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Faze Takes Out Astralis, Faces SK in Final

This morning was semi-final time at IEM Sydney, with four teams looking to move onto championship Sunday, but the two matches could not have been more different.

Not so long ago, Optic vs SK would have been an exciting prospect but the Brazilians continued their return to form today by annihilating their opponents.  Coldzera led the way with an overall score of 42/16 but nobody on his team had a negative ratio across the two maps.  Tellingly, on the other side, not a single Optic player was in green for that stat.

Train - famously SK’s best map - was a slaughter.  The North American team grabbed themselves a solitary round before moving on to Overpass.  There, Optic were able to grab seven rounds but that was it.  SK cruised into a grand final spot.

The second semi-final didn’t disappoint, however.  Faze got off to a good start on Cobble, winning the pistol round and picking up the following eco rounds.  Astralis fired back quickly, winning the first gun round, only to drop the following one.  The Danes won an eco soon after to make the score 5-2 in Faze’s favour but were unable to do anything with the advantage.  In fact, it wasn’t until the 12th round - another eco - that they won again.  That was it for the half, however, and Faze ended it with a dominant-looking 12-3 score.

It started to look like the writing was on the wall when Faze won their CT pistol round as well, but a Tec-9 win in the second round kept Astralis in the game.  Glaive’s team were finally starting to find their feet and won their first back-to-back rounds.  Their momentum continued after Faze switched to a double AWP set-up, only to let a 5v3 slip away from them.  With Astralis now closing the gap, Faze took their pause and proceeded to win with just pistols.  Still they were unable to string rounds together, however, this time losing an absurd 4v2.  Despite Niko technically winning a 1v2 at the end of the round, a well-placed Molotov kept him off the bomb.  If that wasn’t wacky enough, almost exactly the same thing happened in the following round to keep Faze off map point.

It wouldn’t last, though.  With the score getting worryingly close, Faze finally found another round to go up 15-13.  The map was over just a minute or so later, thanks to an impressive four-kill round from Rain and it was time to go to Nuke.

Astralis won their CT pistol but it was Faze who then took an early lead off the back of a force buy.  The Danes won the first real gun round but were pegged back immediately and Faze continued to look strong, going up 7-3 before Astralis got back on the board.  A triple kill by Device in the ramp room stopped the bleeding, and in fact Karrigan and co would not win another round for the rest of the first half.  Astralis seemed to have found their feet and took the narrowest of leads going into their T half.

Another triple kill for Device in the pistol round was followed by yet another force buy win from Faze.  Astralis countered with a force win of their own but their opponents still had enough for a decent buy in the following round to give themselves a 10-8 lead.  Losing that round broke the CT economy and Astralis looked to be pulling away.  In typical fashion, though, Faze won another round with upgraded pistols.  With a little bit of timing luck, Faze finally put a couple of rounds together to keep Astralis off map point.

Xyp9x decided enough was enough.  Alone against three CTs, he did what he does best, isolating each of them in turn and winning the 1v1 against Niko after a bomb plant on the upper site.  Astralis wouldn’t be on map point for long, taking their 16th round immediately afterwards and taking us to game three on Train.

Alone against three CTs, Xyp9x did what he does best

Another pistol round went the way of Faze, this time in crushing fashion and there were to be no eco shenanigans.  With the score at 3-0, things got messy, but Allu got a nice double to steady the ship and after another eco it was 5-0.  Astralis finally got enough money for a buy and were narrowly able to get the first round on the board.  A second soon followed off the back of a well-played retake of the B bomb site.  A slower, map-wide push from Faze the following round ended in another B-site plant but this time it ended in the T’s favour, forcing the Danes into another eco and leaving the score at 7-1.

After yet another Eco, Astralis finally got their second round by shutting down an A rush.  Karrigan called the same play again and this time his team mates hit their shots, heaping more economic woes onto his opponents.  At 9-3 on the CT side, things were looking grim but again Astralis managed a late rally.  They destroyed a rare foray into the B bombsite from Faze and won a bizarre round to follow it up, which featured Kjaerbye pushing from Ivy all the way to T spawn.  Faze ended the half with an Tec-9 force buy of their own but were crushed on the inner site, leaving the half time score at 9-6.

Another pistol round went the way of Faze simply on the strength of their aim.  Astralis were able to plan on the following round but still went down 0-3 in the half and 12-6 overall.  In the first gun round they were able to get the opening kill but it still wasn’t enough thanks to a slick AWP/Pistol double from Allu on the outer bomb train.

Astralis took their pause but even a well-executed pistol buy round couldn’t get them on the scoreboard.  Finally they were able to slow Faze down with a couple of rounds and it was time for the international team to take a pause of their own.  They lost an eco straight afterwards, but picked up two AWPs for the next round.  It was Rain on the M4 who grabbed a triple kill, however, leaving Karrigan to take the final kill and defuse in a 1v1.  With their opponents on map point, Astralis looked to split the A bombsite but got shut down.  Faze will go into the grand final against SK tomorrow off the back of a convincing 16-9 win on a train.

Image Source: WWG.com

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