immediately snatching away all of these kills and I'm trying to fuel
let me Jesus Tinko there we go there we go back well that kill is certainly
going to help that out and so JW all getting the trades and really important
that on foosie break it all big fight big fight for JW to win where do we go
Oh, and it is a backtracking in his AWP.
All his utility to try and slow them down.
J-W on to the end.
There he is.
It was some style.
Yeah!
I can just say, all right, guys, stop moving.
He'll give them kills.
It's the same thing we were talking about the previous series.
It's just a whole lot to hold on.
It's not over yet.
They're forcing him to smoke.
That is incredible.
Now, Hooxi has to 1v2 this 15 seconds.
What the extra turns and fights him as well!
And if you're forcing the last experienced team into
3v5 and expecting you to play the mid round, it's more likely it's going to go the paper all the way.
But then a couple of kills coming right back, Max through, it's a 1v3.
And we tap the running of Talon, he really shouldn't let this one go!
No, no!
What the fuck!
He gets that one on cello and now it's no to the 10 seconds left
There's one looking for the headshot five seconds on the clock makes the jump up and send area
He peaks into it
The punishment didn't seem to matter watching
Yeah, they needed this spell.
Oh!
He's got the eagle out still.
Hasn't even picked up a weapon since he's finally going to go down.
But Silo, he's walking around the back.
He's got one.
He gets the final knock, but it's the baby squirrel.
He needed that reload.
No tickets to live.
And that should be enough.
He'll take no one against the world.
It's a long, old spray, and he can't quite find it.
No, sir.
He can lose secondary and third life.
There's the spray down now picks up another pistol another rifle anything touches notes that
Triple like you said he's been getting better all the time on ancient ain't waiting by the donut. He's
He's cut them down. I don't know how because they were getting bruised by
Ahhhh!
They pay such a powerful position here.
Exes is kind of poor.
Oh, what? He just snaps how he gives up his life?
Yeah, I don't really know why.
They've got all three kits. They've got a good amount of utility.
He's gonna burn L and C out into the open.
Can he get one before going down front?
He's gonna help him from pit.
L and C up for it.
And that mistake is going to cost him this comeback.
Lucky up against Brenno Cuts!
Stop it!
Man, I like how fast this is looking.
They didn't get the kills required.
Venom Zera could change that.
He's shredding them.
Okay, Drudy Max moving in, that's the player that's been sent in, Zera, clip-stepping up!
The group of bad guys watching, Zera again!
A multi-kill, he's on 5 HP!
And now Makka hunting that kill down on the TAC9!
He made the point, he went around the big box, that's giving the bomb going down.
Makka, the pressure's on, has he got another clutch? No, he's not!
Oh, you have found a way to an empty bomb site and now a retake gonna be forced out of it.
Gravity's sticking around, he's trying to fight and he won't get taken down through the smoke
so he's caught by Clint.
They move into the site now, lucky.
They're gonna be applied pressure to lucky, Tanning gets close, there's the first
out of the section.
And here comes the reaction from my PR, they're gonna try and take down Lucky,
This angle is always going to be good for one.
Why not make it three?
That's one!
Three versus three.
Trabani with an AK. He goes down to NPL.
There's that one that was talking about a second field!
Wow!
See, she's not biting down on the fake, it's all right.
They're ready and waiting.
It's a ghost, he's there.
They're not going to need to be this time.
Stick it to the spring down.
Oh!
Two for one!
Cemetery!
They're going to push out.
They're going to push out for sure.
They're going to be going to come and kill, said.
They're going to have to be turned on attack, but everyone is going to be
dead.
They've got a couple of kill sets.
They might have to be turned on as heck, but everyone is waiting on the other side.
That's the force.
An MPL, they do need to see a WB.
They don't have enough money.
Oh, sir, really? Why?
Oh, nice!
Well, don't...
You can't do that!
because I think they're quite good. I was using them yesterday for HLTV unconfirmed
and now my intro is all going to be based off sponge. Thanks. There we go. My name is Sam. I'm
going to be your host. It's the semi-finals of PGL Bucharest and to join us for the first game,
Blay and Prof are here. I'm so excited because I finally have Blay on a Mongols game and well
an opportunity to talk to you about the Mongols. So here's the thing because this upset dust
considerably when Prof said it on the desk and I'd love for you to weigh in
Are the Mongols Asian Mouss?
I don't think you know what you're talking about here, Sam, because that's the other thing.
If you're talking about the Mongols having no aura, is that the implication over here?
Because for me, they are the Asian phase.
They lose to Glock's, you lose to another round with Glock's and the Deagle,
and then you wind up pulling off a 3-9 comeback against the Time Lord himself.
That is FaZe, the good FaZe, it does not show right there, so no, I completely disagree with you on that.
I didn't say it, Prof said it, so Prof, you go argue with Blair now.
I don't think that, Prof.
Well, they did really shake that title yesterday, I was ready to double down on it,
Perivison was rolling him in the first game and I was like, here we go, they come to the playoffs,
they're like, this is kind of what we do, we come to the playoffs and then we lose.
But somehow somehow they managed to salvage that series on ancient that is that is pure magic
That is that is better than face bullshit. That is Mongols name magic
And I think magic is already taken ever hurts being exported not relevant anymore. It's why it's having an IP doesn't count
Yeah, so no, I agree with that thing for Mongols yesterday. There's a beautiful just moment here from Belchinov
Oh, that was gonna kill us three to six months on this bear vision
Well, I don't think anyone's safe, but I'm actually worried about what Dastan did to the players yesterday, in all honesty, I was so worried for them.
Hello, I was watching this game, you know, just watching with some of the lads yesterday, and it was like 9-3 down.
I'm like, what? This one's done, I'm gonna have my dinner, and then Dust is like, bleh, it's 9-9, I'm like, what is going on?
And I had to rewatch some of the rounds, but just the fact that the Mongols were walking into just stat sites and singing handily dismantling them, that's not something Miles does.
No, that's definitely not what they do. At 9-3 down, Maus capitulate completely.
But, funnily enough, I don't think in some ways Mongols didn't really believe.
The interview we got from Techno after the match was just like,
He was like, hmm, I'm doing a winners interview. This doesn't make sense. We're supposed to lose this game.
It was a very fun experience to watch them go through what we were witnessing as viewers as well.
I did feel a bit bad for Paravision because I felt like it wasn't...
They were trying.
Yeah.
I was trying to reword that because it sounded ridiculous, but the day before, they sucked.
They made some really bad mistakes and they were lucky to get the win, whereas in that
map, you saw it in the first half, they looked really strong.
The two maps before that, they were putting up a good fight.
We saw the winners' interview.
The Mongols were pretty shocked they won.
I'm pretty sure ParaVision was kind of shocked as well, and that must have not been
an easy pull to swallow.
Yeah.
They did a little post-match interview props to the young guy as well, to stepping up to
do that.
But he said, you know, that shouldn't have happened yet, you know, maybe we're retired,
but no excuses.
Like, we should win this tournament 10 out of 10 times.
And that's, I'm happy to hear that, even though Dastan and Jame are like kind of trying
to just lower the expectations persistently, and that is reasonable.
It is also honest that someone like Zway will be like, actually, this is a massive
mistake we should have gone deeper at the end of the day as 1.25 million tournaments.
It's nice to win some prize money as well.
It's not like these guys have been winning and going to multiple majors.
They still have some winning to do in that regard.
And it's unfortunate as well for Zweig as he was just performing his lights out every
single game.
Even though we had so many mistakes from Noht and Belchnag's way was the one.
Some people even saying online that he should probably be playing with Donk.
This kind of crazy how we did perform despite the loss,
but at the end of the day,
Paravigian only had themselves to blame.
They went all the way three, two,
they were the two favorites.
That match against Mongols was supposed to be on paper,
the finals or maybe a semi-finals or something like that.
So they only had themselves to blame.
And even for me as well, coming into the matchup yesterday,
looking at the map pool and everything,
I'm like, no, Paravigian are the sort of team
that Mongols usually will struggle against, right?
Punish the mistakes, they punish them more,
you know, flare based style of counter strike
than Mongols play,
and yet they weren't able to stop them.
So I feel like it's a bit of a, I wouldn't say rude,
awakened, but a bit of a harsh little slap
for the side of ParaVision.
But as Bason pointed out,
the main target is his home country in Astana.
So this is going to be a bit of a learning experience
for them.
I would love to be a fly on the wall during that bootcamp
because I think it will be terrifying for anyone
who has to be there and play on that team.
But I definitely think the results will come in.
Let's take a look at the bracket
because we've spoken a lot about ParaVision.
This is this young team that kind of,
I don't want to say blew up,
but really did just accelerate quite fast.
Yeah, I think it's fair to say,
like going into Bucharest, into the Budapest major,
they are not really on the radar,
kind of snuck in, then had a decent showing there,
and then started this year, signs way,
wouldn't blast down to you, like,
straight up.
There's three teams that have won big events,
it's Vitality, Navi, and Parvizion,
that's it from in this year,
no Falcons, no Maus, no Mongols,
so they definitely were the biggest storyline for me
of this tournament and it ended a bit prematurely.
What I wanted to also focus on with these young lineups
is I feel like Foot kind of fits into that category
as well, this team of young players that's looking
more and more attractive if you're trying to find
a new team to support, right?
Yeah, and I feel like for Foot, yes,
they've absolutely been a surprise at the tournament
and you also got it off the year so far,
you also got to remember, you know,
I think the first big event they got invited to
was because one of the teams dropped out.
So I love the fact they seized that opportunity
with both hands.
In a way, they are kind of reminiscent of old Mongols, you know, they haven't got the win yet, they're really good
But they also have a little bit of a choking problem, right?
So they're not putting their foot in their mouth, no pun intended right there
But they're fun to watch, man, the individual just assure and the funny thing is you go back a few months
You look at the individual players over here
You're not really looking at any high-fragment people
But just the way they consistently deliver at a very even level almost everyone that for me is the most impressive part of this particular team
And if they're somehow able to get the win here, where they beat the Mongols and potentially beat Astralis,
Astralis being the favorites on the other side of the bracket, I think this would do wonders for them overall.
But now they can be like, hey, we can win the Vents, and I think that is something they should absolutely be gunning for.
I mean, look at a young international team, a European team, coming from an academy project, this is a European mouse.
Oh no, I can't believe we're reaching it on these roads sometimes.
And I saw it coming as well.
Why'd you curse them there?
Saw it mean.
If they lose, I'm telling you.
Miles at some point were exciting.
They were exciting at some point.
We were just like nowadays are not exciting,
but some time ago.
Aren't we so, before we get into this.
Miles already been here in the tournament, man.
Yeah, I've had Miles as much here,
but before we get into this,
I have a little thing I'd like to get off my chest
with Miles.
You know there was a time where all we did was,
when Shira was playing,
talk about how they were chokers.
Oh, the moment they get into the playoffs,
they can't go anywhere. Then they overcome this and they start getting into finals. They're
pushing for that. And now we go, oh, they're boring because they never win trophies. I'm
like, it's always Falcons. Falcons never win trophies. We don't speak about them the
same way. I feel bad for the team.
We speak about Falcons much worse. Way worse actually.
I'm just saying sometimes I do feel bad for Mars because I was like, will it ever
be enough? Will we ever be happy? If they win a major, I guarantee you I will have
someone on a day. Maybe it won't be you too, but someone will sit there and be like,
but you know the counter strike they played in the final was kind of boring. Like that's what I
imagine. I don't think anyone's going to say that when outside there's one in Rio, no one said
it was kind of boring that they won't know. It was a big surprise. Look, I've spoken enough
about Mouset over the years, over the past few months as well. I feel like if they don't get
a win soon, I feel like the line-ups kind of blow up. They're going to make a few changes
here. And we've said it's time and time and time again, but at some point you need
to make a click. But I think this is not just a mouse issue. I think the whole scene is currently
in a situation where everyone kind of needs a roster change. Vitality is so far ahead of everyone.
Navi have now shown something, but even they wouldn't, I think, mind a roster changer to improve
their chances to win more titles. I think this is an issue. We saw what happened to FaZe. We
see Falcons are struggling to break this ceiling that they have. I don't even know who to
to mention no one is really challenging vitality or going for trophies.
Apex is sitting in his trophy room laughing as well because everyone needs to make changes
and it turns out all the players are overpriced from what he's told us so he's enjoying
life.
We're going to focus in now on what you can expect today because you're going to enjoy
some great Counter-Strike.
This is what our semi-final schedule looks like.
Foot up against the Mongols that's going to be some explosive Counter-Strike but
we're going to be focusing in on 3D Max up against Astralis.
Is it fair to say, boys, that yesterday 3D Max and Astralis, neither of them performed to the level we expected?
It looks a little bit shaky in their quarterfinals for both these teams.
Yeah, I would say Astralis played worse and 3D Max played better than I expected.
I think Astralis' matchup where they got smacked on map number one, map number two almost completely capitulated,
bring it back, and then they completely dismantled our balls on map number three.
That series is pretty much a story of mouths except across the entire tournament, right?
I'll be back, last year, this is amazing.
At least someone is talking about it, they should be happy.
Sorry, I meant 3D Max.
But anyway, the thing with 3D Max is that they started off,
obviously they come in super depleted.
Almost every team who came here who didn't make it to the major,
the big names, so to speak, they completely just struggled.
Talking about BC game, you look at Faze, for example,
and that disaster class.
But for the side of 3D Max, they start off with Lucid Focus,
embarrassing loss right there.
And then even more embarrassing, almost glues to Volca,
of all things, with a stand in situation right there.
And I'm looking, I'm like, this is a dead team walking.
Like they're completely flat.
And somehow something just flips.
Something just flips.
They beat Bayt, beat Paravision,
which for me is the upset of the tournament.
And then yesterday against MIBR as well.
You know, it was closed here and there,
but they played some very solid CS overall.
The individuals,
somehow seems to have a little bit of win in the sales.
I've been saying this time and time again
throughout this entire tournament
that this is a dead team walking.
I think the changes are gonna be taking place
pretty soon if you ask me,
maybe gravity, maybe, you know,
because some of the players were not, but for the time being the fact that they're still duking it out,
still baffling it out, I think it's pretty impressive.
I mean, I think they recovered something.
Like, I think they are...
Before this tournament, I was like, this is this whole core.
I don't know if it's going to work.
You know, I don't think they want to be here.
I don't think they definitely didn't want to be here.
They had to come here because obviously you're not going to forfeit the tournament,
and thank you even more VRS points.
But after losing to Bate, losing to Bestia and the Parking Challenger,
losing the spot at the Major.
We saw infighting between Gravity and Maka
who changed the IGL role again back and forth.
The vibes were in the dumps.
And I think coming here and then beating Bay here
and getting that revenge is like,
okay, that was one game we played poorly.
We started this whole tournament, whole year poorly,
but we can turn this around.
And I think then the player vision game comes in.
Then the comeback against MIBR that they managed to do.
I think this is giving more and more power
to the steam and in some ways like everything that happened before this
point doesn't matter because they did look like trash this year. Just talking
about this quote I mean this is an interesting thing and also what you're
talking about you know the IGL the potential changes might be gravity
going out because when he says I don't know why the change happened but
Maka is now the IGL maybe I'll be the IGL again sometime in the future it
just gives this vibe of like he's not he's not really on board with this
Yes, he didn't want this it happened to him. He's gonna play now of course, but maybe he'd be happier somewhere else as an ideal
And especially consider this team, you know the struggles and trials and tribulations have had so far
I think it would really be good for them for everyone for a change to be on the same page
And if that means that one of the forces has to go so be it because you haven't really found a success
You're looking for they've been the same plateau for ever
Yeah, almost a year and a half almost two years at this point
So if they want to continue and have a slight ascent right there, you need to cut some something
Yeah, just French counterstrike things boys. We've seen this so many times. Let's talk about Astralis now no longer Danish CS obviously going international
They were they have been earmuffs is one of the favorites
They looked very strong at the start in the group stages and then yesterday
They go up against JW and what the hell happened the Mary men
I think look I look at that matchup and show Mirage not exactly good math for them
and I ballers were super sharp, super ready to shoot some heads and it was a bit of a slow
start for Astralis.
But I look at that ancient game and yes it was very close, yes they were almost knocked
out but I want to look at the positive here.
That was the only, that series was the only series where you had a few questions about
Astralis.
But the fact that they were able to shut it down, that CDD offense was phenomenal
to watch.
It showed a lot of tenacity as well, it's very easy for you to mentally crumble getting
knocked out by JW in a year for our Lord 2026 but the fact that they were able
to hold on, win the map and then just completely dismantle I ballers in map
number three shows for me that they are still a team who for me at least looking
at the storm it they are the favorites right now yeah I mean on the VRS
as Charles a ranked fourth in the world right now I think that's insane but at
the same time shows where the rest of the circuit is and how this team just
being I don't want to see consistently good but over the last month getting
a third place at EPL and now here again a top four guaranteed they're
proving something. I think they are still a team that has weaknesses in the
map pool somewhere as you mentioned the Mirage maybe not the strongest suit and
they also have a player in Fuzi on the screen now leaving the screen that is
really good when he hits his form but also has maps where he completely bots out
and that's kind of the ancient the first half and overall the whole
he actually he actually threw so many rounds in the city side. Yeah so I
think that's kind of the problem that's why they have some weaknesses
where they can't lose maps or series.
Speaking of weaknesses, you have to do talk about the rock of this team.
The rock, the rock star, the pillar, Stare, right?
Like, he has...
I thought the time I would see the giga-chance.
Well, we'll talk about it later on, but yeah, Stare has been absolutely such a consistent
force for this team.
He's not a high-straded...
He's a second high-straded player in the tournament thus far.
Yabi is the highest-rated, but the thing is, every game, every map that played thus
far, even in the loss, he's still dropping numbers.
Even in Mirage loss that he had yesterday, he had like 19 kills, right?
So he has just been kind of blossoming in a star role and even in losses, even in close
wins and whatnot, he's the guy you look at him and you're like, he's going to be giving
me that output.
Fuzi might struggle a bit, Yabi might have an off map here and there, but having this
piece so consistent, it's like he is the win factor for Astralis.
What does this matchup look like though?
In the semifinal here at the PGL Bucharest, 3D Max up against Astralis, what are
you expecting from it?
I mean historically speaking, Astralis would have had the number like back
Yeah, I think three times have played in the past three months or something and there look it's so one-sided not even going to map number three
And if you look at the score lines only nuke that yeah, I think which have paid in collage a couple of months ago
Was even barely close so as far as coming in here as huge favorites, but the only caveat is what happened yesterday
Hopefully that doesn't transpire again
Yeah, I mean the map pool is also kind of tricky
I think that's the part of the reason why the last two matchups between these have been quite one-sided because
Overpass is open for Astralis to pick that they've been picking a lot and generally enjoying and 3D Max
Yeah, and no Mirage right from 3D Max aside. So these are the two things that play into Astralis's hand
Additionally and just yeah created this massive app and there's a lot of overlap
I could clearly see in the maps they play right there and again
You got to even if you look at his numbers got to look at the opponents that played as well
The only two maps where we can potentially give the edge to 3D Max would be mirror me
They don't play Mirage anyway.
The other option they particularly have is Duster.
That's the only punish pick they have coming in.
So, Astralis will be ready on it.
It's not like, they have struggled.
It's not like they don't know how to play the map.
But you look at the other options
available to Astralis, they can go with Overpass.
That's going to be a massive punish pick coming in.
And even Ancient, even though they lost,
they almost lost yesterday,
it's a map that they can beat them on.
And then you look at the remainder of the map.
Inferno, they destroyed Eyeballers.
They like picking Nuke as well.
So, if you look at the map,
it's heavily favoring the Danes.
