This article is part of our CS:GO Recap series.
ELEAGUE Season 2 Group C kicked off Friday with two impressive second-half finishes in the first two matches of Day 1 and a highly contested final, with Astralis coming out victorious.
Astralis has went through a litany of changes of late, swapping out their previous in-game leader, Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen for Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander, and the move certainly appeared to pay off for the team Friday.
Astralis had a slow start to the final match, losing the first pistol round with a lack of trade-kills from the defense. It wasn't until the fifth round, where Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth began a streak of three consecutive rounds with two or more kills, that Astralis was able to gain a lead, pulling ahead 5-2. However, SK took a timeout in the eighth round to regroup and then managed to take four rounds away from the Danes, breaking their economy late in the first half.
Down 9-6 at the half, Astralis managed to win eight consecutive rounds thanks to the efforts by Xyp9x and Nicolai "device" Reedtz, who both shared a couple of quad-kills early to break SK's economy. It wasn't until Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo capitalized on a force buy in the 24th round, putting together a triple-kill hold on the B bombsite to rally his team back to a 10-14 deficit. SK managed to win a few more rounds after that to reset the economy of Astralis, but it wasn't enough to stop the Danes' offense. Device got the all-important bomb plant in the 28th round to stabilize the economy for Astralis before taking the final round with an aggressive double-kill on the A bombsite. With the 16-13 win over SK Gaming, Astralis will now have a better seed in the playoffs come January.
The best of the rest
SK managed to advance to the finals of Group C with an impressive second half against Natus Vincere during the first match on Friday. Egor "flamie" Vasilyev started the evening off with an aggressive push through the B bombsite to pick up a triple-kill to secure the first pistol round, setting the tone for Na'Vi in the first half. Facing a 9-6 deficit, SK fought back, winning eight straight rounds to take the lead over Na'Vi late in the second half. Na'Vi managed to only win one round in the second half, falling to SK 16-10. As a result, Na'Vi will need to traverse through Day 2 in order to stay alive in Group C.
Astralis earned their spot in the finals of Group C, defeating Alternate aTTaX 16-6, thanks to the in-game leader gla1ve, who led the team with a 19/9 KD. Down 9-3 in the first half, Alternate aTTaX came back with three straight rounds on the heels of a strong performance from Kevin "keev" Bartholomäus, who accumulated two or more kills with the AWP in the subsequent three rounds to inch closer at halftime. However, the second half went Atralis' way as Xyp9x helped the Danes secure seven straight round wins, posting a 94.0 ADR in the process.
With the Grand Final win, Astralis have now earned their top seed in the ELEAGUE Major playoffs come January while SK will go on to face the winner of Day 2's match between Na'Vi and Alternate aTTaX.
