In the first day of IEM Katowice play-ins, our Counter-Strike team have won two matches in a row, qualifying them directly to the IEM Katowice group stage.

It would not be fair to say that we have some new rivals, but one of yesterday's matches ended in sweet revenge against the German team, BIG.

IEM Katowice is upon us, which means lots of world-class Counter-Strike in weeks 7 and 8. We started against Brazilian MiBR, in a best of one. After the veto, both teams met on Nuke. The start of the game went in our favor when we won the first three rounds, but MiBR managed to end their CT half 9-6, leaving us to deliver a strong CT side or go early into the lower bracket. We managed to do as asked, presenting a strong CT side, getting ten rounds and dropping two, and ending the game 16-11.

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Winning against MiBR brought us to the Upper bracket quarter-final, where we got matched against our bully, BIG, who previously beat us 2-0 on two different occasions. However, our boys had other things in mind, especially k0nfig, who had 29 kills and 20 headshots on Ancient. k0nfig & Co defeated BIG 16-9, bringing us in the series' lead.

Next up was BIG's main map, Dust 2, where they delivered firepower as expected. Their player k1to was warmed up from the previous map, dropping a solid 29 kills against us with 130 ADR. He and tabseN ended the match 5-16, equalizing the 1-1.

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The last map was Overpass, where we started on the T side, getting ten rounds against the German defense. BIG did not want to go down without a fight getting seven rounds in a row on the T side.

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Yet, our boys showed good teamplay and delivered loads of impact frags, and in the end, the win against BIG, leaving us to finally beat BIG after losing twice in a row in 2022.

The two consecutive wins mean Astralis is qualified to the group stage of IEM Katowice starting on Thursday, February 17.