Let's see how this play is out now. Like you've mentioned, this may put 3D Max on the back foot, depending on the Vito.
You have to go with Dust2. Like that is a safe and only bet.
I'd be surprised if it wasn't Dust2.
Inferno is a wild country. Dust2 comes out.
I'm expecting an overpass from Astralis.
I agree.
And if they do pick overpass, Ancient will be banned out by 3D Max. I think Astralis just bans out Inferno.
There we go. And then I think we'll have Nuke. I think a bit of a handshake map coming in at the end of it.
Yeah.
Let's see, if you're correct, obviously ancient,
inferno, this is from Astralis aside, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Ancient is a six-map win streak for Astralis now,
so in that big comeback yesterday,
against Eyeball and that and you,
so yeah, it looks pretty good for Astralis.
I think it could be a three map affair for 3D Max.
I wouldn't expect them to do much on Overpass
like their results.
Their wins have been against a team
called Wazabi. They have signed overtime. These guys have 10 HLT maps played in total
after the Parking Challenge. They beat BC game on Overpass, you know that means a lot. They
did beat Furia, but online in EPL, which was a very weird tournament for Furia overall,
so that was one, but other than that, it's just defeats.
So how does 3D Max beat Astralis on Dust2?
I think, firstly, they need to wake up early on, right?
I think they can't afford to have slow struts, obviously.
And I think, for a side of a straw, it's a weird thing.
I mean, they have really good pieces overall.
I don't know why they struggle so much
on this particular map.
But for 3D Max, it's a comfort map.
But here's the thing, they beat Paravision on it.
That is the one thing where I look at that.
I mean, if you can replicate even 70% of that,
you have this map in the back.
They look so good against who are probably
the best roster team in the world.
Yeah, I think for the city side of Astralis, it was the Yabi Riu situation in the mid-mid to be that hasn't been super strong.
Fuzi, I think on the city side, has been good and Stair, Huxi just not really doing too much, he's playing long, right?
But I think the Raio and Yabi thing, that's kind of where the issues have been for Astralis.
And I think the biggest struggles they've had is when they go for these B-spits coming in.
I've noticed how they kind of seem to be caught at no man's land many a time instead of just going by the textbook meta,
which is try to go for the Tons controller, try to just fight for mid, try to go for retake or something of the nature.
Instead, they just allow themselves to be crunched in.
So I feel like a little bit more disruptive CS from Astralis on their CT side, that could make things interesting.
I think when they do play it well, it is a lot of setting up Fuzi to go for picks on the CT side.
Huxi is often there going for a boost, giving him a flash, dropping him off.
I think Yabbi this tournament has been very, he has been incredible really, so maybe they
activate him with these like lower pushes mid into lower or upper pushes to have him in
his element.
That's where he's the best when he's kind of a bit unpredictable, kind of a wild card
player.
So we've heard from both of you in your opinions on the 3D Max Astralis semi-final.
Let's hear from our casters now.
Henry, G and Anders, I mean how do you think this matchup looks in the server?
I feel like you covered it pretty well overall.
It feels like 3D Max have awoken from their slumber.
They're finally playing some good counter-strike, erratic counter-strike, the Mac 10 up front
getting the work done.
Astralis a little bit ropey, but I think Dust2 decided this entire series for me.
I think it's a map Astralis struggle on.
We saw a pro league, they're losing to Aurora and Foote pretty handedly, but they did take
that spirit in the same tournament on it.
I think this map decided 3D Max, if they can win Dust2, they've got a chance of
taking it, but overall should be 2-0 for Astralis.
IMO.
Yeah, it's a great summary.
I'm surprised 3D Max are even here, but they're playing better and better to debut go in the tournament.
Me too, Anders. I think we all are. Surprised.
I love that. I'm just surprised they're here. That's Anders.
But Anders, you were like, you were touting every unknown team at the start of this tournament,
telling us all to watch them as well.
Yes, and you know, I also said Bobby, Steve was going to be amazing, so you know.
To be fair, Eyeball did very well, right?
They did very well overall.
They could have been in the semi-finals today.
They could have been, yeah.
Yeah, it's unfortunate. For me, Astralis are winning the whole tournament.
I'm going to put that out there.
I'm going to put that on the record, Astralis winning this whole thing, picking up the trophy.
You set up and start.
But we'll see how they turn up today.
I hope they can show up and it looks like we are ready to go on Dust2.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for a semi-final?
I know I am.
And it's going to be 3D Max taken on the mighty Danes here
as we get into Dust2 picked by 3D Max.
As I mentioned, I consider this make or break a 3D Max,
calm when Dust2 call it over, Anders.
There'll be no chance of an overpass.
Well, we're going to get some early action.
They've thrown that Xbox smoke from outside of B though.
So already they're playing some mind games.
Yabi is here.
He wants to see, he's not feeling anyone.
He's feeling his little pressure on Catwalk right now.
So he might already be calling out saying,
you know what, yes, that smoke went up,
but they're not putting a lot of pressure at the moment.
Hiding inside of the Masuta, he's actually walking up.
He goes out of the smoke.
If Yabi had stuck around,
well either he would have been killed.
They would have a very good timing
trying to catch them coming out.
But regardless, they've gone from upper dark into lower
And then back through their own smoke on the Xbox to hit that short position and mark it with the opening kill of the semi-final.
Exorcist follows right up and Yabi's the one to go down. The bomb is going to be planted here.
This was bit of a slow burner from 3D Max, but it was perfect precision.
They found where they needed to. Bomb is down. They lose lucky early on in the retake though.
You've got to think of Astralis. Can they actually do this?
It's a long old retake. Everyone coming in from short. It starts with Exorcist spotting them and dropping off as well.
They just need to rock the clock here play the C4 the CTs do not have a kit
They have Jules they have foosie on low HP. Oh, he's gone now same sort of Rio and it's a very very convincing pistol victory for 3d max as
The French dominates the opening rounds here. They played much better counter strike at this tournament. Yes started off a bit slow
We were worried for them pretty much everyone wrote this team off coming into PGL book arrest
They struggled against focus, actually lost that game, lost the map to Voko as well, but then they woke up, taking down bait, Paravision 2-0, which is a massive upset, Anders, to be fair.
I feel like they just kind of said, you know what, if we're not going to play our own, Brandon Canastra, why are we here?
We're sort of seeing them just play very chaotic in your face, and getting that mag-temper gravity seem to have activated him somewhat as well.
Yeah, speaking of gravity, he is going out long with a Galil and a Sharlas
already on the other side. They've got a flashbang and we'll see how this one
works out. A lot of 3D Max players here. I by the way think this is the key to
defeating 3D Max on this map. They have such a huge reliance on these long
pushes. I think it's there the core pillar that they do well. So if you
can shut this down, not in this round with a flashbang and a USB, but in
in general.
Sure.
In general.
The T side, the overall reliance on pushing long with 3D Max is kind of wild.
It's something like almost 20% of their rounds is this kind of a long execute.
Now their win rate on is about 70%.
That's really, really high.
But again, if you shut it down, I feel like their efficiency on the other strategies
falls off a lot more.
Well we get into the first gun round here.
That was a bit of a formality, the USPs, not really much to report.
No, many casualties to 3D Max.
I'll enter with the aforementioned Mac 10s.
We only have one helmet out there, and that really is an issue.
I know you and I mentioned helmets much more than any other commentators, but right now
it is a real big deal.
There's two Mac 10s here, we'll be clearing out the mid-double doors for gravity, it does
give you a little path as well.
That model top, you can actually get out with it.
Smokes off towards CT spawn.
Yabby's there, realizing you can't allow all that control to come through.
They will retake middle.
Confirming that no one's made their way through the double doors.
There's going to be two players on that side of the map.
Flashbang comes through as luck you will lead the charge.
Confirming there's no intel for the CTs, at least in that area.
It's sort of very difficult round to hold onto your Astralis right now.
It's going to be Staird, the star player of Astralis.
Who would have thought that would be the case a few years ago.
Look at how much they're focusing on long already, Astralis.
I think they've done the exact same analysis.
They're worried about this long position.
They're in fact wrong because 3D Max are much more angling
for a B-split coming with three people up the middle potentially.
If they pull the trigger right now, the rest of the trial is a far away.
He could go for a flank, but I think he's going to be too late at this stage.
Smoke is up, flashes are in. Fosy gets the first one.
Gabby trying to make it fall back. Now alone inside of the bomb side.
That's not good news. See if they figure out who he is.
He's got about 18 bullets left. They should know he's in the corner still.
He's going to spray into the wall now. The hooksy gets a kill and Gabby!
He's done enough. He's bought the time. I don't know how this didn't work.
Max, they had everything going for them just down to XCC.
Seven and one now as he goes down,
but he couldn't win that clutch.
Very, very important round for Astralis to pick up there.
Quite a technical one for 3D Max.
Plenty of smoke, some presence shown towards A.
The backstab from Hooks.
He pushing in towards those long doors,
finding a frag as well just as they commit towards a mid
to be split.
We got to kill through the smoke courtesy of Fusey
if I'm not mistaken as well.
So that certainly helped things out.
That was a precarious round to say the very least,
focusing on the rifles instead of the helmets.
That's a kill.
We didn't see him scream, but yeah,
that's definitely gonna help you out.
He gets two through the smoke.
No way.
So a bit of a gift there.
They managed to get through the Mac 10s
and we go two to one.
Well done, Astralis.
But the real gun rounds begin here.
We've got the AWP on either side of the server.
Maca versus Fuzion, Dust2.
It's gonna be a great battle.
Let me tell you,
and Dust2 is a spawn-based map.
We've got those spawns and how long we go.
They love this long.
Again, I think Astralis know it.
They have three people at the start of it.
It's about 55% A long for 3D or 3D dimensions, about 55% of the A bomb site, 28% B.
So they have a massive over reliance on this site. I'm sure Hooksy knows it. I'm sure they've done the research.
So they've committed all five players here, which suggests that you will not be falling back and trying to reset this round.
You're going to try and slowly but surely park up your AWP player, execute him towards A, and contact Prak in towards the bomb site.
Hooksy though trying to hold him through his smoke. You can drop his smoke in the middle of long and delay as long as possible,
possible but he wants to hold on to it. This is potentially fairly dangerous. He thinks he's doing
a shallow peek but if Makka goes in on the other side it's a really wide peek. That's a very good
point. Here comes that smoke as referencing earlier lands in the middle of the long position
means the segregates the fights. Anyone who wants to creep forward just like that will be
by themselves. Gravity flashed off. Very good flash folks. He's got portable targets now.
gets himself a nice double. Fuzzi once again. Absolute BS through the smoke, finds him a
four on two. It's lucky that Exorcise remaining 35 seconds on the clock. Astralis have this
one in the palm of their hands. It's time for Exorcise to try and save the day.
I think the research here for Astralis is giving them so much to work with at the
moment. So you think you can bring it back here on the French side of things. Yabi,
he has been on a world tour. He's come up long now and they will be able to
Shut it down. He'll get the other one.
I do want to find out Yabbi.
Before he got to that long position,
he was checking top mid.
He went back from that, checked lower and upper dark,
and then he came back to long again.
So while all of this was happening,
Hooksy was getting flashed in.
Yabbi was just looking everywhere on the map
to see if there could be a potential fake,
or a late lurk, or anything like that.
So a lot of work for Yabbi
before he gets that flanking kill.
The straighting finish for the French there.
You get all that long control.
Five players alive, no damage taken,
and you don't even get near the bomb site.
Very convincing victory for Astralis.
Nice work from Hooksie.
Double flashed in to get that double kill.
It looks so obvious to me that Astralis
have had this conversation going into the game
about this long position.
They know everything they need to right now.
The real question for me is,
can 3D Max come up with something new?
Again, their B attacks just, I think, aren't that impressive,
but obviously they could do it.
The B splits, a lot of other teams,
that's their bread and butter.
They'll do the B splits and they'll do short executes.
I feel like most top teams on Dust2 right now,
that's where they do their work.
I don't think you can even justify
a partial investment here.
It should be 3-2 for Astralis all day.
Long ladies and gentlemen,
if you're just joining us, welcome to the show.
We have a couple of games to bring you today.
This is the first of two.
It's gonna be 3-D Max versus Astralis in this semi-final.
We have put versus the Mongols later today.
But now though, Astralis definitely the favorites.
This matchup has happened a few times this year.
Astralis always take care of the French.
No problem at all. So what we're expecting the same today, but as I said in the pregame it all comes down to dust to 3d masks
And somehow get this map over the line. They have a real chance taking the series
I don't think they managed to hold their own on overpass, but on nuke. That's a good map for them
They can fight back
Yes, and I think I think it's important to reiterate what you brought up earlier
Which is the fact that astralis are shaky on this map. So they may be very safe
Yeah, it's not this is not some sort of a prime map for them
They played quite a bit, but they still have a lot of things to iron out
Like I said at Pro League they took down Spirit 13-2 but it was one of the worst looking spirits we've seen in a while.
Sure. They went on to lose it against Foote and then Aurora in a really convincing defeat.
But for now as we mentioned it is the full eco. CT side for Astralis going well.
After losing the pistol they will find themselves with a 3-2 advantage on their opponent's pick of Dust 2.
Maka the last player remaining. Glock in hand. Bomb down in front of him. 40 seconds just hoping.
and over-aggressive CET will present themselves,
but this is looking very nice now.
As I mentioned, losing the pistol, getting three in a row,
five players surviving their enders,
bank accounts swelling at this point.
It can be very comfortable with the finances,
and you've got three AK-47s in the hands of Ryu,
Stare and Yabi.
It's gonna be a difficult recovery now.
I don't think we can buy the AWP on the T side here,
so they're gonna have to dig deep in the strap,
but this suggests more defaults,
trying to get basic map control,
executing towards A, all the aforementioned B split.
They get a nice long spawn, they'll definitely take it.
We'll see if Maka decides to operate in that manner.
He's actually gonna be setting up the double doors hint smoke.
So in that comes.
Lams.
And Yabi's gonna try and use that to get towards lower.
We're on watch for those smokes.
Oh yeah, he steps into the Molotov
so they're gonna hear that on the other side.
He has to back on out.
Still a cool idea though.
Don't hate it.
Only one smoke in the middle
so as you could tell it could be blown over
by that single HE.
Nice damage yabbi
After getting his toes burned somewhat offers up some in return take gravity at 61
Here's some in the flag before we get to a potentially if 3d max go for these B splits later on
Astralis is one of the teams on the CT side that have really started to bring back what used to be a very very meta boost in
CC spawn where you boost up on that's on the box
Sure
Astralis one of the team that are doing it a lot more than other teams recently
So that could be a potential weapon for it, but right now it's pretty defaults kind of set up here
Kuzi, you've got to assume you're going to get flashed off this position.
Could have had a bit of luck with him, but it's not going to connect with anybody.
And again, we got Kuzi out on Long.
45 seconds remaining here.
The objectives of the default completes.
You have short control.
You can't go mid to B or you can execute fully in towards A.
They have one single smoke remaining though.
It's entry down.
Shaves of 5 seconds of the clock here.
Looks like we're going for an A attack.
The ones we've talked about will be used to fake towards middle.
there's gonna flash in towards A and is and hope for the best here we go I don't
hate it actually everyone committing to it foosies there they got the AK that's
there on the ramp 19 seconds on the clock that's the real issue here getting
slowed down 3d max okay they're gonna get rid of stairs and I think at the
pond planted it's a bit worried that we're gonna get locked into a fight
there for way too long no further utility on the T side now similar story
for the CTs they have one in Sendry at the fuse kit and one flashback
That's it. And that Sendier is far away. It's on a Riu who's now walking into middle.
Yabbi, if you go down here, it might be very tricky to go for the retake.
They've got a lot of money on the CT side, so they want to still keep it a look in.
But they are getting shut down with Suta with an important kill.
Exorcist gets the next one.
And Riu, they're never going to get up that ramp and he knows it as well.
3D Max. Keeping it simple, but I like it.
There's a bit of fakery in middle, but apart from that, straight up.
basic approach yields a nice round that once wrote down towards shore couple of
flashbangs over nail your jewels they didn't have the adbp to work with that
but it will be tied up at 3d3 as we mentioned though oodles of cash for
astralis as they call that first time out here they'll save one ak47 so you
to decide if they're bringing out the adbp on dust 2 foods you almost
certainly will have a 3d max tying things up right now we'll see what
that call is going to be. Now that they have the AWP within their ranks, very important
round in terms of the finances for both teams here as we do fully invest. Opening map of
the semi-final. Astralis are the favourites. 3D Max, no one even expected them to make
the playoffs. They felt like a dead team walking before this game began. Started off with
that way as well. The opening results sucked. And all of a sudden, they found some form
and here they are in the semi-finals looking like they're quite a deadly squad once again.
Yeah, because this was a team that everyone said this is the gateway to tier one counter strike
3d max is you have to beat and they they took down so many teams that were trying to get in there
All of a sudden they started losing to them instead and it felt like they kind of lost their identity a little bit
Seems to be back
Exes sees out here. I think they're just faking this lawn push
Which is going bad for T spawn. Yeah, they do it so much. That's obviously another way you can use that
They're not biting down. It's too hard. We talk about reactive cs on dust too
You've lost that long territory, but you can see there's a lot of presence
In towards Lower, Yabbi,
They have a full utility belt, AK-47 in hand.
Getting further and further into the tunnels here.
Gravity might not have any idea.
Oh wow.
The timing could be amazing.
It's so ridiculous, they were looking for him and now they're not for you on the other side!
Wow!
Yabbi!
Oh, the damage here to the M'Sutra as well.
The grenade almost might do it.
Okay.
The bounce is off the wrong way.
You can just fall back off this one.
Yeah.
Really unfortunate timing there for Gravity.
The moment he disengages from the angle.
That's when Yabbi peaks, you've got a push coming in from up a B as well.
Astralis clamped down on them, and that's looking very promising indeed.
Round pretty much over.
Not impossible to win this, I suppose.
It is a 4-on-2, but Misuta down to 21 points of health.
The new boys had a great tournament to be fair.
We've said many times now the headline for the tournament has been
who can make the least mistakes.
At this tournament especially.
Yes.
And for Astralis, this is an opportunity to make mistakes.
If you start fighting now for some weird reason you wanted to push him in hook see is a really great leader
And I expect that he's gonna be calling the troops back and reminding them
Just don't don't do anything crazy here
But we see many teams at the tournament do that in exactly these kind of moments and that's exactly how you lose the rounds
They're gonna save it out. I do like another aspect of this in 3d max
I think apart from the fact that they use their initial long utility
Which again they do so much that astralis are gonna be on on you know high alert for that kind of stuff
So they use that as a fake and then the fact that they leave exorcise in the pit
Sometimes if the CTs will do like a late retake of long having that pit player that suddenly there could just be very good
But none of that works out they get caught in upper dark instead the timing for yabi was just ridiculous wasn't it?
Yeah
Sweet as enough
Astralis not taking the bait
Knowing they liked to that long position but at this time a bit of Tom foolery in the mix
They get the long control it's always ecstasy's on those lugs
CTs react nicely get into wolves lower be let's get information elsewhere before we take the bait that they're going for another long attack here
Money's still okay for 3d max after saving a couple of players. I've got the orp still for maca
But it is gonna be a tech nine for lucky and gravity on that girl
Trying to get some low B control, but that might be a little bit harder
Then you might think because even while fully blind food as you pause the trigger and take gravity back to earth
that's very nice Henry
so you'll have to see that
bit of fortune there completely blind times it well
and what can you really do with this one
you got a bit of utility remaining looks to be a mid to B split potentially here
we got the bomb and two players by Xbox could vault up and go towards short I
suppose
no one in towards upper B suggests that might be the play
I don't hate it. Sometimes all you need for that short play to work is, you know, one
good shot, aka AWP. Currently, Hooksy, that's on the ramp this time. Nice work. Yeah. Yes,
when you're thinking about doing a mid to B. Yeah, and that's really gonna slow them
down right we're already at 40 seconds what's the play here we've got one by
the T spawn that's Maca he's hoping that hooksy or someone will push those
long doors but no one's coming I think they've run out of time yeah I don't
think you can do anything with this I'm so worried as well I defected Maca is
this far back but what do you do you're 20 seconds I think you have to
save you lose gravity at the start to the boost with it like a blind kill and
That's it, the round's over.
