• Date: May 10, 2024
• Tournament: ESL Pro League Season 19 (LAN)
• Stage: Quarter-final (Best-of-Three)
• Opponent: Team Liquid
• Result: 2-0 (13-9 on Inferno and 13-7 on Overpass)
• Watch Live: Catch all the action on Astralis.gg/watch

Friday afternoon, our Main team beat Team Liquid 2-0 in the Quarter-final of ESL Pro League Season 19.

Finally, the quarter-finals are underway! It's been almost two weeks since the Danes secured a spot in the Quarter-final of ESL Pro League S19 after beating 3DMAX to win Group A.

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Miracle Deagle Rounds

Liquid got one of their best maps, Inferno, on which they have an 81.8% win rate. The opponents looked confident during the initial rounds on their T-side, getting a 0-3 lead, but round four saw the Danish captain strike back with the AWP, earning their first round.

Two rounds later, Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz kicked off a crucial retake with deagles on B. It bounced back and forth, but the international roster led 5-7 into the second half.

The Danish T-side began well as they quickly claimed an 8-7 lead, and from there, dominated the second half, winning the map 13-9.

Before the match, Casper "Ruggah" Due spoke on Astralis' map pool and mentioned that some of their strong ones have yet to be played much in official matches - it seems like Inferno is one of them.

• The duo of Martin "stavn" Lund and Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard shared the top-fragging spot with 19 kills each.
• stavn reached a remarkable 1.42 rating 2.0 on Inferno
• dev1ce went 5-0 in duels against Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken

11 Consecutive Rounds

During the tournament, Valve announced a change to the map pool, which sees Dust II back and Overpass out. Fortunately for the Danes, Overpass, one of their best maps, is still available for the remainder of EPL.

The Danish quintet won the pistol round, but Team Liquid responded by winning six in a row on the favorable CT side.

A 3v5 round victory was needed for dev1ce & Co. to gain their second round. Staehr and dev1ce found their groove afterward, contributing to a strong 5-7 half, with both players sitting at ten frags.

The snowball kept rolling in the latter half as the Danes dominated the remainder of the match by winning every single round and finishing Overpass with a 13-7 score.

• dev1ce enjoyed playing on Overpass as he dominated the map with a 1.88 rating and 23 frags
• jabbi won five out of six duels against Felipe "skullz" Medeiros
• Astralis won 11 consecutive rounds to win the map.

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Staehr: "You can't just wait on the bombsites; you must do something"

Shortly after the victory, Victor "Staehr" Staehr joined Frederik "ministerN" Brandt on Astralis Watch for a short interview.

"We got a rough start on both maps, but during the second half, we had everything under control," Staehr said.

When asked about the playstyle of Astralis and their strong CT sides, Staehr added:

"It's important to be active on the CT side. You can't just wait on the bombsites; you must do something and sometimes change the game's pace."

What's Next?

• Our squad has secured a spot in the ESL Pro League semi-finals by defeating Liquid 2-0 with wins on Inferno (13-9) and Overpass (13-7). 
• Next, we'll face either FaZe or Vitality on Saturday, May 11, at 19:30 CEST. 
• Catch all the action LIVE on astralis.gg/watch.