It had been highly anticipated, and quickly became a showdown to remember, when Astralis and MiBR clashed together in the opening match of Group 3 at BLAST Premier Fall.
After hours of technical issues and failures to connect to the server, the CET 16:30 match finally took off at CET 18:15.
The BO3 began on Vertigo, the map pick of MiBR, and the two teams fought it all the way to overtime, with Astralis finally pulling ahead to win the map 19-16. The second map was Nuke, Astralis' pick, which after a heated back and forth ended 13-16, in favor of the Brazilian squad. Equalized at 1-1, it all came down to Inferno. On the last map of the series, Astralis was off to a strong start, leading 11-4 at half time. And in the end, it was a Danish victory, as the boys clinched the victory 16-5, and took home the series 2-1, after a stunning performance during the second half.
While the excitement of finally meeting a non-European team after months of European in-house fighting was immense, the Astralis vs. MiBR match was quite special for not just one, but two other reasons as well. Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth at long last made his comeback to the tournament scene, and the Clutch Minister looked to be back in good shape and even better spirits. And as if the return of the original Astralis five wasn't enough, the opening map, Vertigo, was also Astralis' map nr. 1000 ever played in tournaments. The team celebrated the occasion quite fittingly, winning the map and the match.
The match day hype reached far and wide, and created quite the Twitter spectacle, with the entire match sporting bilingual coverage in both English and Portuguese, to accommodate the Brazilian fans. There was also a significant profile picture bet on the line, which introduced the world to a pretty iconic 'Brazilian dev1ce', which will now be displayed in all its glory on MiBR's official Twitter channel.
The spectacular showdown even broke BLAST Premier viewership records with 504k+ peak viewers during the 1st map, and 300k+ peak viewers on the retired, Brazilian pro, Gaules' (Alexandre 'gAuLeS' Borba) channel. The current record for highest online CS:GO viewership in 2020 is 568k peak viewers, recorded during NAVI vs. Astralis on Pro League Season 12.
With Group 3 under way at last, Astralis will play again on Tuesday, November 3, CET 16:30, where we go head to head with the winner of Furia vs. G2. You don't want to miss it!
You can celebrate the match, the 1000th map, Astralis, our Brazilian friends, and perhaps most importantly, the return of Xyp9x with the limited offer of a free name print on the official Astralis jersey!
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