That's not encouraging.
There's gotta be a plan B here.
Well, there was not.
That is it, definitely saving now.
I guess they realized that we're not gonna win this round.
That smoke, I think, confirmed it
from the CT side towards double draws.
Yeah, you're right.
As soon as I came down, they realized
if we run through that way, we're dead.
It's over.
It's over!
And the vibes are immaculate.
Astralis are feeling themselves.
Fuzi is a great character.
One of the best signings of the year.
In my opinion, Anders, not sure if you disagree,
I feel like no 2026. You're right. He's brought the squad back to life super likable
Rio coming in as well not as much of a character, but a safe pair of hands
And it feels like that's what has gone from one of the most hated organizations and teams to one of the most beloved right now
They don't need with stair playing as well as he is
Yeah, it's not it does look like it's all self again a little bit more and then who's he on top
You don't really need more firepower. You need a stable player
But in reality, like you just have to someone I could just play rules. That's fine
Someone who does what they're told fits into the hooksy system doesn't have an ego
Yeah, I think he ticks all those boxes because not to throw all the blame on to onto stone
Right, but when they had stung and you have it together like they had instead
They had a lot of firepower maybe more even but and a lot of emotion
I suppose a lot of emotion and yeah, it was too much like it couldn't be controlled in one way or another
Yeah, this is good time is time. I've been called
It's 5'3". I don't have a timeout or tech timeout, but regardless.
It looks to be technical from my POV. No one's chatting at least. So yeah, it's like a technical
issue right? It's joining us. It's been a long old tournament here at PGL. Lots of
best of the reasons for system. We're here in the semi-finals though. Lots of great
counters, lots of exciting series. For a studio event, I think it's delivered on
all fronts. They're on mine. $1.25 million prize pool as well. This is no joke at
So this is a massive tournament and with the major around the corner great
Great signs of what these teams are hoping to deliver with that around the corner
I think one of the cool things about this event has really been because it's on the other side of the VRS horizon
It basically means that we were allowed to see all these teams that maybe we wouldn't normally see normally
Yeah, we would have mouse and you would have spirit here and vitality and all the rest of it
But because they're focused on the major instead
This is this is kind of you get people you get wild card in there
You get focused in there and it's been such a revelation and these teams they shoot really hard and you can tell that they are you know
You keep following them for another couple of months. You never know what's gonna happen. It's a rare treat. I think
Absolutely true. There's been some very impressive surprise packages at this tournament
I think focus is a great shout although they fumbled a lot of their huge advantages and it did big rounds
They should have won you could see the fundamentals were there
You could see what they're bringing to the table. They've been a team for two months and in the future
They are going to be deadly. They have got all the right pieces. They just need more time
And I'm not even saying that ironically like I normally do that you do need a little bit more time to tidy things up
It is the meme though. You're right. Yeah, but yeah eyeball especially making a huge name for themselves
Arguably should be in the semi-finals today as well
But still very impressive that JW made it to a playoff. It is yeah
He managed to pull off an ace against the Shrullers. Yeah, like he's he looks like he's fully back
Max the had some Max the stuff happening on King he wasn't really on my radar before this tournament
But my god is he ever now and speaking of focus right like Jorco was out there. Yeah, he's 17
Desks and I'm with time maneuvers with the elbows first land that I've seen ever you're already making memes for himself. Yeah
Yeah, no, it's great. It's been it's been I think it's been really fun
Sometimes you end up with the same matchups for like a bunch of tournaments and it can get a little bit stale
You know, so I enjoyed this aspect of it. We're still waiting on the tech stuff to be sold it out
Don't know what the issues yet. We'll figure it out soon enough
I'm curious
What 3d max the fact that they that smoke I understand the smoke was well timed
Yeah, but that seems like a level of indecision on the 3d max side that has me worried
Yeah, if I like they didn't get what they're looking for they wanted a jewel along
Astralis denied it so they got a long space but no one there to really do anything with it and then as soon as they're smoked off
It felt like the clock had rotted down so much losing gravity as well as normally your point man
Normally the guy running in first it just felt like with the tech nine and the gillil and a five on four thirty seconds
I think it was the correct choice just to put that out there
Okay, it is just like it's an underwhelming way to finish around it doesn't garner momentum a kind of actually
starts
Starts to make you think the team is shrinking and they're a little bit lost
But we'll see what the next round has in store players drop out the server. So hoping to get it back on
Relatively soon. They do save four weapons, of course. I mean look at it now. They were two AKs the saved AWP a galil and a tech nine for gravity. I
Could throw this in the mix Henry go for the second half if you are a 3d max fan
You think it was a bit of rough
It's a bit of a bumpy start here when they get to the CT side gravity his best position on the map
It is going to be the Dust2A rotation.
Okay.
Now he plays well.
The body also has his position on Dust2, which he plays very well too.
So, both two players on that side, very highly rated playing CT side A. That's pretty good.
I hate to say it, Anders.
Go on.
The body don't in this team anymore.
The body's not in single right.
How the...
Well, if they had him, if he's in there...
I couldn't decide to say that.
No, appreciate it.
It would have been funny if you kept me going for a while.
I know.
I wish he was. That's why we have to have one of those a day for me, but it's okay. It was the counting yesterday. Yes
I said with great confidence first team to 15 in overtime and I was just a confidence day
Yeah, no, he did leave before this tournament. It's Masuta now who has looked very good
Overall, I'll work on something else tomorrow. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, but I don't have a third place to side
All right, we do have a third place to side that and speaking of which at the PGL
a Singapore Major, it's going to be a third place decided for the first time ever.
You're right.
That Major is, which is pretty cool.
I enjoy that, and they put the horizon for the VRS a little bit closer to the event,
which I think is also quite nice.
Yes, yeah.
Like that.
So it means tournaments like this that are quite close to the Major actually have significant
impact rather than it being cut off halfway through.
The drama stretches further towards the Major.
I think that's quite nice.
Well, I feel like, yeah, the VRS still has its flaws with SEALs, still seeing
teams exploiting certain rules and regulations.
like Liquid, for example, just doing what they can to make it
to the major is fair enough, not really criticizing it.
But I feel like we're still kind of fine tuning the VRS system,
but it's getting better and better with each pass of season.
Maybe with that extra time in the calendar, too, to make it
maybe get body back, so I could be less wrong, Henry.
That would be nice.
That really would do you a favor.
You did say that you actually liked him on this team, though.
Yeah, I thought he was the vibes guy.
And right now, they don't really
seem to have that hype man.
I think Maka can provide that.
but I thought body was a super stable.
I think you mentioned as well, French teams,
we know that passionate nation.
Passionate.
Yeah, so I feel like maybe there was something going on
behind the scenes, maybe inter-personal issues.
Used to be sort of the joke in early CS GO
that those French teams, they only lasted like six months
and then something would break up.
Even though they were really good,
like they were powerful teams, but.
But no one expected much from Masuta,
but he's had a really impressive tournament.
He's not like a new player, fresh off of academy team.
been around for a while. Nobody in fantasy striker. True. Yeah, that's true. No one expects
him much apart from striker, but he has looked very strong. I think there's like, this is
like your final call up. He's always been a bit of a journeyman within Counter-Strike.
Like always regarded as a decent player, I suppose, but no one has ever considered
a star or anyone that's really going to be mentioning him on the analyst's desperate.
Yeah, he's proven that he's been in the lab and grinding. And yeah, nice pickup
3D Max and here they are in the semi-final. No one expected that. Maybe towards the mid stages of 2025,
you'd say you would expect 3D Max to make it to a playoff or quarter-final, but here in this season,
no one thought they'd make it this far, especially at the opening games. Some terrible, unforgivable
losses, but it seemed to light the fire beneath them as we are just getting ready to get things
underway. Viada joining us as the first map picked by 3D Max, winning the pistol within
Astralis fighting back and looking solid on the gun rounds here. It's currently 5 to 3 as Astralis
As I mentioned in the pregame if they win does to I don't see a world where 3d max can pick up over
It's 5 3 with 3d max winning the pistol round. Yes, it was you know putting that in there
It was a pistol round with a 2-0 start the third round for spy would remember they had
And fours with no helmet up against two Mac 10s true very scary round
Astralis managed to win that pretty convincingly. So they've done well
Since then, there's been one round picked up by 3D Max, but so far so good for
Astralis. An inconsistent map to say the very least. Dust 2, sometimes very good for
them, most of the time very bad. They can get some great results in it. As I
mentioned in EPL, they took down Team Spirit 13-2. We thought, okay, this is the
real deal of Astralis now. Don't mess with them on Dust 2. Then they went on
the play foot, I think lost 13-2. They went on the play Aurora, lost like
13-7, maybe I'll get in the scores that are on the wrong way around, but you know what I mean.
So yeah, it's one of those maps they either turn up and do very well on or they just completely
collapse. Right now though, there's a club that's turning up nicely after losing said pistol,
and we are getting ready to get back into the action. But bear in mind, there is more action
around the corner here. We have two games for you. We have the second semi-final of the
day, which will be Foot vs Mongols. Mongols yesterday, we thought they had no chance
One of the craziest games we've probably ever commentated.
Paravision up 9-3, T-Side of Ancient just running rings around Mongols and then the Mongols
switch over and get 10 rounds in a row on their T-Side.
That first half, the entire Mongols team was just hooked up to the J-Mind machine.
He just knew everything.
He'd read all their thoughts in real time, he literally knew everything that was happening
on the map.
It was the most commanding T-Side I've seen in a very, very long time and we thought
Well, that's it. We're sort of laughing our way through saying obviously a Parisian
They'll get the rematch against foot in the semi-final
It's pretty much all laid out there and then they won exactly zero rounds in the second half
Like I still can't even really comprehend it ten in a row. Yeah, and there are opportunities as well
And it wasn't like there was like a little new mistakes coming in from para vision and then throwing rounds
It felt like they were stolen away. Yeah, like individual greatness from the Mongols like some unbelievable
sequences, crazy shots, one taps, like they allowed Mzinho, who's having a terrible map
to warm up enough into the game to start finding some impact towards the end.
And techno.
And techno, yeah.
Really good.
9-10 was great throughout the series, but yeah, what an amazing game.
What are my favorite maps of the tournament so far?
Must be, yes.
And also because it's this insane clash of styles that was happening, it was the
vibe space, Counter-Strike of the Mongols, but it's this airy, very almost military
system that they've got going on over on the outside.
Oh, we're back.
Podcasts concluded. There we go. You've got all the updates you needed here
PTO Booker as 2026 we're getting into round number nine
Astralis with a firm grasp of their CT side right now the last losing the pistol after 5 3 as we foos it on the AWP
Mac are gonna be boosted up looking for any sort of short aggression, which could become and hooks he's on his way
They have a Molotov sure that she wants to invite this sort of push to me
Oh god, right two players taking max damage that landed right on top of them
And they don't even get the pick off that they were looking for here.
It looked like Hoopsy was gonna walk into it, because he's a little bit smarter than that.
They're jumping up in their own smoke, just like in a pistol.
Oh, they're gonna-
Oh!
Absolutely blasted that half-walk.
Hoopsy with a double.
You'll take them all out of damage, falling back from this one again, Nostralis.
Really hard shut down here.
And they had Fuzi out on Long, which allows them to have all these mid-presence.
I didn't even get a look in.
I think the Nade already decided the outcome of the round.
Oh, no.
Like, once you go down to half-HP, like, you can't win any jewels at that point.
And when Hooksy not known for the headshots, he just needed a couple of body shots, spraydowns, and there it is.
And after such a long involuntary timeout, you come back and you're like,
Okay guys, let's go. We're ready. And then, boom, the round is over.
So, 5 on 2. 45 seconds. This is safe territory, I'm afraid.
Strahler's not the sort of team to make mistakes. Hooksy's got them well drilled.
I don't think anyone will be trying to hunt them down and try and get some territory here, you can see.
We've got a three-man set up towards A1 and CT spawn, two tucked away and B1, no one's trying to inquire about trying to take down the AWP.
Let them keep it. We've got to keep our money strong.
This could be a long old save here and there's nothing to do, nothing to savor.
Crawl back to T spawn and hope that no one's coming for you.
Now, with the timer running low, Astralis will start exploring the options of the hunt.
at least trying to find those AK-47s. That's going to be the aim of the game here and finding
AKs across the map, seeing if they can scoop up a couple of them, but there it is, round
over six to three. That's a domination there, well played by Hooksy, changing things up,
leaving Long pretty much vacant as using the Xbox smoke against him. He tucks himself
in, a perfect grenade from the bottom of middle. There's over 100 damage and that
I always go to see if Yabi just know he threw that nade. He's up to a hundred and six utility damage as you go into round number ten
That's so hard to deal with I feel like for 3d max
It's hard to lose rounds like these where you don't even get to test out a strategy because you like you can't even cross it off the list
You can't sell that kind of work. You don't even discover anything about the defense either. You just lose before you get close to it
so
Another one down the drain as we go into round number ten this time
There is gonna be a lot of conversation from the coaches here as well
3D Max, they need more rounds here. I think they need to get up to something like five
here in the first half before things feel a bit more comfortable perhaps.
Three, make it two AKs, it's not as bad as I thought. Two AKs on the CT side, but money
starting to collapse here. Maximum loss bonus next round, they'll take a partial buy
around the AK and the AWP. It can macify any sort of impact to open things up.
I don't think simply talk about long control. They love it, but the CTE's willing to retake your and is they're gonna be flashing over
And it's gonna be my suit to fighting back. You'll find hooks in the very least
There's still a couple of targets to deal with here, but yeah be
Gets himself a double. It's absolutely chaos towards long, but a winnable situation now gravity down to 66 points of health
But ultimately it's two on two. They'll smoke the crossover as a back step coming in here from Ryu very quickly
Oh, there's a gap in the smoke
they know it as well after wasting time to get themselves across, hoping it open!
Perfect play from Fuzi who's got another HE to work with as well, well read from Maka,
one versus one. It's Yorbs, locking horns here.
Yeah, another grenade that lands, the other one is already gone.
Not that Maka knows that, the repositioning here.
It's going as long.
Yeah, this is so smart.
Maka's spending all this time, he thinks he's still in the battle against someone who's
in season 4.
He might go B.
Yeah, that actually could be a really good play, that'll kind of give him some of the
power back in this round. Tech 9's out. He actually stole that at the end of the last
round otherwise there would have been a block here.
Who's he's coming at? I don't think he has the timing though.
Oh, I think he's going to be just around the corner.
Oh, that's close isn't it?
You know he's going B though. If he's not here yet, you're going to assume he's
actually made it to the other side of the map. So, Advantage Mach out. Gives himself
a very nice plant. Bomb goes down. Penny drops. Foosie just wants to know if he
crosses the double doors. He gets an intel. So now he can reposition. It's going
to come down to this shot. I think an acrobat is taking clean lead towards the doors and
hope he wins the fight.
He's got a smoke though. He's going to flash his way through. Good flash.
That Tech 9 stolen can actually kind of make a difference. We'll see if he gets the shot.
Oh! Fuzzy!
In the window! Absolutely owned him!
Yeah. Couldn't have played that any better, quite frankly.
You do everything.
You drop that smoke. This allows the first shot but you throw the flash into the
smoke. Completely blinding Acre. He has to disengage from the angle allowing
use go through window you know he's towards the tunnel you saw him cross over no one's gonna be holding car of an orb and
then you can peek and have the advantage nail the shop that is a beautiful round from foosie yeah he
everything about you pushed him exactly where he wanted him yeah he forced his house and
shut up the abbey as well didn't think he was worth two here but takes into town with that AK-47
foosie better mind brought her into the 1v1 nice room for math guy to catch the rotating flank
Hey, yeah, boozy, that is a master class in clutch from the suite.
It goes 7-3, that was the partial bike, comes down to 1v1 to be fair, but, oh, this is a
bit messy, gravity, completely alone.
Um, did you have a Mac 10, I want to go check.
Maybe he was doing one of his wild maneuvers.
Yeah, I had an 8k, that was just, I noticed a bad play.
One player going out there with a couple of flashes, not really sure what you're
hoping for. I think they're getting a bit desperate here on the 3D max side and
said from the very start that long positions where they do all the work
Astralis have comfortably shut it down. Look at this setup now. Yabi to take all
the aggro for Ryu, who's tucked away they don't really have the resources to
flush him out. You can feel them coming. Ryu waiting for his opportunity to
swing or if they've run past. Smoke is up as well on top of them just trying to run out. They can't really see everything, they've just been right all the intentions there.
And Yabbi will do the rest of Stralis.
They are making quick work of this in the first half of the moment.
They're up to the solid eight rounds right now.
I'd like to see the replay of the opening kill.
Maybe it was just a complete blind kill and gravity got unlucky,
but I just don't know what the intention is.
You said one player out with those flashes,
you're suggesting everyone's coming behind it,
but if you just kill one and there's nothing in return,
no one jumping out the doors behind them,
you know it's a fake, you know they're up to something.
Yeah, it just goes down clean. They like that's the call. It's it's not a good one
That's been I guess like some of the sub theme here for the first half has been
There's not a lot of plan B for 3d max like either the first thing works or they they sort of
Shuffle about they save a bunch like it doesn't seem like they know what they're doing next because you haven't put
Anyone away from the map that if you got one kill I suppose but it just didn't seem like it was
Even a challenge you felt like such a clean kill from the CT side
That's why I said if I could see if there's POV maybe give it the benefit of the doubt but
Final round of this first half
It's going to be astralis. They could even bring out a double orb set up if they wanted to but they've got so many ak's in their ranks
We'll see if that's going to be the case
Might as well bring out the double orb
You could juggle it over to b for the first encounter I suppose and then have a rifle with you
That's an option. That's a level of luxury that you don't always get. Yeah, I don't know if they're going to do that
But uh, we'll find out
Maybe rare, maybe they could get the ultra sniper Henry. I know you've been asking
They won't have it equipped unfortunately. That's a problem. The loadout system just doesn't really allow it.
Yeah, I think you've got this point many times that it's...
Yeah, I might make a tweet one day, you know?
Okay.
Maybe I'll make a tweet to say let's...
Well, we've got this new AnimGraph update coming.
Yes.
Let's just get rid of the loadout system.
We want every gun to be viable. Let's just be able to purchase all the guns.
I agree.
Because no one's got a loadout, so the autosnip is never going to be used.
So even if it would be viable and you're running away with the game,
You've got plenty of money. You just don't even have the opportunity to buy it doesn't really make sense
I don't think the loadout system has worked as intended. I saw simple recently bought the T side of the sniper on dust 2 for one round
That doesn't surprise me. He's the kind of guy that we have at equips. I guess you to sacrifice to kreeg and something
Never yeah, and then you have the orders night. But the T side of makes more sense
Not so much CT side. She's the farmer. She's the scowl need the 2m 4s and you need the orb. Yeah, there's no slot for
Yeah, that's where we are
3D Max in a lot of trouble if they get four rounds Henry. Is this still a fight?
