Astralis and NIP eliminated from BLAST Premier Fall Finals

Seven out of the 13 Danes present at the BLAST Premier Fall Finals in Copenhagen were knocked out of the tournament yesterday. Astralis fell short against Heroic in another meltdown, where an 8-0 lead on Vertigo was squandered before Astralis lost their own map pick of Overpass in another overtime loss. Nicolai 'device' Reedtz and Benjamin 'blameF' Bremer kept an overall positive rating during the two maps, while especially Victor 'Staehr' Staehr and Johannes 'b0RUP' Borup delivered subpar performances.

The early exit will undoubtedly fuel the rumors of Astralis’ interest in the two benched Heroic players, Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard.

Ninjas in Pyjamas shared the same fate as Astralis, but in the case of the Swedes, it did not come as a big surprise. With matches against FaZe and Natus Vincere, NIP was given much chance before hand to qualify for the arena. Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke was the only player who delivered decent stats during the two matches. New in-game leader Alejandro "ALEX" Masanet and the rest of the Ninja-roster will stay in Copenhagen to bootcamp. Their next tournament is the Swedish Cup starting December 1st.

In the two group finals, Vitality and FaZe managed to qualify for the semi-finals with 2-1 wins against Complexity and Cloud9. The FaZe vs Cloud9 game ended as a thriller with Cloud9 having several opportunities to end FaZe’s win streak in CS2. But FaZe crawled their way back into the match, and when Håvard "rain" Nygaard said “Welcome to FaZe, Motherfuckers” you knew it was all over.

Yesterday’s results:

Vitality – Complexity 2-1
Heroic – Astralis 2-0
FaZe – Cloud9 2-1
Ninjas in Pyjamas – Natus Vincere 1-2

Vitality and FaZe are directly qualified for the semi-finals on Saturday in the Royal Arena, while four teams fight in the Quarter-Finals today.

Today’s schedule (CET):

15.30: Cloud9 – Heroic
18.30: Natus Vincere - Complexity