In a Best-of-Five marathon against Natus Vincere that took nearly six hours, the Danes managed to go against all odds to reverse-sweep the CIS powerhouse on a vicious Sunday series that could had gone either way.
Coming from the upper-bracket and therefore netting a one map advantage, it was Natus Vincere who asserted themselves first in this match-up, as the Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev and Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov duo convincingly closed out a 16-12 on their map pick of Dust 2.
As Nuke came around, Na’Vi seemed poised to close out the series on a quick 3-0, putting up a decent defence against the Nordics. However, Astralis’s mastermind Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander had other plans in mind, as he lead by example to thread the needle and close out 16-14.
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Under the pending hammer of overtime, it was Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz who closed out a 1v2 with his Desert Eagle to secure the map victory.
Doubt started to creep in the minds of Na’Vi, as they started things up on their second map pick of Train with only 2 rounds on the offence. As teams switched sides, s1mple showed up to deny the worst scenario, forcing overtime. Even so, after back-to-back match-points it was dev1ce to create something out of nothing and secure a 2v3 post plant situation with a quick TEC-9 double kill, breaking the economy and making the 22-19 scoreline a reality.
The latest addition to the Astralis roster, es3tag, finished map 3 with 40 kills on the board, cementing a clear change in the momentum of the series.
Now all chips were down, with both sides standing on equal footing to the last map of Overpass. The Russian core of Na’Vi were shaken, and Danes made sure to exploit that, as they secured 11 rounds on the attacking side before the end of the half.
As the second half started, Natus Vincere managed to mount a last ditch offensive lead by electronic. However, it was too late. Astralis closed out 16-11 and surpassed the CIS team for the first team in 2020, proving that they are still one of the best teams in the World as they secured the much contested title of European ESL Pro League Season 12 Champions.
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