Is there a chance for 3D Max to come back? I look too deflated. There's a chance to get this round
But it's like I don't know they didn't seem up for it
It feels like they've already kind of given up if that's what they're bringing to the table in that previous round
That's what the strap books got to offer. I would say probably not and that's if they can even get this last round
Another match pause allowing them to stew in their juices as unfortunately we can't chat
in these technical timeouts you just have to sit there thinking well we haven't
already turned up today we've won the pistol we went up to zero we've won a
single round after that which was a pretty scrappy playing towards a B
bombsite but let's have a look maybe they've got something up their sleeve a
bit of magic left in the 3D Max tank. Let's look at the scoreboard, we've got the time
here Anders, we'll see who's turned up, who hasn't.
Yabi's looked very good, he's had a great season in my opinion, I think he's looked fantastic
revitalizing his squad 11 and 6, or 11 and 5 to be fair. And then everyone else, hovering
between 5 and 9, Fuzi with 9 kills, he's had some massive impact, especially in 1v1
where he played it to perfection. I think Yabi was ultimately the guy that
save the Stralis on ancient against eyeballs. Yeah, without him. It's they actually don't
make the semi-final at all. So he's a rock of a player super stable. Even as a slow star,
he has got great mental fortitude to bring back zero 10 score lines and even end up
top fragging at the end of the goes to overtime. Like he always finds a way to bring it back.
Yeah, I'm happy. One of my favorite astralis players and stare hasn't had to be the
star of the show. He's five and four right now. Everyone else turning up. Look
at the 3d max side of things apart from exercise everyone else has four or three
frags so exercises your lurker as well he's not finding the big impact kills I
think he got three kills in the pistol that's true yes I don't think he's
really had much impact either just waiting for this last round to come in
we'll look at the money as opposed I'll try and bring in every bit of information
I can max loss bonus three and a half thousand dollars per player you can't
afford the orp you can't really justify AKs across the board you
be galels, one AK, a couple of pistols, basic util. And as at this point, I think if you
get the longspawn, just take it with five people and fully commit to the site, or use
go for a fast mitt to be or straight at B rush. Those are your three options. You can't
run a default with this sort of weaponry. So I feel like those are the three things
I'm anticipating here. I can look at the spawns actually. There's something. Okay.
That's the next thing I can do. That's very good, Henry. You're doing a lot of
work right now. I haven't got the best longspawn. Masuta has the third best,
So that's not really an option to go for the long take.
You know, they have got very good B spawn.
You could just go for a straight up B rush here
with the little guns.
We know they're good with Mac 10s.
I would say that's probably where they're gonna lean towards.
That's a very rarely used now.
And maybe because it doesn't work all that often,
but some of those mid rushes you can do,
I think are quite fun to watch.
They're hard to pull off obviously
because you're gonna have to smoke it off
and you have to run for your own smoke
to get out there with the flashes and everything.
So it's not easy to do, but it's cool to watch.
You mean when you jump down suicide, I can throw a nade, and then smoke goes down and you're going through it.
Definitely cool. That's the kind of strategy you need to bring out.
Okay, so you don't have enough resources or firepower. You need to catch them off guard, overwhelm them,
and hopefully get an opening pick. We need someone like Gravity and his Mac 10 to do something here.
That was such a fun talking point when he was bringing that up.
I think it was one of those infernal games where he boarded, I think, like 12,000 and he just kept buying the Mac 10 anyway.
and was finding double kills as a banana against full buys.
Even with helmets.
Yeah, just made it work somehow.
Introduced a level of chaos into the game
that was kind of hard to overcome.
But the thing is, once you're found out
and they know those are your plays,
it only works for so long.
Yeah.
It only catches a few teams off guard.
Yes, I'm bored of this as well.
I'm talking absolute shit right now.
So let's get, we're hoping to get back into it.
That was the problem that I had with this T-side
from the beginning, right?
the fact that they are so reliant on that long push that you don't have to be a genius
to figure out that, okay, we'll figure out how to shut this down. What is the next step?
Like what are you going to do next? And I don't think 3Dmax have the answer at the moment,
unfortunately. All right, Hook sees also running thin on patients. This is nothing.
These guys, they should have been here at the start of CSGO when we were d-dossing
lands still Henry, if you remember. When we were de-dossing lands, we had our long breaks
for the friendly chicken, joined the server. Remember that? It's been so much worse.
That was fun. These kids don't know. Yeah, that's true. I remember that.
That was good. We had to keep the pro players off Skype because the
IPs would leak every single time. Yeah, a few leaks from Skype over the years.
That is true. Very true.
Here's a thought. The T side win rate for Astralis, they played this map 301 times in the last three months.
The T side win rate is about 36%.
Wait, wait, wait. 301 rounds.
301 rounds. Okay, yeah.
I know our body is still on 3D Max, so I'm glad you're checking.
That's what you're here for, Henry, just keeping us sane.
But apparently we are going to head to a bit of a break, Henry.
Henry. Okay. Before we get any further, stay tuned and we'll be back with the action once
all the problems are solved. So don't go anywhere. See you there.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the semi-finals here at PGL Book Arrest 2026.
It's 3D Max taking on Australis, we're on the first map, first half, final round of said
half.
It's been a very flat performance from 3D Max.
Australis normally quite shaky on Dust2Anders, look very strong today.
They need this last round, but the resources are low.
We talked about gravity, needing a Mac 10.
We need some sort of pop play here.
We need a set piece.
We suggested going toward the B bomb site,
trying to make their way through,
and opening things up with a crazy sequence of events.
We'll see if that comes true,
as Fuzi takes the first shot towards Shawl
and goes Yavi in towards Lower.
Flashbang's coming his way,
and the first kill lands in his favor.
Make it a double.
9-3 looking very possible here.
There's fire everywhere around him.
Send here in front monitor from the back and somehow he still picks up a double
That's a lot from a position where he was never really going to get out alive
Still a chance in the round with the recovered AK-47 to be fair
Ryu in a nice position looking for one kill Maca just the contact play this spacing is terrible
He goes down by himself the rounds over
Thankfully bait up the shots and well who's your finer missus so disjointed and this is
pretty woeful stuff I could tell you don't like it Henry the recites they
tell a story of their own your big play was walking one player in with no trade
potential with no smoke down at the doors you're just hoping you've no one
would be there you've effectively won one rifle round on this map yeah that's
it so I could understand your disappointment they go on to myself
it has to be ahead of the flash doesn't land you should hit this all day
long. Yeah, that's right. Wow. Not the semi-final we are looking for. I'll be honest with you. 3D
Max have had a terrible season. This is the one tournament we thought, okay, they're turning things
around. But this particular showing on their map pick, after winning the pistol, being up 0-2,
you'd think, okay, now we're onto something. They pick up one gun round and that was it.
What's the 3D Max from that MIBR game? Because I had MIBR winning that game really hard.
They looked like they were ready to go and 3D Max beat them and I give them a lot of credit
for that. I think it was really cool. They played some great Counter-Strike. They looked aggressive,
but now it's pretty flat. 9-3. Again, I will say the C-side here for Estralis is not amazing.
If 3D Mexico wins the pistol, I don't think it's over. If there were some more close rounds,
though, like in some clutches that fell apart, I'd kind of be with you. But there was, I
suppose, that 1v1 between Maka and Fuzi. That was sick. That was the closest round
a foosie absolutely only can't stress that enough that yeah that's a great round to analyze after
this one just the way he played it and the way he guaranteed the victory for himself made it impossible
for mackard to do anything with it but that said though we go to a pistol round here goes without
saying or say it anyway 3d max have to pick this one up they've got themselves an incendiary
double a cheese whether they're going to double made the doors or made lower b is yet to be seen
Double smoke, so that means they can smoke the long cross and wait and do it again.
They can bait out the utility from the CT side in theory.
Exes...
Assuming that they can't even get out here.
Exes sees that's a nice shot.
Now, can he escape? He's sticking around. He knows if he runs, they're gonna catch him anyway.
Oh, he's so flashed.
And he does go down.
The smoke is already up for the cross and this is where I said, now the CT utility's there.
They couldn't theory waited out, but...
Right, Cheap.
Oh yeah, they're ready for more in fact.
I don't know if they smoked one either.
Flash is going all blue and Astralis, they commit to it the first time around.
Bomb being countered as we speak, but Miss Suta gets one.
A bit of a jumping attempt, that's risky, foosie with another kill.
It's down to Huxedo, one versus two with a Glock, he should be dead.
He's run out of bullets, it takes some time, but they find him,
they win the pistol, the first step in the right direction here for 3D Max.
Needed that, but still a lot of work to be done.
The bomb gets planted, there will be a force by in the second round.
I think the first shot that exorcise got killed one of the smokes that they had and never picked it up again
Not that it that necessarily made all the difference, but it should say had two sources of style
You I think you have
Through they threw two there's one towards short as well
Yeah, you can see it down the right hand side of the screen
Perfect, one cross over one is short. Beautiful. Thank you Henry
But it is pretty convincing in the end, but as I said forced by almost guaranteed here and we have got a decent long spawn
Not going to be necessarily brute forcing away in but the grenades pretty much notify yabby's round
Surprised that he's still alive here. I know there's two players now towards that blue position
It's gonna be lucky to find one towards short at hooksy
So looking comfortable here yabby's low five and four advantage
out long and quite possibly locked in when this happened to 3D max they did it
or when when happened to a Charlest they decided what 3D match is doing now they
went to investigate to find out is there anyone lower dark anyone anywhere else
and then they committed to the AD defense right is what the French are
doing right now open the crossover they've confirmed there's no action
towards lower or middle it's really nice play though in front of the
U-Till just as he sees a repositioning. Here comes the backstab though. The round is still alive. Lucky full speed ahead
Got to get past this scout though. Mrs. Descharte does Fousey
Definitely can retake this one. You're not gonna be saving here
Another shot doesn't land. I don't like that they planted not for short
They planted on the wrong side of the box here. So if they get pushed back on the short
They can't really stop the defuse. It's a bit of an awkward plant right now
Fousey do the best they can to slow them down. The suture on this side. Oh, and he wins that first fight
That's not bad. Now if Rose is down, but Ryu here.
Okay, he's got it in the center here. They have a smoke on the other side though.
They can put it up. Anyone going to smoke this? There we go.
Lucky 10 second defuse.
Refuse on the other side of the box. He could fight through this,
but there's nothing he could do right now.
Passed it back on out. 3D Max, a very important round.
Thankfully they had that smoke. If they don't,
that's five seconds taken off the defuse time.
I don't think they have enough to actually win the round there.
So, with the bomb planted, AK surviving there,
and three kills picked up, I daresay,
Astralis at least consider buying into this again. You know you've got them a breaking point
So we'll see whether they want to
Bring in an extra bit of spice here and round number 15. So yes, indeed it will be buying
Even more potent than before two AKs one galel upgraded pistols helmets utility
So a lot of pressure here and we're going for a set piece out of spawn mid to be spoke smoke will be set up by Ryu
They love doing this, but with a really heavy mid-presence, it doesn't look like that's the case right now, but it's a say.
Something that's trying to favor a lot on this map is running three people in the middle for these kind of splits.
Right now they're all in the middle of the dark.
So it's going to be a B-pounds with Huxley lurking in the middle.
Criss-cross smokes, he'll throw the one on the left.
We will throw the CT spawn smoke from outside B tunnels, which has gone down.
Huxley will try and maintain aggro towards that side. It all comes down to their extravity.
It's Incendiary down, but they're gonna push through that and it's gonna be Fruzzi convincing so far.
Misuta double kill, that should be enough to win this one.
Yeah.
Bomb goes down.
Incendiary is scary for that moment, but it did its job just fine, Hooksy looking in the middle still.
Rio trying to find anybody.
He knew that gravity was in that corner somewhere.
Misuta, oh, what would have done it, I think?
It's so low on health in this one, Rio's gonna go down and Fruzzi knocked along behind him.
couple of players they're very low but Misuta with a very respectable double
killer so we're trying to get through the incendiary is enough. Nice idea from
Astralis but it all comes down to that incendiary forces the jewels he did so
much damage before they can even find you and then you had Misuta at the back
providing the covering fire getting the double kill rock solid that's more
like it this game is back on now I was no bomb planted it's still gonna be
partial by territory so we'll see some upgraded pistols maybe some Kevlar
but overall should be 9-7 here.
Smoked down towards the double doors, no damage on the cross and aggressive in towards level B
and that aggression pays off. It's gonna be lucky to open things up.
3D Max started the show some more character.
Yeah, this is more like it.
Yeah, grabbing his back with the SMG now.
He's up running and shooting, nice shot from Ryu to be there.
But, um, yeah, Dave from Wolken the French is what it feels like.
This is great news, there wasn't really much of a semifinal bit going on.
and it's getting kind of a bit stale there in the first half, but it's all changed now.
Cooksy getting shut down for my money.
I think that, I think the key to victory, because I don't, I don't love Astralis, their splits on B.
I don't like the long-exchutes. I think short is the position that Astralis need to focus on to win this.
I think they're really good at taking those fights against the A-bomb side.
So we'll see if they converge on that idea a little bit later on.
They haven't really had much of a chance to fight with the rifles.
They're going to get it here again.
We take a tactical time.
Now you can see Rugga trying to calm down
the stress levels of Astralis.
They've lost four in a row.
Feel like we should already be done with this one.
Nine, three, a half lost a pistol.
We had a couple of four spies that came down through the wire.
Didn't quite work out, but you're dead on.
This is more like the 3D Max we know and love.
Getting aggressive, getting stuck in.
Two players, fastened towards lower B,
securing the round early.
And now they've got a nice financial status going forward.
A two round game, all of a sudden this one gets interesting.
And they got more of their individuals activated.
Mishutra is supposed to be the best player on Dust2,
and he's starting to show that a little bit more.
Lucky up there as well with 10 kills, marker up long, okay.
The off-shot doesn't really work, but yeah, Yabbi, look at what he's selling.
This is all a bit of a ruse.
You're smoking across over, you're molly the car,
the bombs end up a B and they're transitioning over.
They're trying to maintain three players over towards the A bomb site right now.
They are feeling the pressure.
They answer back with that long smoke themselves in the CT side, trying to slow them down.
And it means there's only one player in towards the B side right now, gravity watching towards the middle.
And they're waiting for those reactions. We talk about that on Dust2 all the time.
If you lose territory, you have to explore your options elsewhere.
Yabbi won't be committing much further towards Long, he's holding off rotations now.
Smoke goes down towards the tunnels.
It was way too deep though.
You can... they'll still cool it off. It's going to say like that deep smoke,
you could probably pop that open and give it a good go.
But for now, they're gonna be resetting.
I feel like they had their opportunity, but now you've got one more player inside of the B bombsite.
I see if they go back to the tried and true heavy out mid.
They do love it, yeah. So three people stacking up in the middle. I think this is, again, this is what they do a lot.
40 seconds.
They're smoking the B doors, setting up the flashbangs here.
Now towards middle, a traditional B splits in, nothing down towards CT spawn, they're willing to take these duels and they'll find Lucky.
That's so unfortunate for Lucky, he might even have been expecting that a smoke would have gone up.
Now towards Short, he might be the only one who can stop this, they don't have a molotov for him.
He gets to first, he can't quite land a second.
Gotta go through.
15 seconds, you're right there for no time.
Incendiary down in front to try and slow the plant from ever happening, 9 seconds now.
They're still bleeding players here, just Fuzi left, but I think he's out of time, he can't win the round any longer, even if he picks up the bomb there.
Another kill, just don't fight him, and you're going to be absolutely fine.
Oh, that is a very close round, it's an interesting call for Astralis.
Yeah, lots of moving parts there, they were getting ready for that B execution, the deep smoke comes in.
I thought they were going to go through it, but they fell otherwise as they go back towards middle.
Mid to B split is where it started to get the kill and he said right we're gonna go back up towards shore for back to this air
Opening kill then the smoke gets dropped as well
And this gets very messy running out of time
You can see them scrambling towards the A site and they'll save one AK-47
But once again another partial buy here at one round game
9-3 lead Astralis letting this one slip by 3D Max
Really have awoken here as you get to smoke down towards the double doors Mac up
but has got the HG to blow it open if he wishes.
There's no smoke down towards X-Box,
calling for a bit of backup from Masuta as well in CT spawn.
You said from the very start, Henry,
for this to work out for 3D Max,
they kind of have to win this map.
They have to win, does to.
There's no two ways about it.
I don't think they stand a chance against Astralis
on overpass, very technical map,
one of their specialty picks.
Yes.
So that's the context for this,
but there is a prize at the end of it
if they get to a third map.
I love walking out middle and challenging.
We're used to doing it again.
He spots one, but can't land the shot.
Don't hate it.
Sometimes you could get away with it,
especially early in the round,
you get away with a little bit here,
but he hasn't found anyone yet.
Smoke's gonna be landing on,
they're already on that, at this point, just go.
You've already got everyone here.
But Mac is ready, he's gonna get at least one.
Hits the first shot, that's just you to go now.
Shooting gallery in front of him, pops into flash.
Damage converted, Yabi's eagle known to be deadly.
We need to trade here, but not gonna happen.
No scope from Makka.
Excellent round from him.
Three and a half kills as he tied things up.
Nine, nine, it's now wide open and anyone's game.
Well, let's hear what Makka has to say.
Why am I doing fucking what?
That's just made my whole day.
That's the 3D mags we know and love.
They looked so out of it, so dejected in the first half,
but now he's fired up.
You know you're in a mood when you're owning people
in a round and you're still screaming at them,
as if you're still just so angry.
Here we go.
Here we go, the energy.
Gravity's found his confidence.
Mac is certainly as as well.
Opening pick on Fuzzi, completely blind towards middle,
but they can't capitalize upon it.
Have a flashback.
Gravity going out with the advantage that...
Looking for 10 rounds here.
That's woken me right up, Henry.
That was six rounds in a row now for 3D Max,
Looking for 7 and to take the lead here on Dust2.
Okay, we're back. The semi-final is back. We're in round of a 19.
And Marker, he's already got one kill. Now he's relocated to the other side of the map. Let's see if Yabby will be ready.
Scary angle when you're coming from the T side here and there is a backup solution as well.
Even if you get Marker, are you gonna check that close left corner?
Oh, he's so good right now.
A second kill.
And what's the plan here?
You're in a 5-1-3, they go back onto the catwalk.
Still think this is their best opportunity, but when you're two people down, it's hard to make it work.
That's absolutely true. Almost impossible at this stage.
What are your options really?
I hope to catch a CT napping, but you've been smoked off.
Good flash, but it's going to be re-opening things up.
Pressure for Matthew now. Does he want to keep challenging and go for another or allow them to have the ace side?
Do they go for a retake here? Feeling a lot of pressure.
They should be able to nail this shopper. Hooksie of all players will find the AWP.
Oh, it's all starting to fall apart. It was looking so strong. It was looking so good.
I think Ecstasy's court jumping up there as well are five on three anders
converted into a three on one advantage in favor of Astralis here.
that is especially right after the war cry from the previous round that's that's
a bit rough to deal with yeah I want to hear the in-game comms of hooksy now
what's he gonna shout in return he had that kill like I know he was flashed
macro on the first one I think hooksy got a jumping kill there wanted to play
jumping up front of the plan I think hooksy hit him on the jump up I
think I didn't see it but that's the only way I could see that kill going
down. Let's have a look. Hopefully records that. Well, he is the gigachat. He is hoping
now. Couple of kills there for hook. See a five on three. They give up. That's the round.
They get to Stralis on the board in the second half, maintaining their lead here. Nice injection
of cash. They recover the AWP as well. It's Fuzi. It's 17 kills. I felt like 3D Max
were running away with the second half, but there's a bump in the road. See that
round timeline yeah top of your screen I love these graphics so it's such a
good way to remind exactly you know how we got here okay long bush coming up
there's four people on the side of the map hold away how does he win that double
ball atop here yeah ready for more fights here
gravity though he's gonna answer back so much all the time they just keep on
throwing them over the wall here he taps him away lucky he's dead he had
had to go for taps there. Three in the magazine had to go for the one taps and absolutely destroys
him. Round's not over though. Math Cat has been playing very well in the second half.
