of G2, failing to make the playoffs. After IEM Dallas, the Danes had a team talk to make changes and it feels they’re “getting somewhere” now, according to farlig.
Astralis will begin their IEM Cologne campaign in the play-in stage of the competition. Eight of the 16 teams in the play-in will advance to the main stage, where some of the best eight teams in the world await. The $1 million tournament will run from July 5 to 17.
