_{Photo credit: Freja Borne}

On 28th of January we faced Ninjas in Pyjamas in a BO3 in the first Knockout Stage of BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023.
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After an exciting match against the Ninjas we convincingly won the series 2-1 thereby moving on to the second Knockout Stage match against OG.

The first map of Overpass was off to a rough start on our T side as NiP quickly took the lead and stuck with it. There were signs of hope in round 12 as we won a 3v5 secured by a sick clutch from Buzz, the newest addition to the team. Still, we only managed to end the first half of Overpass with a 4-11 score.
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After losing the second pistol round things were looking even more bleak, but we still managed to get back into the game thanks to a joint effort and strong performances from veterans device and blameF. This kickstarted a mean winning streak for us netting 8 rounds in a row to go all the way up to 11-13.

Unfortunately, the momentum couldn't take us to the finish line and in the end the Ninjas got the best of us as they managed to string together the last 3 rounds ending the first map of Overpass with a 11-16 loss.‍

Fortunately, the story was quite another on the second map of Mirage. The boys had turned on the heat and looked extremely dominant on our CT-side in the first half of Mirage.
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An early 4K from Buzz in the beginning of the first half really set the tone for the rest of the team's confident performances on Mirage as we quickly ended the first half 12-3.

‍Winning the second pistol round would be NiP's only real slim chance to come back in the game but was swiftly denied by a strong B rush play in which we managed to turn a 3v5 into a pistol round win as we went on to seal a very comfortable 15-3 scoreline.

All five players on the team really stepped up on Mirage which was only emphasized by a bloodthirsty blameF who got 27 kills with a 117 ADR and a 1.82 rating to his name.
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We were kind enough to allow NiP a couple of round wins on their CT side before finally trampling them and putting the final nail in the coffin, closing out the second map with a 16-7 victory.

‍The deciding and final map 3 of Ancient started off with us somehow losing a promising pistol round on the T side that led us to a 0-4 deficit early on. It didn't take long for us to find find our footing again, though, as we forced all five players on the NiP team to save after a swift post plant in round 5.

This initiated a comfortable 6 round winning streak ending the first half 8-7 in our favour.  We kept on riding the momentum and managed to close out 3rd map of Ancient in a convincing fashion with a 16-10 win.

The winner of today's match against OG will qualify for the BLAST Spring Final - so be sure to check in at 18:30 CEST (Astralis vs. OG).

You can watch the game here.