Team Liquid came into the match with revenge at the back of their minds. Astralis made their way here winning 4 maps and without dropping a single one. Liquid decided to play the Danes on Inferno and Astralis picked their staple Nuke leaving Dust 2 for the final map.
MAP 1: Inferno
Inferno pick for Liquid didn’t yield the ideal results for them. It took 8 rounds from Astralis before Liquid were able to penetrate their defence. Magisk cemented his position as one the best pit players by holding the A short and Aps push singlehandedly with a 3K and Gla1ve followed it up by pulling off a smoke defuse after he brought down the 1v2 situation to a 1v1. Their first round on the board came from liquid after Astralis were already 8 round-up. Liquid managed to put together 3 more rounds following their first round on the offence, while they managed to get bomb plants on multiple occasions, Astralis were successful on their retakes more often than not. The first half of the first map closed 11-4.
Liquid did a better job on their defence, pulling off the pistol round and followed up with another victory as well. But the third round is where Astralis brought out the superior firearms, which the Liquid SMGs struggled to fight back and they got their first round on board in the T side. Astralis were as good on the T Side as they were on the CT side. Liquid were having such a difficult time on their defence keeping up with their opposition’s well-coordinated dynamic site takes. It wasn’t until Astralis reach map point that Liquid were able to stitch 4 rounds together but Astralis soon denied a 2v2 retake to them and closed the map 16-10. Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen stood out as their star player with 88.8 ADR and an impact rating of 1.37.
MAP 2: Nuke
Liquid’s defence started strong yet again on Nuke. Stewie2K and Elige shut down the 5 Danes rushing down ramp room with Stew tapping down three players and Elige cleaning up the rest. Nuke shared a similar story with Inferno, Liquid’s mixed buy failed spectacularly when Astralis came all guns blazing on their full buy round. Elige looked much refined from his previous showing on Inferno. He came up huge while taking down three-player pushing outer with a Krieg he scavenged in the earlier round which they won. His Krieg did more damaged to Astralis when he shut down a semi-eco B fast play with a 4K. NAF had his moment in the outer as he sniped down three players to level things 7-7. The following round went to the North Americans and the half-finished 8-7.
Astralis are known for their excellent Nuke and rightfully so Liquid were barely able to edge them out in the first half considering Nuke heavily favours the CT side. Liquid managed to win the pistol round before Astralis were able to convert their force buy off the 3K from Gla1ve’s Deagle and continued their streak until they reached double digits. Liquid levelled things out in the following round to bring the score 10-10. Astralis had all the answers to Liquid attempt to take the bombsite, on multiple occasion Liquid went close to winning the round and even planting the bomb more often on their T side but Astralis’s well-calculated retakes took the joy away from them and the map closed 16-11 with Liquid doing one round better than Inferno.
Astralis won their 4th premier trophy of 2019 besides 2 majors as they wrap up their season finishing at the top of the HLTV rankings while Liquid stands in the 4th position. dupreeh’s masterclass earned him the MVP of Blast Global Finals.
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