The Astralis Talent CS:GO team was one match away from qualifying for the main tournament, CCT Central Europe Series 4.
We were invited to the closed qualifier, which began on November 26th, but we played our first match on November 28th.
It all started in the Group Stage, where we got placed in Group C with Apeks, LDLC, and PGE Turow. The top two teams in the group advanced to the Play-In Stage, where just one win was enough to qualify.
Polish PGE Turow was our first opponent, who we met on November 28th at 12:00 CET in a Bo3.
On their map pick, Nuke, we fought back and forth in the first half, where we went to half-time with an 8-7 score.
No need to adjust to the side-switch as our players were marvelous as T's. Eight rounds in a row were enough to secure the first map 16-7.
Altekz and jarko gave everything on Inferno by achieving ratings of 1.43 and 1.41, respectively. The map ended 16-9, resulting in a first-match victory, 2-0.
Our players were now warmed up and ready to face Apeks at 15:00 CET the same day.
Mirage was the first map, where we started great with a 9-6 half as Counter-Terrorists. Despite a great start and four clutches won during the match, Apeks came out on top, winning 14-16.
We ran out of gas in the first half on our map pick, Overpass. Four rounds were everything we could accomplish on the T-side.
The unfortunate start didn't break our mental attitude as we started a comeback on the CT-side. Kristou especially wanted to claim Overpass as our map pick.
With 31 frags in total, he played a massive role in getting the match to overtime, but unfortunately, it wasn't enough as Apeks took the map 16-19.
After a day of resting and preparing, we faced LDLC on November 29th at 18:25 CET.
We picked Ancient, but Patti didn't belong to the past, as he reached a 1.63 rating and 26 frags. After a close first half, we stepped up and won 16-12.
The French squad picked Nuke but obviously had yet to see our match against PGE Turow. The story of the first half was the same as on Ancient, where we also switched sides at a 7-8 score.
It felt like deja vu as Patti and Kristou helped claim the victory with a 16-12 score again.
Two wins and a loss against Apeks placed Astralis second in Group C, which means we were to face number one from Group B, ESTOWNIA.
The three games had in common that no decider map was needed.
.. And our trend of two-map matches continued in our Play-In fixture. Our map pick, Inferno, didn't get too close. Despite winning four clutches, we couldn't handle their T-side, which resulted in a 9-16 loss.
The Estonian team once again proved to be stronger in the second half on map two, where they, after a tight 8-7 half, were superior on their CT side on Mirage.
A 12-16 score concluded our chances of qualifying as we lost 0-2 in the deciding match.
We finish 5-8th and can be proud of the performance against some great teams.
Astralis Talent's next match is against CEPTER on December 3rd at 13:00 CET in Energive Cup 2022 and can be watched here.
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