Astralis are not off to a good start in ESL Pro League season 17‘s Group D in Malta. The all-Danish CS:GO squad featuring Major champions in dev1ce, gla1ve, and Xyp9x were swept 2-0 today by Team Spirit in the opening round of their group.
The Danes didn’t do much on their T-side on Ancient, the first map of the series, and as commentator Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill alluded to, it’s because they didn’t come close to getting any map control. Spirit dominantly took them down 13-2 on the CT-side and ran away with an easy 16-4 victory after switching sides. The CIS squad kept their momentum up when the action switched to Mirage and secured an 11-4 advantage after the first half playing as Terrorists. Astralis did come to life in the second half but couldn’t finish the comeback and force the series to a third map. Spirit held their ground on the CT-side and won 16-11.
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This poor showing by Astralis is reflected in everybody’s individual ratings on their side. Even the stars dev1ce and blameF finished the series with a negative rating, posting a 0.98 and 0.90, respectively. They’re usually the best players on Astralis when it comes to taking action and getting frags, but both of them and the rest of the squad finished with a negative K/D ratio.
The 2-0 result had the opposite effect on Spirit’s individual ratings. Everybody but Boris “magixx” Vorobiev produced a positive rating and the Ukrainian AWPer Igor “w0nderful” Zhdanov was undoubtedly the best player in the server today. He had a +27 K/D difference across the two maps, securing 46 frags while dying only 19 times.
This result leaves Spirit in a good position to qualify for the playoffs as they’ll secure a spot if they win their next match, which will be against the winner of Natus Vincere and FORZE. Astralis, on the other hand, will play the loser of the same match and have to win to avoid being sent to the last chance stage.