They'll go for a round reset. There's been so much chaos along. It's going to be making
the way back for T spawn. They know there has to be at least one A. So if you send
four people towards B, you're walking into a one before a most. And that's if anyone's
there. Most likely zero players. The math is pretty easy. Even I could do it. Even
you could work that one out. And for now zero players in towards the bomb site. I think you
just run in, you've got a low HP player, he'll just jump around the corner just like that.
And you should be good to go here unless something unbelievable happens on the cross
but they've got smoke for the doors. That's round, it's gonna be 11-9. And bear
mind they don't have lost bonus here, they've won a lot of rounds but they have nothing
to speak of a lost bonus so there'll still be a buy going forward especially with the save
drop. Yeah. But it's gonna be Astralis now touching distance of the first map of their
Pwners pick if they have time to throw away into the aches out long that would kind of be the icing on top
Wouldn't it if they'd actually toss them over the walls online?
They did escape pretty quick. So
So no, they had four players from the CT side to defend that long push
They had one flashing and three combative on the front lines. Yeah, Yabby though
Yeah, God is he good like with three bullets in the magazine understanding that he can't go for a burst
He can't go for a spray only a one tap will do and he absolutely nails it
Eviscerate his opponent on the other side astralis back on their feet here
Nice injection of cash thirty five hundred dollars extra for each player
But the wheels save the AWP and the AK 47 former suitor. Yeah channeling scream was about to make him to come back
Yes, right. It's been a week for the unks in some sense. I've we've lost phase, but you know, we get JW back scream suddenly back thing
I mean good luck to him a lot of a deal
But it's going to be a very difficult climb back into tier 1 for him.
Not many people could ever really come back after something like a long break like that.
Especially when you've been playing Valorant for the last four or five years.
Yeah.
Quite a transition.
Because it's not really the meta right now, having one player run around and one
tapping people.
This doesn't really work as well as my technical game CS2.
And yeah, good luck to him.
Wish him all the best.
I'm sure he's still got it in terms of the aim department.
It's a story at least.
The story is falling apart with 3D Max though.
Crazy work but I hope you don't get picked up like that.
Let's look at that tab.
Free bullets in the mag and have to go for it.
Unreal.
That's a good spot.
Okay.
11 to 9.
3D Max.
They did save an AK and an AWP.
They counterflashed it again.
They want to fight for long but then so do the Stralis.
They are ready to go up here once again.
he'll get the first warning because they want to disconnect from this now.
Who's he? It's one more but the battle continues.
Astralis, relentless as they get up long once again.
Lucky.
He's cut down.
Well, it's been absolute pandemonium here along the last couple of rounds
but once again it's Astralis leaving with the advantage
but a lot of damage taken.
Masuta now needs to try and lock them in.
Can I allow them to reset the round again and get towards T spawn?
He needs to close that door, close that exit.
I think he has Danny stop the middle right now
Leave it marker alone
Who has got a cheese flashes and smokes will throw a flash over trying to pop out his chest?
Another smoke comes in though. It's gonna have to vault up towards short drops of smoke to provide some cover
Okay, gives him a nice angle here
Someone's gonna make a mistake under the sign
He's got back up with him as well. This is your time. You'll pick up two kills
leaving Krusey alone 40 seconds, just evaporating in front of his eyes, low on health Masuta so
there is a chance to find someone in the smoke, let's see, oh it's already gone now, you can just
fight them straight up, his shoulder kicks are there, wide swing but Mako with the eagle as well,
not even the AWP, that was a must win round from 3D Max, if they wanted a chance to win in the
map I think this one had to go their way. Absolutely true, Masuta stepping up there,
beautiful spray down confirms they weren't falling back from long they were
continuing their push in towards the east side connects up with Mach up gets that
spray down and yeah just after chaos here towards long I like to start off good
enough to win this round in the three versus two with this kill especially
finding lucky no damage on the cross number 22 we're going the distance
Molotov bound towards shore could be macro with multiple HEs here making sure
they can't get up towards shore here but we've talked about this Xbox smoke
double-door smoke. Gonna be trying to pop it open again and see if there's anyone close
towards the double doors for his rifle.
If that had actually worked and blown it open, I think you'd have to be seeing Stam, but
it was a little too shallow. Oh my god!
Hooksy on the catwalk and now in the middle they picked him up! The defense is gone!
That is very nice work from Stam. Hooksy has had enough of this, taking matters into his own hands.
5 on 1, Miss Sootsa, we know he's the B player fighting for his life and in terms of the investments they're all in, right?
There was a close run before there again, we're only going to get $1,400 so the hunt is on.
You want to guarantee they have nothing to work with going forward here.
Take him down at all costs here, you know where he is and that should be GG.
That is so comprehensive because they're so close to the middle he can hear them run as hooks he gets to the opening kill.
footsteps in CT spawn and he just goes for it. Really nice shots from stair as
well. Yes. His best sequence so far we haven't really said his name. He's had
quite a quiet game by his standards 18-13 after those two kills but as I
mentioned the loss bonus is gonna be a huge factor here all five players go
down so to hold on to your map pick you've got two SMGs two pistols and a
scout. Astralis should be no world where they give this one up should be
GG right here, right now.
Yeah, we're gonna need some scout headshots. We're gonna need gravity with that SMG magic.
They, they need something brilliant to bring them back in this one.
Masturana's taking a much lower approach. The bomber's back in T spawn.
They're gonna be clearing out camp or using the molotov, although actually they want to fight this into the A-case.
That is risky. Surprised they're still alive, and they've fought for that.
still exercises here they've done some damage yeah five-cent of the corner
it's doable stag goes down okay he took a lot of that's all it's scalp dancing
around the middle this round is still on three on three oh look at this yeah
it's a free kill oh he just turns around but it doesn't matter now it's
interesting you're not gonna get a better chance than this one to close
it out look so Marcus is gonna headshot here as well yabby he gets dropped
And now, down to the suite, the Danish organization.
Can he step up and close things out?
No, he cannot.
They fumble.
We go into round number 24.
Now their money under scrutiny.
That's cool time out called.
And it is the SMGs that allude them once again.
5-7s towards short.
Masuda pushing towards upper B, finding Ryu.
That's a frustrating round, but you've got to let it go.
Got to focus on the round ahead.
find our magical call that gets you the hell out of here and moves us on to
Overpass.
What's the spawn like on that T side because they've loved fighting long.
I can tell you right now.
Very curious.
Not great.
Actually, the worst spawns I could hope for for long.
Okay, well, not one single spawn past suicide.
Take anything into a B rush setup right now.
Okay, well,
which I don't think that we do.
They're not big fans of the B rush, uh, Charlotte.
So it's kind of risky to call, I guess, the last round of reloadation as well,
when you know they're going to have more weapons on the other side, including two AKs.
It all comes down to this.
Astralis should have picked this game to bet.
And the previous one, scouts, pistols and SMGs.
Too much to handle.
You've offered up AK-47s now.
There's no orb on the CT side.
Mac has been very good luck.
Smoking towards B, the bomb is in towards upper as well.
Just trying to feel the map out.
We've got a double door smoke coming through, players towards middle and a log from long courtesy of Stare, so mid to be looking likely lucky Delweav.
What an opening, again there's no smoke in CT spawn, so the fight is just there for him.
And now they're gonna go back.
This is their favourite manoeuvre, suggesting it's mid to be then getting up towards shore when the rotations are coming through, they've done this multiple times and Mac has no orders.
Yeah, that's a big issue, all you need to back up at the moment, XCC's already dropped low and now our long stare is running to shut down this map.
The favour of Astralis, that double kill, I think seals it.
Shit, the final nail on the coffin here, Misuta and Gravity.
They still thought it was going to be a B attack, they were molotov-ing towards the middle thinking that someone was coming.
Fuzab is ready for it here, picks up one, Astralis down to Misuta.
Great work for Astralis at the end of it, a 13-11 as they pick up their opponent's map.
Okay, well there you go.
Ashralas takes that map, but they should have taken it much sooner than what they did.
They almost lost a very convincing lead in the second half.
Never a doubt in my head, Sam.
I knew they were going to close it out.
Husty master class there, but look, jokes aside, I think a commendable effort from
3-2-1 is to make that even a little bit competitive, but for me it just felt like
a tale of who's going to have the most boring in-depth of the T side for both
the two teams.
I mean, I think I want to give credit to Astralis, I'm going to give credit to Raga, this is probably something no one ever said, but I'm going to say it first, because I think the game plan from Astralis on the CT side was perfect, the first five rounds, the gun rounds obviously lost the pistol, but that looked perfect.
Perfect. Need to be split that 3D Max tried to throw at them, they dealt with that, then they had a push in the lower tunnels, they won the round there, then they went for a boost on short, they got the entry there.
So essentially they just countered what 3D Max wanted to start their fissile with perfectly and after that it really became a super slow, super weird, not really 3D Max-ish game.
Yeah and it's also, we gotta say, we have to talk about a few individuals as well, right?
of players that we have highlighted throughout this tournament for 3G Max has been mainly lucky.
You know, he's been kind of like the the talent of the team, he's the highest rated player,
but him playing that A-Rotate position towards CT, he was just giving away free kills time and time
again and on top of that compounded by the fact that gravity having a hell of a stinker of a
game, 18-18, 1-6 in opening duels, 33 AD combined those two against Astralis who everyone was
chipping in, Fozy was looking little with the AWP, Hooksy also having a lot of hero moments
and a T-side as well, and despite when things got really scrappy, it came down to some of the
individuals stepping up at the very end, and unfortunately for the French it was the danger
pulled it off. Yeah, I want to add like the Makka was really good. He kind of gave a bit of a
Jane cosplay today on the T-side as well, like losing the entry. Let's save this round guys,
but then also individual antics from him were really good. Obviously the opera on the other
side was the star of the show, Fuji. Yeah, everywhere. He was just ever present, especially
I think even the one round where it looked like 3D Max might be able to steal on the T side was
him just like just peeking into Mako from window getting the kill. So he was finding a lot of
crazy impact and it's good to see as well because yesterday you know we saw him looking
very flat and ancient even on the other maps he wasn't really paying to the level that we
know he can play as well and especially in a map like Dust 2, right? You want your
you're up with the shine. So I feel like, yeah, we did say with 3D Max to make this
competitive, this map has to be in the back, but yeah, I think quite transpire.
Yeah, it's uphill battle. I mean, it was an uphill battle from the start, but
after this is even more difficult. Okay, so now, when we take a look at that
second half, though, and I want to break down the first half in a bit, but
kind of want to just focus in on what was going right for 3D Max and why
was a Stylist just unable to really find an opening at the start of the
I feel well firstly it looked like the individuals sit kind of wake up a 3d max
right and they were trying to be a little bit more disruptive initially in the
first and a pistol round for example you can try to really duke it out but then
I felt like once as far as throw things down a little bit they just kind of fell
apart there are a couple of rounds which should come to mind for example
where three backs of four players towards the long and they still lost it
but let's let's talk about this let's talk about a good stuff as far as on
the CD side right we spoke about his prof we want to be disruptive they
want to be aggressive. Let's unleash Yabbi. That's what you said. I love this.
Well, you know, early in the game, it's three to three. They push to its tunnels,
they go for the crunch. Yabbi gets two kills, Ryfine's one, and just like that,
it is just going to be a needed call for the save by 3D Max. And then you
move later on, like a couple of rounds later, I think it's round number nine
or something. We can actually play this rounds back to back, round number
nine as well. Again, it's going to be the aggressive play coming out from
the side of Astralis. Because 3D Max is playing super slow, super passive,
very defaultish and again you know it's gonna be this this setup I love the
setup double to it short right we had a Nate to it's top mid really dunking down
a couple of players once again game cosplay they go for the say and then you
go later in the final round of the half where you like surely they're not gonna
add room again we can actually play it out run number 12 as well yabby alone
between what was well okay that could cut really fast between just you know
a firing front of him flames behind him and it gets two kills gets away with
murder as well so just the aggression from Astralis and treating
Max is not really having an answer. We can play this out here again.
The moment he gets his 2 kills, we're on pretty much done.
Right, just buffing it up. So, that's a game plan Prophet's talking about.
They knew they had to be aggressive on a CD7 and they worked out wonderfully.
We're number.
Yeah, we're going back to the T side, the troubles from Astralis though.
I think, honestly, they're maybe also caught off guard.
I think the story of the second half is a bit of 3D Max finding this new identity.
They've been speaking about this. For me, from the outside, it's like just body going from a suit.
going from a suit that doesn't seem like a big thing but they're like oh we're
changing a lot of how we approach the game and see they seem like super
patient and just willing to sit back and wait for the execute to come in and and
work off of that and just have Makas off be the dictating factor in these
rounds and I think that's something that Astralis didn't really expect and
they were running out of time and yeah had to end up you know in the
clutching in the last round. Yeah it's also like just to give a little bit
credit to Mac as well. He was had a kind of a mid-tournament thus far, but he's been
starting to play off. You could see with the AWP on the CT side, it was getting
kills everywhere we saw that highlight moment against the the half-bomb side. We
saw him even a mid-round pushing like holding the long doors up front and
picking off players and he was very lethal. And I feel like you know as CT
side you get those early picks right there, it really the other teams you
really run out of options. You're like okay where do we go? We have no
control over here. You're losing this opening deal. So credit where it's due.
Triggy Max and the Chou put up a little bit of a fight at the end. I
I mean, I think they would have quite a big fight.
They could see how hungry they were.
And this is something that you both said
at the start of the day, which was 3D Max
to get a spot in Grand Finals.
Winning on Dust2 is really damn important,
because neither of you have a lot of faith
in their overpass.
Yeah, it doesn't look too good in the previous games
that these two teams have played
have looked pretty horrible.
Like they even had Hooksy style on them
the last time they faced and includes, right?
So that's not a good look for you.
The fact that you can't really get a win against any top position.
Barring this one, free, fury occurrence,
generally people pick three D-Max into Overpass
and that's a free win.
So I think it's going to be a tough one.
Their default holes are rough.
The aggressive A-Plays weren't really working out,
even though they have Maka and Masuta there
and they should be the guys to unlock a defense.
And also for Astralis, they're so good
this procedural approach in the T side, right? They thought their eyes across their T's. They're
very, very methodical in it. And overpriced is a map where, you know, the CT side aggression,
it's really tricky. You know, you might be, for example, you can go for short pipe control.
You can go for those fights sometimes. You can try and fight for bathrooms and whatnot.
But it can be risky against team like Astralis, because the utility usage is so very solid on
this map. It's one of the most played maps, one of the most successful maps as well.
And then I look on the CT side. 3DMAS is going to be solid on the CT side.
You look at a bomb site, Misuta is going to be solid.
You know he's going to deliver.
Mack has been looking sharp as well.
But ahead of the B site and gravity
has just been completely flat individually.
Also the lowest rated player for the team right now.
Even XSC is kind of, you know,
we didn't really see him do much on Dust 2 as well.
So I feel like just talking about, you know,
condensing down to simple raw firepower as well,
the B bomb site defense,
I think that's something that the strawlers
are going to 100% abuse time and time again.
Do you think that a strawler is this line up
that they've put together,
lacks a little bit of consistency still, Poff?
I don't play. I don't play.
I don't think so. I actually, I feel like, look, they're not a championship caliber team yet by
how that exists, you know? Maybe of course you have, you have teams like, you know, Falcons
and Spirit who can really punch down Mongols can pop off as well. But from what they've
done so far, ever since the addition to Fuse, you just look at the recent results, look
at the third place pacing in an EPL, and it's not, was it an EPL? Yes, yes, an EPL as well.
You know, some of the, the scouts have taken, and apart from that hiccup they had against
I ball is yesterday they have looked very very solid indeed the maps they win
are very convincing score lines sure sometimes you can get a little bit messy
here and there but overall they've been the most consistent quantity of all the
teams playing at this event if you think about it.
Yeah I mean I think they have some ups and downs like in on the individual
performance level but currently it's looking super good I think on overpass
the you would hope from 3D max aside you know maybe Fuzzi has a really bad
game and he's giving away a lot of openings but like overpass is such a good map for Oppers
that I don't see it really happening I think you'll have a field day when they go to the CT side
so that's kind of the entry for me I think Stare also on the defense is going to be super solid
he's now you know historically I always think of him as anchoring the B bomb site but now he's
playing toilets and has like the star player the star player now yeah he grew up so and
Rio has been pretty solid in doing that instead and I just just seemed like this is a map that's in
their real house and even if I don't think they're like super consistent I think they have some gaps
but I don't think it will they'll be shown on this map. Okay well there you go I think both of the
gents here on the disc are leaning towards a 2-0 to Astralis. Are they gonna move into the
grand finals here at PGL Bucharest? We're gonna find out but first a quick break.
Ramp and long. Wait for Vigo baby.
Yeah, yeah.
Split.
Let's go.
Ramp, ramp, ramp, ramp.
Nice.
Ramp down.
One more ramp.
Let's kill him.
No, no, I'm ramp.
Kill, kill guys.
Fucking calm down.
One CT.
We have shot.
Everything is good, okay?
One shot of him.
One shot.
I was used.
One shot.
What's happening?
That's one shot.
Nice!
She said she loves you.
But she can't love me.
But I love you!
I
Won't play window anymore
The human body was built to move.
Not tractive desk is one singular posture for 12 hours a day.
It's time your chair evolved.
This is Secret Lab type Nevo.
Ergonomically engineered for you, gamers, hybrid
The word is, office is, back in your every move.
The start-up!
Are you ready?
Get out of the way!
MUSIC
SCREAMS
Where is my dad?
Close but no cigar this time and is 13-11. The manager bring it all the way back from a 9-3 deficit to be fair to them
But moving on to overpass. This is a specialty pick a punished pick for Astralis
And they should be going 2-0 and finding themselves a place in the grand finals
If that doesn't happen it means we're about the witness and we're very very interesting from the side of 3d max
They haven't played this map a lot
We don't have a ton of data on them and for Astralis to be right
This is a really good map pick for them at the moment extra frustrating 3d max because they could have won
dust too there was it was a possible for them absolutely true I'll have a look at
the pistols see we can work things out a lot of teams favor the B bomb sign these
pistols but let's see if Strahlers want to change things out they're heading
towards a but I look to things in I'm seeing a decoy in the mix as well two
smokes Molotov flash decoy for Yabi and aggression of course from 3d max
they're known for it 30 foods and trying to send them off the PC 50
can't hit the shots but they know there's a lot of action on this side
the map it's scrappy it's certainly not clean can they find this third kill they
can now you could be assuming the last two players are towards B but gravity
you ought to be out of the connector he's got a chance to bring this round back
to life there's a lot of low HP players and he's assuming they've gone up
towards long or will he catch them on the way back towards T steps it seems
to be the latter he's played perfectly right now every single step yep you saw
that he's on the hunt now with the dualies booksies you can see
periodically checking behind him just trying to make sure always sees him again
he's setting up the grenade here this is the bomb as well if he gets this they
have to come back and pick him up there's the shot in the back of the head of
gravity will it be enough teammates far away you might not want to fight this
yeah you might just disengage completely they've recovered the bomb
they're walking into Lucky on the other side he doesn't hit the shot either
but the communication here between the two CT's is him to go connector now
they're gonna go yeah you're right they're escaping they can get there I
I think before lucky can
Wow, they found the one way out of the round where they don't get sandwich still advanced it 3d max HP so low default plan
Smoke available
Okay, well one more coming up out of connector here P 250
He can't hit the headshot who's he goes down gravity trying the best that he can to bring this thing onto a good start here
They're gonna smoke the bomb tap it force the hand of yabby. He shouldn't be able to win this
He shouldn't but he has been one of the best players so far in the tournaments not this time though. Lucky takes him down
3d max. I love the aggression. I love the fight to try like they are the underdog on this map
It's it's disruptive play right yeah replays towards long if no one's egg at a ton of information you go for the back stab
Sure
You lost the opening dual to be did a lot of damage down gravity with the back stab finding hook see with the bomb made things very
Complicated if not like this should have been clean up in Australia
when you spot that many players the flash going over as well but yeah gravity
finding a perfect timing making things very uncomfortable that was the frag
that decided the round that we said yeah the low HP no chance to hold on to it
but as we always mentioned the four-spire will be coming in the second
round by virtue of the bomb plant so set up difficult rounds in a very technical
map very execution-based and we'll see what they've got up their sleeve here
smoke goes down towards monster from the CT's from it off towards shore from
Astralis not blowing up in the door gonna be boosting behind the CT smoking
middle very passive all this time a 3d max this two three split they have 3d
max you're gonna see them do this like half the rounds when they don't do this
they do like pushing the fountain a little bit like they did in the pistol
round but just with all the way to the fountain and see so it's one of the
things that they that there's kind of a bit of a hallmark for them again not a
lot of rounds but we'll see if they could do something with it later on
This time it's just a silent walk up here. What a surprise. I'm gonna give it a ready. Mishu's a caught.
