Astralis beat NIP to make EWC playoffs

HooXi's men bounced back from a loss to Falcons to secure the penultimate spot in the bracket stage.

Astralis have locked in the penultimate playoff berth at Esports World Cup after securing a 2-1 victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas in the lower bracket of Group B (13-3 Nuke, 10-13 Inferno, 13-7 Cache).

Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen 's side carried their success from a semi-final run at BLAST Bounty Season 2 into the Paris LAN, managing to reset from a loss to Falcons in the upper bracket to cement their bracket stage berth.

"It's not the limit," HooXi told Freya "⁠Freya⁠" Spiers in a post-match interview. "We can go way further if we want. It depends on who shows up on the day, if it's the good or bad Astralis, but I think today was good so we'll try to catch the momentum."

Astralis were in cruise control from start to finish on Ninjas in Pyjamas ' Nuke pick, rarely losing more than two players in their won rounds and dominating in opening duels in a masterclass first half. Ninjas in Pyjamas went into the swap with just three rounds to their name, one from the opening pistol win and another from turning a 3v5, and their fortunes didn't improve once on the defense.

Astralis won the pistol before an immaculate 1v4 clutch by Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr countered Roman "⁠n0te⁠" Hamze 's Deagle triple that almost turned a force-buy for Ninjas in Pyjamas , and two more clutches in the rounds that followed added insult to injury as Astralis sealed a dominant victory.

Ninjas in Pyjamas hit back on Inferno by finally turning several of those late scenarios in their favor, with a quad kill and 1v2 clutch by Gytis "⁠ryu⁠" Glušauskas providing Astralis one of their few openings in between.

Ninjas in Pyjamas carried that momentum into a 7-2 lead before Astralis repeatedly cracked into B to close the gap, and gained the upper hand off a pistol win after the swap as NIP could only count on a force-buy quad-kill from Kacper "⁠xKacpersky⁠" Gabara for output. The Polish rifler was the one who stabilized the slide with a few crucial entries, and with the late rounds again going their way, Ninjas in Pyjamas closed out to force a Cache decider.

All of that hard work came undone on the decider, where Astralis countered xKacpersky and n0te 's opening efforts and took another 6-1 lead. Again, Ninjas in Pyjamas recovered toward the end of the half, but weren't given the opportunity to claw back after the swap as a triple from Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard won Astralis the pistol and they romped to victory soon after.