MOUZ inch past Astralis into BLAST Bounty final

MOUZ avoided a choke at 12-2 up in the deciding map to secure a matchup with Spirit.

MOUZ have continued their dream debut with their new constellation by securing a spot in the grand final of BLAST Bounty Season 2, doing so via a 2-1 victory over Astralis .

Despite the victory MOUZ will be hoping to improve significantly going into the final, as they contrived to throw away numerous advantages across the series and almost squandered a 12-2 lead on Dust2, only to save themselves the embarrassment just as Astralis to to within touching distance.

MOUZ were, however, the better team across much of the gun rounds in the series, with Astralis relying on heroic plays from individuals, particularly Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard , to get their map win on Ancient and make Dust2 as close as it was.

Astralis kicked off the series in full control on the T-side of Ancient, running with a pistol round victory to a 5-0 lead. MOUZ gave themselves a chance to grab a foothold with a couple of round wins, but squandered too many opportunities, a trend that would continue for the rest of the map.

HooXi triple turns the pistol

MOUZ opened the second half with a 4v3 advantage in the pistol, but a Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen triple turned the round. Then a Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás clutch gave MOUZ a lifeline, but they fell to jabbi 's Five-Seven in the following round. To rub salt in the wound jabbi aced MOUZ in the final round, finishing things off with a clutch into last-second defuse, closing out the map.

On Mirage MOUZ came out with a fire lit underneath them, racing out to a 6-1 advantage on their offense with ease. Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant breathed life into Astralis ' defense via an ace with a saved AWP before MOUZ 's profligacy began to creep in again. MOUZ dropped a 3v2 advantage to two retaking AWPs, giving Astralis the room to eat away at MOUZ 's lead and tie up the half.

xelex's sneaky double pushes through a force-buy victory

Heading into the second half MOUZ began to flip the script and started winning the close situations. A force-buy win in the second round of the half was given to them by a sneaky Adrian "⁠xelex⁠" Vincze double and they never looked back, clinching every tight scenario to send the series to a decider on Dust2.

It seemed MOUZ were set to stroll into the final after the first half of Dust2, torzsi and xelex utterly dominating to drive their team to a 10-2 score. MOUZ then opened the second half with two round wins to grab series point, but a squandered 4v2 almost spelled disaster.

phzy and jabbi pull off 2v4 to keep Astralis alive

MOUZ began to struggle as Astralis ratcheted up the pressure, the B bombsite proving a real problem as Oldřich "⁠PR⁠" Nový and Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi failed to deal with repeated attacks, even in advantageous situations. The mountain proved too much for Astralis to climb, however, and MOUZ eventually got the job done to seal a grand final spot.

More highlights:

• jabbi shuts down MOUZ with a Five-SeveN
• jabbi finishes ace with last-second clutch to win Ancient
• phzy bags ace with saved AWP to give Astralis their first round on Mirage
• xelex hits nasty double entry, but it still comes down to a Spinx 1v1 on 1 HP
• torzsi and PR crush Astralis with 2v5 round win
• Spinx closes dominant MOUZ T half with classy 1v3
• Astralis all but eliminated after clean USP 3K by Spinx