He does get a kill anyway, and Makar also picks up a headshot on the Ryu. Back up is coming quick though.
Lucky, he was so fast getting through the smoke.
He's turned Makar up there on long, only for a second.
Gravity's got the bullets for it. Eight of them left now, and he's saving the day again.
He did it in the pistol. A double kill this time. And he was MIA on Dust 2 as well.
It's down to hook see nice first shot needs a lot more that came from
Captain can't deliver and it will be to zero presumably three of the eco around the corner as well Astralis
feeling the pressure now
Not gonna have that flying star. They were looking for it. It's a very CT sided map, but
pretty max
Doing what they can there a close run I suppose coming down to the 2v1
But no way of a hook see to win it. We'll see a couple of deagles come out the Danes are known for them
Is it five people? Yeah, it is. So, uh, Molotov and Gabby.
I think he bought a scout first, then he sold it and bought a Eagle instead.
Okay. Well, Gabby has a way with the Eagle, I guess.
Yeah, he's one of my favorite Eagle players in the entire team. See, let's see what he can do with it.
Okay. That's high praise.
So far, 3D Max, far back on the map. I do like that.
I don't think there's any reason to be pushing or doing any kind of connector control.
when they looked at some of the 3D Max games before today and again connector is another
position that they do like to occupy but I think doing it around like this one is potentially
risky there could be tech nines there could be other things on the map that you just
don't want to lose to.
Miss smoke towards the bathrooms shouldn't be too costly against Eagle no Cavalier.
Well they're leaving Yabbi outside of B. So far he hasn't had any invitations to fight
so they're a lot further back.
Rashing out, trying to get some information on 3D Max's stairs.
There's a dangerous position here but so far they've cleaned it up.
Yabbi, he was trying to push down through the monster tunnel, he's going to be found
as well so everything's going according to the script right now.
We've seen this though from the 3D matched side before, where they get off to a little
bit of something and then it kind of collapses.
Trying to do the boost, failed, gave up on it.
Yeah, round's over, expect the question now if you could make a dent on the finances
to kills at this stage of the round would be very good.
And as it happens though, you can see them with the bait and switch set up towards
The barrel of the gravity goes down, which is looking at a jumping exorcise.
Yeah, I don't know why I don't think he meant to do that.
It's an able to bomb plant.
I'll still win the round, but it's a very expensive one, bit sloppy there in 3D Max.
I couldn't tell you why exorcise jumps, I guess it's a scroll wheel situation.
It must have been.
We didn't think there's a world in which he just kind of stays there for another three seconds
and waits to see if anything happens.
Like, they jump up on the barrel there at a disadvantage.
Yeah, he could have kept his head down instead jumps and they pulled it as the end of losing three players and giving up a bomb plan
That's actually pretty significant. It means the office possibility now for Fuzi, which it wasn't before
Wow
That's if they want it. They might not want on the seaside. Oh have a look
Well not the case
Stafford in guest that has an indication for how fast they can be like if you're gonna be picking up
You're up on the seaside of overpass. Presumably you you want to
wheel it around the map to look for some entries without it you can you can
pounce on something a lot quicker well fourth round is coming up 3d max again
off to a good starts body block yeah for Maca try see if you could push it
far enough back to find something oh he got that he saw it but there is that
that's crazy so the body blow wasn't quite as successful as he's hoping
forward the follow-up shot certainly was opening kill on stair 3d max feeding
themselves now felt like an impossible task to do well here in overpass but
here we are 4-0 looking very good significant damage towards foosie and
Ryu like marker owes it to us to try and bring this game back as you did call
them bots in the first map and then they lost almost directly afterwards so I
I would love to see him step it up. He did look really hot on the CT side. Maybe he can replicate that form.
55 seconds. They're right outside of the bomb site. It feels like just a couple of steps and you're going to get that bomb planted, but all of the work is still ahead of them.
Yabi, look in the swing a bit wide here. See if you can take the fight to luck. He's feeling pressure right now.
Pressure right now it's hook seems to get the opening and already they've just been blown up headshots across the board here
Astralis now planting the bomb on the other side and they've got them in advantage 3d max because they lost so much in the last round
Do they actually want to go for this? Oh, yeah for sure
It's so risky gravity on the one side. He smoked off this no more grenades
I guess on the T side at the very least he puts out a couple of shots
and backing off now
Oh, he's decided it's not going to be worth it.
And that's such a shame with the opening kill there.
Yeah.
Like a godsend of a kill.
You get one through the smoke.
But yeah, you're dead on considering the low finances.
They have no utility.
The open hand as well.
This doesn't feel worth it.
As we will find Astralis' first round,
recovering our 5 and 4 deficit.
Lovely execution there, taking away a lot of vision.
Three or four smokes deployed over the A site,
giving them some open runway in towards the bomb site
itself, hitting some beautiful shots. And we'll be a strategist arriving here on
overpass three to one, but 3D Max, knowing the loss bonus is low, calculated
decision to save the weaponry.
It's a pretty claustrophobic position for Lucky when they lose that long
control and he's playing optimus like he can't backpedal at all. He can't step
away from the truck there. He's going to get always going to get shot at
side by Yambi so he's just so isolated there we've got a timeout being called here 3d max
want a chance to talk things through what is the plan one safe rifle one saved awp you're
going to see some sort of gimmicky play here you're going to see the all boosted up somewhere
the rifle may be boosted as well you could see multiple boosts across the map to try and yield
you'll do an opening frag, because you're operating with Famisys here.
The M4, the buy is not too bad, but it's a very important round, so you're trying to look for that opening advantage again.
Can Makka find it?
This is the boost map.
It is.
If ever there was one.
Absolutely, so many options.
I think you can still boost over the wall and look down into B with the 4-man boost from the A bomb site, but...
I don't know if it's actually legal in terms of rules, but...
Asuta said that they do like this fountain push on the 3d max side. It's one of their calling cards
We're trying to get some aggression in
Don't hate the idea see if stairs quite ready for it. He's jumping back here making a lot of noise
I definitely know that he's back here. They just don't know how many
Yeah, playing on the front foot trying to find his opening kills
Works out quite nicely. Masuta of a clean one no trade potential. They didn't see that coming
It's Mac a patrolling towards that connector lucky in towards the playground looking at some fun here
get some self up on that slide very powerful position.
Boosie trying to recover this one.
Looking for any boosted players as we mentioned.
Yabbi locking through the monster tunnel.
Yeah, big opportunity.
If you could have found that one, maybe it would have been a bit of an opening.
Boosie's back here investigating.
He wants to put some pressure on that.
He finds lucky. That is a very nice kill.
It opens up the question of the 3D Max about whether or not
They could end up at the bombsite once again.
Well now they have to react.
They're going to try and put the monster tunnel by the looks of things and
do so at your peril.
Yabi known to patrol that monster tunnel.
It's one of its cooling carts.
It's a nice job.
30 seconds remaining.
We have got XCC here as well.
Seems to have been spotted.
That's big.
We're a real fine traitor.
They don't have another Molotov to get rid of this.
They're going to flash their way through.
We can't see a thing.
He almost wins the fight anyway.
And now M'Sutra on the follow-up.
There's the first all the bullets. Oh, I don't even get the pistol out
But there's only 14 seconds and Marcus already in position. It is winnable that smoke makes it a lot harder though
Bombing the concert. He might be able to do that hook see just getting it down
He can't get the headshot either and I think that was the opportunity
He had to get that kill right there in there now
Fuzi's alive towards the L-Band hook see he's gonna go down that was there shortly earlier marker inside of the smoke
Oh! But Fuzi is there! Again, the Swedes saving the Danes.
It was messy. Very messy indeed, Hooksie, but who cares?
It's a very important round to pick up there. You've completely sabotaged the finances now.
Hooksie, he actually saves it there. I can't believe he even gets that kill, to be honest.
He felt like he was out of position, out of maneuver. Great headshot from him.
And yeah, yeah, Fuzi on high alert there nice eagle head shot from Maca, but Fuzi that has saved the day has to be the full eco now for the French squad
USPs a couple of p-250s in the mix. That's about it though
Can't afford to lose this one. It's actually an old Astralis set up if you remember and is well back in the day
There were five man stack and so will that be bomb site
Yeah, that you're really rolling it back. That's when the sonic was still the coach. Yes
It was an old classic Astralis Eco set up, they're going to change things up, they're
going to give it a three man boost, I looked at the rounds already over, they've gone for
a contact play in towards A, basic U till, molotov down towards CT, jump start and in
the gun.
Well that's a quick round, let's see if they get exits, that is the best we can
hope for at the moment, you know, just a boost down there, it's, you know, we're
trying. Even after all these years people are still coming up with new and
innovative ways to boost and I think there's still some some quite interesting
grenade mechanics that can happen on this map because you can throw grenades
from sort of the upper side of the A side of the map to B or the other way
around. People are still investigating and inventing new stuff. I definitely
have missed over past since it's been gone. I think it's I think it's
It's good that it's back in the pool.
A very technical map, doesn't play like many others.
Huge map as well.
I think that's one of the reasons why the pro players didn't like it last time around.
I feel like they didn't enjoy the sound.
There's not many opportunities for multi-facts.
It's all about taking lots of territory,
executing late into a round,
trading our kills.
You don't get many chances to go for great like one taps and entries.
very methodical yeah okay so star players find it difficult to really shine bright
but there we go Astralis with three in a row and the AWP is back up a Mac
upper concessions say the very least here Masuta enters with no utility at
all and they've got no diffuse kits and players of our helmet which won't matter
too much down towards the door to deny any sort of vision after the
The CTs blow it open.
Overall, the strata is there. Wind rate here on the T-sun, it's about 54% Henry.
That's very good.
On an Ablegover path, that's crazy.
So, they're adding to that right now, they're trying to build their way there.
Molotov, I don't think landed where he wanted it.
Set fire to the hedges.
That's vandalism.
So map control, looking quite good for Astralis.
Long is theirs.
It's your map up, defensive in towards the bathroom, so if that one kill, peel off the angle.
We smoked towards Monson, actually pushing every last thing throughout the team.
Yeah, that's so cool.
Good bit of intel here.
You can rotate multiple players over towards A, exactly what they're doing.
Mac is going to hit this shot all day long, getting a chance.
Oh, unless it's going to get flashed.
He's coming over. Oh, he still hits it. The flashbang actually did work. It didn't even land behind him.
Could have happened. Hooksie. He gets one. Is he ready? Not quite. Mark has got him.
Yeah, he's coming up. He was lurking outside at B, but he wants to help out now, and he actually has done that.
XC goes down. Lucky. Catching stairs. You have to get activated. 0 and 6 on this map so far.
And now there are man up. 20 seconds on the clock. They're running right into gravity. This is a one round already.
Unless gravity fails to spray it's we're good to go. No scope
Okay, then chance of the plan I suppose got a back seven connector and lucky coming in from the heaven. So yeah, he can plant
So that wire as an HG that would do significant damage on him. Okay, that's a good point
We'll see flash on over. He's feeling the pressure. He sandwiched. There's no idea where they are lucky to save it
It's another close round here
Fortunately there for 3D Max, like he said, the flashbang very effective by Makka, pulls
Triggo the perfect time, gets the opening kill, and they were unable to recover.
Yeah.
They needed this.
Yabi looked like he was about to save the day coming in through the connector, but
even that wasn't enough.
I like that from Gravity though.
The second smoke down towards Monster, it gives them so much information that no one's
outside there.
Especially no Yabi.
It means like there's no luck.
Yabbi is known to lug the monster tunnel almost every single round.
Yeah.
And the fact he's not there, you can move your resources over towards a bolstered defense
and it's going to be quite a nice round there from 3D Max.
One they just probably needed as a go 4-3.
But even in a round where Yabbi had been there, because gravity was already in the
first smoke, when the second smoke goes up, if you're Yabbi, even if you're kind
of watching, are you really expecting someone to walk straight through?
It's like if it's so counter-intuitive that he would do it immediately when the
smoke lands.
Sure.
It's a good timing.
would love to see that play out in another round
for three
stomach of the old for fuzi money's still to be strong for strata's got a nice
full body
blank your
response from hook see the what's ready for a second to action back up
great work that came down with three-on-three but like the
work of staff
brilliant nose go from fuzi that's ultimately no time or space to work
with that
couldn't get the bomb planted
It's round number eight.
Oh, there it is.
Those lineups, they'll get ya.
And the Appie will answer back. That's ridiculous.
They're blind kills without these last two rounds.
Very unfortunate there for Gravesy.
Back to a four on four.
Yeah, that is...
a round where they could have walked away with a bit of a win.
The Appie now, all the timing is so good.
They're pushing out of the bomb site.
bomb site and Yabi's walking up behind him. This is already very dangerous, although good
work from Lucky, he's gonna take down Yabi. Somehow it's fallen apart for Astralis, I
thought they would have had it, I thought Yabi walking up behind him like that would
be enough to just crush that beacon down at B. Not the case at all. Bombers planted,
but with Stare already quite low, he's got his first fill of the map to the very
least. Oh see, blind and still getting Lucky. Stare's picked up an AWP because
a little health there, but they burnt him to a crisp.
Misuta almost does him a favor, takes him out with the AK.
Two in a row, two big rounds of the 3D Max.
They definitely can play overpass.
Seems to be suiting their playstyle as well.
Aggressive, chaotic, and getting stuck in on the front lines here,
not allowing Astralis to run their defaults
and get that map control opening pick as well.
It's a nice wallbang from Lucky.
Maybe open that door, I guess there's a couple of kills in the round.
CZ is going to keep on applying that pressure and it's an easy finish as well.
Stare low HP, AWP, no chance of winning it.
The bomb planted, there's still not enough resources to do much with this.
So go for eco slash partial by the one hero AK, some pistols about armour.
Just suggests money is very low right now.
Could this be a straight up B rush here from Yabi, AK in hand to see what it can do with it.
They're rushing B without the full squad there. I mean, Yabbi's on the bomb site. They're so fast.
They're not even ready 3D Max. They weren't even on the bomb site to begin with.
Fighting elsewhere on the map. Ryu has gone down and Yabbi cracks open the skull of Exocesion.
More damage being dished out. That looked like he was on for a near triple.
Yeah, right.
But the bomb is being brought back. They were already this whole time.
Stare and Fuzi's been pushing this out of the map, even though they were fighting down at B.
It causes enough confusion and chaos to open up A.
They know the rotation is coming in so they've got the plan here, but it comes down to the 1Ds
There you go bouncing it off
Chips away at hooks he thought that could have done even more. Yeah almost zero chance of winning this if you're a strapless unfortunately, but let's see
Lock up close. There's a low HP player coming back first. We get the first fire out not this time lucky goes down
He was so low already
Smokes are starting to land on the bomb site here 3d max they cannot afford to let this go to the hero
AK, but they might not have a choiciest there. He's close to getting that second one, but
a dozen lander headshots. It's another very expensive round though for 3D Max. They keep
leading some of these rifles away. Astralis will take it. Yeah, wacky round there. Yabbi
felt like he could have got three. They lined up for him, gets the opener towards
the Heaven, the significant damage to a couple more, enables a bomb plant. A few players
go down three in total there but overall comfortable finish for 3d max six to three
you'd love to oppose a couple more of your astrology three is workable sure but
you're aiming for current five rounds here especially if you're the favorite
team you're my pick of the utility coming in towards the playground that's
It's so advanced, I've run through the same area, that was pretty cool.
What's the level of counter-strike that we're getting to?
So, so blind, gravity knows he's there, should be a kill all day long.
So aggressive here, aggressive counter-strike.
Poozie, he's running away with his back turned, shot down by Mishuta.
Mishuta can't believe what he just saw, he's like, alright great.
Now this is classic 3D Max though, this is where you want to see from this team.
Yes, little confidence. Yeah
See we'll take care of it run on a serdeo about
The flashty Abbey and foosie four versus three stale join the squad here
I guess contact play through monsters all you really can do
Gonna be more something in towards the close range position by monster. Like I said a contact play
sneak on in
Suit your playing on the ramp now up by the pillar instead 50 seconds on the clock flashes are raining in
But unfortunately, SCC's on the other side. He's gonna get two in return and stare locked out
Doesn't have the bomb either
Trying to get a bit closer here
Any headshots any more damage they could do I mean it all counts. I suppose the top around left in the half
Does get one but he's wedged up against the sides
Slipping off exorcism with the triple kill 3d max. I will say I'm already surprised
This is not a map they play all that well and they're up to seven rounds on the first half of it
Yeah, the level has been very impressive and the money's broken once again as strahlers will have to take yet another partial buy
They managed to get three in the row after losing the pistol. They're down zero three. We tied things up
But now that's four convincing rounds in a row and the 3d max play style
Like we said oppressive in your face it continues to work and they're finding those opening kills time and time again
Time line recap there are so many bomb defuses here in 3d max of the Charlottes must feel like we're getting close all the time
We're almost there now that through the monster tunnel again exes he's hiding in the smoke. They don't realize they're running past him
20 bullets as he comes to turn around here
How many kitty mode down a quick double and that should be enough lucky does go down over
Bootsy and yabby now in a 2v2 they're getting all those detect lines. They know it's a lose
Yeah, they know exactly where he is down the four bullets pulls
Okay
Giving them a taste of their own medicine. It's the old classic B rush there. You're dead on ecstasy's better to perfection
You think okay? There's no chance that they managed to win this round. They've run past him
He's got multiple targets in front of him. He gets to let's see what hooks. Yes. I say about that
nice stop being frustrated it's too much everyone everyone is lining everyone is
fucking visibly being frustrated I can't take it okay fix it fix it and fucking
win they are too alive every round now we have why we do the Chinese face again
and we go five years you can just excuse me for years and you can just
fucking go short one of you for me or something I don't care wow we're running
in months to play around it okay and don't block them well it certainly worked
out I love this commanding the troops he was on them as well on dust I don't know
what it means I go for Chinese but it worked out whatever that means working
yeah China number one in this one final round here and is something's worked
out lucky in the future left here about speaking to the a case great double
hill that's what you want a couple of heads up from you getting activated
straw list they're pulling out some stretch from overseas
absolutely killed 3d max in this final round okay I get why are we doing our
job saw him right we just have hook see yeah talk over the run it's brilliant
what a legend we've heard of a couple of times everyone's calm down yeah like
even on dust two and they have about five on two situations and guys chill
Relax
But that would do like we said we're aiming for about five on the seaside of overpass Anders and they managed to get it
It wasn't clean
They weren't running rings around 3d max and over pass
But that little be rushed towards the end and then fending off the pistols and SMGs in the last round
You'll be happy with that. It's more than winnable now for Astralis
Does open the question though?
Can they convert a pistol here and alleviate a lot of pressure on the CT side you lose it?
You're in a lot of trouble
3D Max know it as well. They managed to go 3-0 in that first half pretty weak showing from Astralis
We know them to a very good overpass team
Couldn't really close our dust to an acclaimed manner as well
They're up 9-3 and is and it goes all the way down to the wire. Yes not looking too great today
Kind of a bit ropey overall. They got the map win sure
But again, you can see this is not the Astralis that looks at the be hoisting the trophy if they keep this up
It's a bit all over the place today
It is a bit all over the place. You could tell who she's really trying to keep the troop together
Make sure that they're staying focused that not overcoming people aren't freaking out or even whining sounds like there is a lot of freaking out
Yeah, so I'll be whining in the game of calmest. I can you don't need that
It's never your own fault though. You've got to blame someone else
Now I'm actually an expert at that. Yeah
We're going to be going into a fast play up long A. Four players here, execution potential
certainly there. Not much CT presence, we've got Fuzi in towards the bathroom, he's got
that P2000. Here they come. It's going to be Maka with the first opening kill on the
A bombsite.
That's some range. That's half a map away with that one. Fuzi wants to bring it
back but he's going to be denied. Exes sees what a map he's had, 14 and 9. And
The glock kill here might just get in the bomb plant they're looking for. 3D Max, a bit of discipline.
I like the fact that they're just running in there just because they got some kills.
Got to slow it down here for you. It's pushed in front by the Molotov.
It is exactly what it's designed for as well.
Just Yabi in a 1 vs 4 with 8 bullets left. He's not landing yet. Even a single headshot there.
That's a cool round as well designed. The discipline was there. They're landing their shots. 3D Max.
I mean, they've still got something here.
What a beautiful shot from Maka as well to find Hooks in the A bomb site.
He thought he had the advantage with that USP in hand, but it's rocked by the P250.
It's going to be another pistol in the bag now for 3D Max.
Do we see the force by in a second? Doesn't seem to be the case.
Taking the full ego to 2-0, pretty much locked in here.
Thought like that was the case, generally speaking.
For Astralis, once we entered Overpass, they should be getting to 2-0,
making their way to the grand final, but 3D Max have turned up to play.
Absolutely.
Not going down without a fight, it seems.
I think we said it right at the start right this map if somehow this goes to a third map it means we're about to see something really spectacular because
And it's a bit of a handshake map as well 3D Mac historically are very good on you because it's one of their favorite maps to play
And Astralis although they pick it a lot they sometimes completely fumble it like they sometimes don't get any T rounds and they can look very very weak on it
Well then add to that that if they've lost this map and they're already whining a bit and Hoaxy has to spend his time sort of bombing everyone down
One of those days isn't it?
And then you lose, you know, one of your best maps, that could really unsettle Astralis
a little bit.
I think it was the Pro League season before last, obviously a different lineup, but I think
Nuke, they played Nuke twice and posted zero T-Rounds both outings, it really can
be one of those maps for them.
They think they're comfortable on it, but it often falls apart.
That's it we get there.
Sure.
Getting ahead of ourselves here, it's just a beautiful start from 3D Max, now Lightning
and the mob has got a few USP's to deal with,
confirming they're fully go,
he's got the back out,
here comes the cavalry, great grenade.
Nothing, more to report, I'm afraid.
Yabi will be alone,
sure reason to what to be,
but no real damage inflicted,
he won't be finding anything unless gravity
offers it up,
even then should be able to find a kill.
And there we have it,
a clean sweep bonus round coming up next
with 3D Max looking for double digits.
And this is the thing with 3D Max,
they are the kings of the bonus round.
They love the Mac 10s,
They love the group up with the Wolfpack Counter Strike
and just run around the map finding headshots
and you have to make a decision now.
Do you buy a helmet or do you sacrifice it
and go for utility?
You know that Mac 10's out in the field.
We know gravity is one of, I guess we'll say it,
the best Mac 10 player in CS2.
There is a helmet, but it's only one.
There's no armor at all on Fusee.
It's glass, can and he doesn't seem difficult round,
but you might have been favored through the match
considering the context of how they like to play
these sort of rounds. Fuzi in a position right now that people lately have been molotov-ing
quite a bit, throwing it over and trying to get them away from the restrooms. He's playing
in that little gap up there, so, oh, spam down. That's a way to do it, I suppose.
The whole man set up at B with Fuzi playing alone. 3D maps are big fans of the B bombsite
on this map just to point out. So probably worth it for astronomers to try and stack this
until they've proven wrong. Maybe not four, but three is a good idea. Smoke up again towards
the tunnel and 3D Max are bringing the bomb back this way so it seems like in spite of
the fact they've lost a player outside of it they still are happy to investigate.
And the fact that they've waited means there's only three people on the site now.
They're a little bit better off maybe than they were 30 seconds ago.
They have all the utility.
Wanted to flash through the tunnel or over the wall.
So what it takes Anders?
Could set it up 30 seconds.
They're going to come.
It says helmet's going to be an issue.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Khalil and Matt 10 instantly blows it up.
The only helmet is gone.
And now they're on the site here.
Huxy fighting for his life and his team.
They are coming for him one at a time.
It's so disjointed.
3D Max, where's the coordination here?
You had him isolated.
He had no backup at all.
If you peek him at the same time,
he's going to die every time.
Lucky the last one left,
trying to battle it through.
There's no more time.
You cannot win the round.
Any longer, stairs going to be able to drop him.
But it's Huxy with the triple
being allowed to fight them one by one by one.
These aren't clean rounds.
These aren't comfortable rounds,
but they are rounds nonetheless.
9 to 6, but that was the bonus.
You barely scraped by.
There will be another full purchase available
for 3D Max in number 16 here.
9 to 6.
Got some nice runway to work with.
They can break through.
It was completely shattered the economy
of Astralis, here at Fuzi.
Now has Calvado's AWP.
Got more helmets in the mix here,
but four AKs and a little Moomak 10 nonsense.
Let's get into it.
This will be indicative as to which way this map is going.
Jarl is now on the more preferred side, but Entices are not respecting the utility towards
Short, he gets some decent map control, looks like he's going for another wallbang here,
no one home.
Yabby, right at the mouth of Short, does he dare go for another swing here, Flashbang
goes over.
Nobody will commit to it, but he does stick around long enough to find Lucky, Entices
wants to hunt him down.
He has been the main driving force of 3D Max on the second map, but he's pretty
good on Dust2 as well to be honest.
Take a 4 on 4 all day long of your 3D map, especially in a map like Overpass.
It's going to spread the CTD fence incredibly thin now.
Just don't forget the bomb.
Don't forget the bomb, it's back into his spawn because he's there, he's on high alert.
Overworked in this position, it comes down to this key jewel now between him and Masuta.
Who will blink first, who will get the timing.
Stare seems to be aware of this prospect, it comes down to this and is this kill to decide the round.
Clean from Stare.
They have three people on the other side of the restrooms.
He should be able to think of it at the same time if they really want to.
Such a difficult kill now for Stare.
Wants to get out of there and will.
Good work.
Drops the Molotov to make sure they can't swing from the bathrooms.
Reset the rounds and while we've got all three players now,
the 3D Max heading up towards Long.
If one smoke available, a Molotov and a Foosie to get through.
They'll find Stare doesn't need to swing that at all.
He was in cover.
There was a flashbang on Roots as well.
How do you wait for the flashbang?
I think he gets the kill. He gets ahead of himself.
Maybe a little bit too excited.
To some other communication we've been talking about
on the Astralis side there.
Cruzy though, he's so rock solid.
Manning the Flicks.
Skets the third one again.
He's just turned up today.
Brown's still not even three players surviving.
The Browns still fill on a knifes edge.
Yeah.
That Stairs swing before the flashbang coming in.
Well, that Brown could fall apart.
But that's a very important one to pick up.
I said the Browns decided on Stairs
And him winning that duel, Fusey arriving as well, hitting some great shots after it for him, on the sniper.
So when you have three people on the other side of Stare's position, I feel like normally you try to pincer that position that Stare was in.
But if they just say, oh, I'm just trying to get the kill, if not, oh, well, then what?
I guess like being a man down at the starts, like you're just hoping your lurkers can find something.
And yeah, if he gets the kill instead, it's a very different story.
Sure.
there even though he was alone on A essentially there gets that very important
frag and manages to fall back as well that was the saving grace for Astralis
and finally some breathing a French eco jump around spawn chat about your
options going forward we can look at that loss bonus they're gonna be getting
$2,400 into the next round so they have to take the full eco here and they're
worth about fully into run of 18 but it's gonna be a one-round game here on
the CT side as Astralis have a chance to build up their own bank
you can't say ideally you want to have five players surviving yet yeah they
need to establish some sort of economy of their own that's maybe the one weakness
that could still go back to haunt them a little bit later on but yeah they're
taking some time talking it through the strongest aren't necessarily spending
a ton of grenades they are they're probably aware of what's coming stare
again in this position oh that's not the vending machine
He's actually around the corner, it's actually around from there. He's absolutely fumbled up.
Nade with a massive damage, could have dodged the flash as well.
If it ends up costing the round it's on him I'm afraid.
Seven and fourteen, he's had a couple of good rounds.
Thankfully that grenade looks spectacular.
The spraydown's not bad either, give him the ace.
Oh lads, come on, let's not throw the round away.
They're not going to lose it, but this is cost them so much right now.
It's wild how expensive this is.
That means Glocks and one flashbang.
A failed HE from Stair gives them the aim for.
The nails of the HE forces them to swing.
And he does most of them all down.
Yeah, fumbles it and a cost them three is another uncomfortable round.
I said at the start, this is a chance to build your bank accounts here.
Keep five players alive.
Yeah.
And you've lost three to Glocks.
Not ideal.
seems like hooksy has to step up when when they need it both in terms of the
cons and keeping people you know relaxed on the team and getting the frags as
well he's top-fragging right now stare having a bit of a stinker on the CT
side I miss grenade that's pretty pedestrian stuff bouncing a grenade on
that sort of corner I don't even know how you messed that up yeah and normally
we we talk about stairs being the absolute walk of this team throughout
Like I don't like ten different versions of these line-ups. There's always been the one that's been playing well
That's been you know just kind of trying to carry them. He's the star of the squad right now. I think he's the headline acts. Yeah
So you need him activated here. It's still all fine like we're painting what a grim picture
It's just because overpass is there Matt. We have the conversation of 3d max don't win dust to its GG
So I should be running rings around them and I'm out like this, but it's not the Astralis we know about like
They're very panicked. It's quite chaotic and some questionable decisions. Miss Util.
Fuzi's been pretty rock solid though. Doesn't have a huge amount of kills, but he's nailing the ones that really matter.
Let's see if he can deliver here.
Yeah, one will do it.
Such a wide swing from the suitor, and now the double-need on the yabby.
Good technical stuff right now.
They forget about staring here. He jumps up, and that's going to lose him to fight against gravity.
Turn away, jumpser.
I couldn't tell you either. I also don't know why
Exesis checking the connector with his back turn
That seems very risky. We have go hooks you alive. You have saved the multiple times it smoke goes down towards monster
Okay
And they're gambling a bit on this P bomb site or in the Z bomb site sorry two people here
Who actually decides to go and investigate? I think he has to push a bit further
I don't think he was post up and long here. I think he knows he has to go bathrooms
If no one arrives in the next 5 seconds or so, which is actually going to happen here,
we'll consider the push.
Oh, they smoke once again.
There he goes.
He has to.
Yeah.
Yeah, you've read it very well, Henry.
You're right.
This is the solution.
If there is one still, Miss Suta should be dead.
I'm not going to try and make it a double or anything.
I figured it would.
Oh, and they were bringing the bomb back.
Yep.
They were actually, because the smoke went up from CT spawn to month or tunnel.
The bomb has to go connector now.
Yeah.
And it's only 18 seconds.
I can't believe they might actually pull this one back.
Mashbang to set it up here.
It's all down to Hoaxy, and that push.
Yeah, it is.
They've actually found a way to thread the needle.
Lucky trying to get onto the side of Hoaxy from the high ground.
He's doing all the work.
He's got 21 kills, and around is theirs.
Great game sense.
Experience shining through there.
A lot of players have just parked up long
and be too scared to make a maneuver there.
He had to step up.
Yeah.
I could see it from a mile away.
As soon as he got there, I realized,
unless I get some sort of interaction here,
I have to push forward any times it's so well.
This is a wild class showing from Hooksie.
He's now 21 and 13, a round but fell lost.
Another round of felt fumbled when Fuzzi went down
to the start.
A shot he probably should have landed,
but yeah, gotta commend Hooksie.
He is delivering the goods when it really matters most here.
A captain's performance hasn't been a good looking
astralis today.
Yeah, they're close to the grand final though
and if they get there, if they get there,
They need to go back to the drawing board and work out why the comms are so scrapped
Why are they so stressed out? This is the team you should be dealing with
Quite easily to be to be honest with you and it looked panicked and uncomfortable
We know 3d max are a frustrating team, but you've done your prep. You know that's coming
They've lost both pistols here to be fair and over paths
It's always gonna make things a little bit more difficult but against the glocks you're losing three kills for example
That should never be happening and missing key bits of utility
and it's still should be fine and we've got what is this full investment partial
with a hero AWP yes they did survive a one player in the previous rounds maybe
that's safe in the last round but yeah it is going that one open as well from
foosie no miss shot this time it's ready good incentive that's really gonna
slow them down isn't it they almost have to drive through something behind it
it's easy really wanted to smoke on the other side
some rollback shots coming through foosie picking them up one by one at this stage take it easy now lads
you've won the round yeah if anything fall back get out of there this is where we seem to seem to
be a little bit agitated in some of these rounds they're moving around the way too much here marcia
steps in it's a quad kill for foosie looking for the awp ace not going to be allowed stare we'll
get one but we'll definitely take it's astralis more of a battle more of a struggle than i expected
on this map but now they are starting to put the pieces together on the CT side.
Well it was looking like a horror show, to bear in mind there was 7-3 down on that T side.
It took a B rush with Tech 9 so you can get them into it and they're no money for 3D Max.
So they've already had to dig deep for this one. Oopsy has had to calm the boys down,
top frag himself. In game lead this game as well. It hasn't been pretty but it looks
that they may have done enough here. Mac are going down in the previous round. I don't
I don't think they have an AWP to work with unless there's one that's been dropped. I doubt it.
They've got maximum loss bonus, but no plants. So he's deciding his options here.
Stralis on fire as they post five rounds in a row here after going down 0-2.
And no bomb plant in any of the last five rounds.
So, good point. Bit barren here for 3D Max as well.
Whereas we talked about this with the Stralis, even when they were down,
they had a plethora of bomb plants in the first half.
They just didn't win them, but they got the bomb down quite a bit.
Real, we haven't said his name, it's always 7 and 12.
Stare, we've talked about his struggles, 9 and 15 as a star player.
Hooks, he having to step up here, this is not their A-games, not their B-game.
I'd say this is the Astralis C-game right now.
Yes, I know the pass, and it's just about providing enough to give them a lead.
No door being blown open to connect us, so that boost is way more likely.
Same angle for Fousey, he got wide swung on from the A-game in the last attempt.
Does it happen again? I like the fact he's not been dissuaded. Has me and Rato
He got a quad kill in the previous round
Make a scoreline scene a lot better than it was previously
And he comes under stair once more. Can he hold his nerve?
It's a pre-fire sort of position
Gravity will show you that but doesn't land a shot
Steals the Molotov there, tries to see if he can reposition
Stay alive now
Stealing an AK as well, Fuzzi.
Like you pointed out, not lacking in confidence.
There is a fly in the omen here.
The Suitsa is behind enemy lines.
That's true.
And you could tell, by the way, that Stare was running back
that he was not expecting it.
There's another problem, though, which is Exorcist's bomb
in his miles away.
Fuzzi, technically still holding him back.
Okay, he's running the other way.
It's going to say, if somehow Exorcist ran back
towards A, Fuzzi would have been able to stop the bomb,
and that could have been around ending, to be honest.
Round not over yet, massive advantage for 3D Max, but 30 seconds, that final play.
Hooksy knows someone's coming in from this position, right? He doesn't know if it's upper or lower, but he knows that Misuto is back there.
So he's not going to get caught off guard in that way.
We can just drop down, smoking off behind him, bomb being pulled on over here.
Lucky trying to take the fight now, Misuto being activated, 10 bullets left, but Fuzzi's coming in.
Eagle in hand, Lucky swings to take him down with the last couple of bullets, I think.
And the bomb is planted and Hooksie's making a run for it. Okay.
Well that's down to Lucky, opening kill there from Stan, felt very promising.
You could feel that pressure coming towards there is that Masuta.
Little back stab behind enemy lines that ruffled their feathers.
They had to react, they push off towards Shaw.
Lucky gets the double kill, ends up getting three in total.
The round collapses there as we go 10-10.
They've had some very complicated rounds.
The money isn't as strong as you might think after winning five in a row.
there will be a buy there but it will cost them every last dollar.
Bozzie will have the AWP. They got the opening kill there from
stairs and Bozzie got the kill towards the playground as well so it's
essentially a five on three and then Masuta getting that kill behind enemy
lines forced out the reaction lucky great sequence there opens up the B
bomb so I hope he unable to defend. Have a look at this is the double
gun talking about he just plays it really well huge plays it really nice
I see, ends up getting three Fuzi on the backstab.
And that's four.
Fuzi doesn't save anything.
Yeah, four kills, you're right.
Yeah, you even caught that at the end, which could make a big difference.
Astralis, they have been having money troubles here in the second half.
They do have enough for the AWP.
AK's on the other side.
We're not seeing the Grammar T-Mac 10, which again on a map like this one, being
crazy to buy the Mac 10.
It's not as posin' on overpass as it is in Inferno.
It'll be fun to see, but you can understand why he's shying away from it.
Hook see, I think he's going to wait for this one to dissipate and push into it.
Rocked out, can he get away though?
His teammate certainly can't.
That stair dropped, he was into what that playground position.
Yeah.
So they go one for one, doesn't really help out the CT side at all.
So early on into the round.
Where you haven't done much at all.
On overpass 713, we'll be trolling monster right now.
Now the smoke goes down, provide cover, allowed them to focus their efforts towards shore.
Thing is though, 3D Max, don't respect smokes of anything I walk in through them.
I'm gonna be doing that this round, one minute on the clock, all four players towards the B side.
They're still waiting here.
Who's he has another smoke? Okay, he's gonna throw it down in front of himself.
But now they're rotating a third man over.
With that smoke down, I'm hoping that will be enough to
Pushing in towards B, but again this short push
Has not been working out for as well as it's all they keep losing a player every time they do it
Seems to be very telegraphed
Yeah, they want some information they feel starved not knowing what's happening on the other side of the map and
If they lose this round their money is completely gone with no loss bonus they get 1900 to the next round
They need to this gamble here. Okay a gamble correctly 20 seconds and goes as far as I think to hold off
This could work, Ryu gets the first one of the defense,
with down to 14 seconds, 3D Max, it's now or never.
If you want a chance to win the map, you've got to do this.
Hooksie picks up another kill, doubling up before he goes down.
Fuzi, now four seconds left.
They can't find the bomb, they have to find it.
He's still out.
And he's done it one more time.
Another clutch to add to Fuzi's scoreline.
You didn't think they had it in them.
Losing picks across the map, that short push,
collapsing once again it was do or die for Astralis and Fuzi getting the
information that he was already low sprayed down by the Famous Bulls of the P2000
hooks he's stepping up once again trying that short push for Nuvver Riu finally
having some impact there surely only gets one kill but he's got significant damage
P2000 like he said no time the plan had to take the jewel and we go 11 to 10
but still so much work to be done your money is still so desperately low
And it's gonna be yabby this time aggressive off towards sure fun at the double these maneuvers
You always seem to yield a frag that it can never get away
This is where everything
crazy to see gravity pushing forward eight bullets after getting that first kill he looked almost
Angry to take that fight made
Right on top of hope's he's head but one by monster as well
Well, the bomb is way up long though.
The static went slightly deeper, I think that's going to be significant damage.
Boosie is here though.
AWP, he'll be jump spotting.
He's throwing a hand right now.
Be very, very careful.
Lucky to be alive there, Mac up.
High grounds to hit that shot.
Got to start repositioning, get himself tucked away into a spot from the spinning like he's overwhelmed right now.
Too many angles to cover, causes them to back up.
Can they get back? I think they want to get back to connector, but now it's being held.
So if they wanted to get the bomb back here, because they have two people at B,
they're gonna get intercepted.
Oh, stair with the double spray down. The bomb is on the ground. Disasterous.
His best contribution so far, stair.
Yes.
It might be enough to win the game.
I don't think...
Great reaction. Perfect play from Astralis.
A difficult round. A complicated one.
Fuzi, if you hit this, they might be going to the grand final.
You know, 4 vs 1, gravity, no time, give him nothing.
Ten seconds left.
Yeah, he can't even make it on the side of the stage.
He doesn't get it, but at the same time, the round is gonna expire here.
Gravity backpedaling from this one.
Stardust up to 12, one away from the grand final, here in Bucharest.
Let him save that AK.
like stairs should have converted that frag, but either way the AK will be taken into the last round
potential last round I should say huge advantage now the money will be broken the 3d max but with
the AK there is our buy five rifles across the board something thick something fast required
3d max let's see what they've got at their sleeve here one round away from the grand final
here at PGL Bucharest. It's been labored. It has not been the beautiful CS that we were hoping for on
Overpass. But Hoaxey has kept them in the game. He's kept them calm even when his style players
have not risen to the occasion. Yeah, his leadership has been, we've really been able to
feel it. You could tell it's working. They're playing a little bit more disciplined once again
now. It's there. Doing good in that last round, but it's been foosy and hoaxey.
They've been doing most of the work here.
They love this Wolfpack CS.
They didn't take a brave challenge though.
This didn't work out last time.
Last time they've hit Fusey, yeah, he got four kills.
He's off to a good start here.
Grenade comes out.
Fusey ready to receive on the other side.
Grenade killed for Fusey.
Can't get the flick.
And he's trapped in the corner.
The back of his there though.
Yabby will help out and it's lucky one versus three.
He gets the first one trying to hunt him down.
Yabby's still on the other side and Ryu has shown up as well.
This should be GG and he can't get the spray.
We will do it and it's a strawless to make the grand final here in Bucharest.
Hoekse is dragging his teammates, kicking and screaming into the grand finals.
And I mean that literally because we heard them screaming and he said,
please stop, calm down.
No, that was a captain's game coming up from Hoekse because a couple of the
players we pointed out early in the free game, Stair was having a mayor of
a time towards Connector.
I was making so many uncharacteristic mistakes coming out from him,
but yeah, a great game from Hooksy.
Especially you lose both the pistol rounds
and the conversion rounds
and somehow managed to get the win.
So good job from Mr. Hooksy, the giga-chat himself.
Gigachat, yeah.
I mean, I mentioned the last time they played
that Hooksy styled on them across the series,
but this time it was just overpass.
I don't know, Hooksy just loves destroying 3emacs
for some reason.
This was a fantastic game.
And I just mentioned the fact that Stare
was not having a good game.
That allows Hooksy on the CT side for sure
to pick up a lot of these kills.
Usually, it just should be there stopping the approaches, but you have to figure out some crazy rounds.
I mean, just starting with this one, that was a hero moment there on the Tech 9 that actually turned around the full course of this map.
Yeah, but I mean, mistakes made by 3D Max Michel, right?
But for 3D Max, honestly, I wouldn't lie, like, you know, they did put up quite a decent fight,
and all honestly winning the pistols really helped matters as well.
And I honestly thought it was going to be a complete rollout, honestly, right?
So a combination of Astralis, some of the individuals struggling, and of course, yeah, a little bit of Pet from 3D Max, a little bit of a fighting bit up there.
Yeah, CT side was decent, and then just that one eco that really unraveled what could have been a very strong path, that was at 7-3, right?
You go A-3, maybe get one more round, it's a completely different story.
But T side did not look bad convincing, I have to say, very slow.
I'm not sure. I really don't feel like I watched 3D Max today, the full, the T side on both maps were just so...
I don't want to say even methodical, but flat. Flat would be a better word.
Do you not feel like, especially on Overpass for me and that second half, 3D Max were playing against Astralis and the clock?
Because that kind of felt like what was going on.
And it's also because Astralis, they did a very good job. I mean, the stair was struggling quite a bit to its connector,
but you see Fosy getting a lot of these opening picks and whatnot.
and they had a setup. It looked like it looked a lot of foes. He kills it was just from the bomb side aiming down to its short position
through the bathrooms, right? So they didn't mean they didn't they weren't going for advanced bathroom control
Yeah, over the plank on the bombsite. It's kind of halfway through and three demands. Unfortunately
I don't think they had the right utility protocol or the light layering of the flashes and whatnot to push them away from it
So a good kind of like one say aggressive defense from as as far as so to speak but good like, you know, half way
Yeah
I have a very serious question that I know all the fans want to ask
It's the thing that really matters to get gameplay
I gave PGL Buccaris grand finals in the pre-show you spoke about Asian face Asian mouths. What the hell is Chinese phase boy?
I hope Paula is gonna get that from Qubesie if you talk to him later for that round the Chinese phase
I mean just a whole little team speak listening that we managed to hear there was
It was fantastic. First of all, just Hooksy acknowledging this is not the first time you see this is like guys. I don't know. I don't like what you're bringing to the the vibes pitching and moaning about it too much.
Pitching and moaning just shut the f up and let's play this game, right? And it's so and it's so we've seen it so many times across a lot of maps as well. But in this particular game, he was right. It was coming out a lot.
These two v twos, three v trees on the T side. There were so many opportunities for them to run away with rounds. So I totally get a frustration coming in from Hooksy.
our first Grand Finalist at PGL Bucharest. It is Astralis. Let's find out how they're feeling.
Let's do that. Indeed. I'm down on the floor with Fosy of Astralis. Fosy, congratulations.
You've made it through to the Grand Final. How does that sound? And is there a feeling of relief
knowing you've made top two? Yeah, it's nice. I think there was even more relief versus
eyeballs yesterday, but we were very close to losing. I feel like we kind of had both maps
in the back here like sure we made a little bit of a comeback on overpass but also to see the
status much stronger there so we believed the other way. I wanted to ask a general question
first so the two times you've most recently played 3d max you came out on top you've done it again
now but did the match play out in the same way or differently from your perspective? I think it
was kind of the same way um I think you know on dust 2 if we forget that two-side pistol
Maybe it's just a steamroll, you know.
So, yeah, I think we got it.
You know, we were comfortable all the way.
Let's talk Dust2.
So nine CT rounds.
Why was it such a strong CT half, Ozy?
No, we were playing good.
I mean, obviously it helps picking up the pistol at start.
And then we just kept on going.
We smashed their money quite a bit.
Like they were saving one round like four people alive.
So, yeah, it just felt comfortable, you know, playing.
Talking, smashing, you were smashing everybody on the server on Dust2.
I think you finished 22 to 11.
What was going on with your own performance?
Why was it so strong?
Um, I don't know.
I woke up, I woke up from yesterday.
You know, it was a bit of an earlier game there.
So I got my beauty sleep tonight, maybe that's why.
And then we move on to Overpass.
You finished 13-10 relatively strong map.
There's one specific round we wanted to talk about, though,
which was round 11. It was a swing round and we heard the audio from Hoocsi beforehand.
He referred to it as a Chinese phase. Can you tell us what that means?
I think he called it wrong. Actually, we called it Chinese Furia.
Chinese Furia? Yeah, but it's a smoke that we got from, I think it was Talu.
So that's why it's the Chinese version of Furia because we're using their smoke.
Wow. There's like multiple layers going on here.
Staying on board with the topic of Hoocsi, he popped off in that second game.
as did you as well. Sorry, second map. What's it like when the IGL is popping off? How much
easier does that make you guys performances? Yeah, I mean, it's very nice. I think like
there was one round on B, we just cooked them all from water and then one round on T side
with a tech nine on B side as well. Like two very important rounds that he like kind of won
single handedly. So it's really nice when that happens. Absolutely. Final couple of questions.
So firstly, yeah, you get the win, you'll be going on to play foot on Mongols. Who do you
Who do you think you're going to play? Who do you want to play? What are your thoughts on the Grand Final, potential Grand Finals ahead?
I have a lot of respect for Mongols, but I already know who we're going to play.
We played foot every event so far this season. We even played them three times in Pro League, so I think it's some kind of curse, you know?
We have to play them at least one time every event, so...
Is it cars or is it just destiny?
Maybe both, I don't know.
Alright, well thank you so much for your time, Fozzie. Congratulations once again on making top two, reaching the Grand Final.
Is there anything else you'd like to say before I let you go?
Yeah, I mean, thank you all for supporting us back home. It means a lot as always.
And first time we're in the final now in the new Astralis and we'll do our best.
And with that said, let's head back to the desk.
Okay, so we've got Chinese phase, Asian phase, Asian miles. Now we have Chinese Fury, I can't keep up.
I don't know where the Fury came in there though, right?
A lot of from Talu, but it's Chinese Fury, okay.
Yeah, well, I guess the base of the strat is Furia, but then they have a Chinese mix because of the Tyler smoke
That's a variation on the on the Furia layer to this shit. Yeah, but no, I can clearly see the fozie very happy
I'm surprised as I was off would be we definitely put yeah, I mean they've been playing in them all the time
I know it is it is crazy. They've been coming out on top most of the times as well
True that's what he's looking forward to but no fozie also
Even though we're praising hooksy right there and you know on overpass
We had so much of impact obviously calling as well. I think Rosie was just rock solid
I wouldn't see him have the slow start he had yesterday for example making a lot of mistakes
It was so very reliable
And I feel like that was also a lot of these rounds of deciding factor because it did come down to the wire in a few
These rounds few this of both the maps as well. So shout out to Fruzzi man really delivering there signing of the season says Henry
Definitely up there. Definitely up there for one of them. Yeah, okay
Let's have some final thoughts obviously because we do say goodbye to 3d max
they'll be playing in the third place to side it tomorrow.
What are the key takeaways for them now as they prepare for that?
I feel like you could see certain players on the CT side from them, right?
Like you could see how they still play their style of CS being disruptive, being in your face.
We saw that on overpasses on the CT side, but the T-sides man, it just seems so insipid.
I don't know what's happening. It just seems like you pointed out as well.
It's not like the 3D Max that we know, right?
They try to go for this very default-ish approach,
And then when someone throws a curveball, they have no answer.
They're just like, all right, we're just going to save.
Or they just go for a gamble, push into a bomb site.
That is, I don't know what's happening there.
Yeah, the amount of saving is so not 3D max.
So I mean, even Fuzi was talking about it.
I don't think the money was that bad.
It's just like they didn't know really what to do.
So they were like, OK, we can't be winning this round.
I mean, it seems like a transitionary period for them.
So I guess another game on land
will be good for them to figure out their style,
figure out how they want to approach the rest of the season
because without the Major obviously they have a lot more
they need to do on these other tournaments leading up to it.
Gents, it's been great.
Thank you so much for your input here
for the semifinals of PGL Bucharest.
We say goodbye to Prof and Blair,
but we don't say goodbye to you
because we are returning with the Mongols up against foot.
Strike and Dust will be on the catch.
We'll see you in a bit.
She said she loves you, but she can't love me.
But I love you!
I won't play Winder anymore.
What's going on?
Play your role, one expect.
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It's time your chair evolved. This is Secret Lab Titan Eva.
Ergonomically, engineers begin.
Gamers.
Hybrid warriors.
Artists.
Making your every move.
the
Oh, you're running!
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Hey, hey!
No!
Come on!
Come on, man!
Never gets old. I thoroughly enjoy watching that weird Muay Thai elbow. What what welcome back you're watching a PGL progress
It's the semi finals of Stralis. It's just guaranteed themselves a place in our grand finals
And now we'll find out who will join them will it be Mongols or foot this young team
That's exciting everyone so much dust striker here. You had a chat about it
They play a very similar style to Mongols, right? It's really aggressive. It's in your face
You never know what you're gonna expect. Yeah
I do think that they are quite similar.
I think they are a little bit less similar than maybe people
will make it out to me because I do think that it's actually
something that's clearly spoke about in an interview that
that they told to be had with him from after they won their
quarter-final against Bate.
One of the things that he was was talking about was how
he believes that there are more structures than the structure
than them people make them out to be.
You know that they're not the bad news eagles of this time,
you know, anything like that.
But another thing that he was talking about was also the game
against Bate in general and how,
you know, Bait were pretty good at limiting their aggression,
and that was actually something that they were trying to make sure to combat, right,
where they wouldn't go do their usual thing, go forward as CT and be more passive.
That doesn't really work out for Foot a lot of the time, you know,
and you could see that they get into a mental lockdown, effectively,
when they do face some of those teams.
But that's not going to happen today because they're facing Mongols.
Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of the growing pains of a team
that's having a huge come up in slightly,
made a couple of moves here and there last year.
But the progression this year has just been phenomenal to watch.
I mean, we were at clues with this team where they just
nearly missed the playoffs after having some great games
and a similar story, that crack cow as well at the beginning
of the year.
But they have progressively gotten better.
They top four to BPL had a bit of a break.
They've come into this event.
The only map they lost is the first map they played.
They've won every other game that they've played,
including beating ParaVision.
So I mean, they have been on quite the tear right now.
Small issues, though.
and that is that whole concept of closing it out.
It's something we spoke about yesterday.
I don't like to use the word choke with them
because they're winning.
So I don't necessarily think it's choking,
but there is a drastic slowdown
and sometimes it gets very close
when they have a lead
that they should close out relatively quickly.
Is that just an inexperienced thing?
I think so partially,
but I think the other big thing you have to think about
is that they're kind of leveling up
throughout the course of this event.
I mean, you look on your screen there,
three of their players having career best performances
so far this event.
And again, they were able to get through paravision pretty clean in my opinion.
The games against Bait were pretty tight, but again, they're not dropping maps.
And so I do think a lot of it just comes down to reps and kind of understanding,
you know, the next steps they need to take to become a truly elite team.
Yeah, I mean, there had to be a little bit of a Heimlich happening on that
overpass game yesterday, you know, when they finally got it together in overtime.
Yeah, Coolio actually did speak about that as well, where, you know,
the tilt was coming through as they were losing some of those 2v4s or
4v2s against Taniko and all that stuff.
But they did manage to actually put it together.
Justice Overtime came in and he was even saying how they were confident that they would win there,
you know, once they survived that onslaught.
I think as well in the winners' interview they was mentioned about like the mental struggle
that this team can sometimes face and how they need to pull themselves together mentally.
So maybe a little bit of an experience, but that an experience is going to be punished
when you look at who the opposition is on the other side because Mongols has their experience.
We saw this with ParaVision yesterday.
They have the fire power as well.
There's no room for a mistake or to step back and relax a little bit.
Foot is going to have to be firing on all cylinders all of the time.
It's not even just that they're going to have to fire on all cylinders.
They're going to have to survive this sort of kind of onslaught
that is coming from Mongols because, yes, they are very in your face.
It's something that Foot will like to have,
like coming up against them because they like to play a similar brand of CS.
But at the same time, Mongols is a team that have been doing this for a hell of a lot longer than they have.
They have, that's their comfort zone for a long time now.
So I do think that it is something that they will have to reel back a little bit sometimes to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand.
Because even yesterday, when they were facing a much slower pace team, they were throwing away rounds because of some of that aggression, you know, overaggression, overstepping in situations when they shouldn't.
Yeah, I mean, the big thing for me watching this game for Mongols is like, you know, they need to come in here to have a point to prove, you know,
This is a team that, you know, with Cobra has done better,
I think the people expected, you know, consistently kind of
placing in that top five region.
They've already guaranteed themselves top four finish here,
but now that pair of vision is gone.
They kind of are considered by many probably the favorites to
win the whole damn thing, but they're up against a really
tough opponent this time around.
So I think this is going to be a nice fiery battle and
it's more about just wanting to see these individuals find
some consistency.
Cause I feel like right now it's kind of a committee system
right now, right on the performance dust.
I'm, I'm going to ask you this.
You said Mongols has to prove something.
Did you watch that game yesterday?
Because holy hell, that last map, they proved that they,
they didn't even play that well.
In their winners' interview, they said themselves
they were giggling.
They didn't have to play that well.
The firepower was there.
They just had individuals step up and go,
don't worry boys, we got this.
Like I feel if anything, I'd be terrified
to play them today.
Yeah, it was a crazy comeback yesterday.
Obviously, Spiker, you were here to witness it
firsthand and I was able to watch back the film today.
And yeah, I mean, they just went out there
and got the job done.
Obviously, we can point to some huge errors
from Paravig, you know, st
not being able to win the
or 42 rather, you know, th
know, aid kind of given t
in that game, but you st
the fact that they run 12
ancient against a team wh
on it and who's ranked abo
the job done that resili
a three nine deficit. That
Yeah, but I do think that
to be here to be honest
they were getting out pla
even on that safety side
You know if they didn't survive I've basically four back-to-back rounds at the beginning of that second half
It could have been over at so many different points even techno was kind of like yeah
We we shouldn't have been here
You know there were so many so many times that they could have lost this so it is obviously
You know kind of a little bit of a gift
I don't think they expected that after the first half of ancient but yeah
Oh the more all the more credit to them really so we're gonna look at the visa now
I'd love to know what you what you guys are thinking about what's coming through here.
Mongols should be picking Mirage. I don't see a reason why they wouldn't know.
I'm not so sure about that.
Okay, okay.
I do think that it's a more of a handshake map where neither of them will pick it
and they're just gonna let it go to the decider.
It's a bit of a weird veto where neither of them have a particularly obvious pick.
Nuke I think makes sense for Mongols because of kind of a lack of faith in it from foot
because the teams that FOOT have played on UQ were Energy, Heroic, Liquid, and K27 that they beat.
None of them really were beating teams and they got slammed on it by Astralis.
The only time they actually played a good team overpass on the other hand, I am a bit surprised by it.
The Mirage pick here from FOOT is interesting. I would have thought maybe they would go the direction of Anche.
They had seen that 12-round T-side, maybe deter them away from wanting to do that.
So maybe Anche will be the third map handshake that we were kind of talking about.
Yeah, I'm somewhat surprised because Foot have shown that they are happy not to take Mirage.
If the other team is also good on it, I feel like they must have seen something
that would have come through from Mongols that they can abuse.
But do we still have the ancient pick as a decided regardless of the three maps
that I thought were going to come in, are coming in just in a slightly different order?
Because this is a style of CS that Mongols plays that they know well
and Foot plays a very similar style.
Is this going to be a matter of experience versus the new dogs being able to read
able to read what they're going to do, understanding the style that they play and how to shut
it down.
Is that something that Mongols has in their back pocket?
I think it comes down to two factors.
One, you know you're going to get a lot of early round clashes.
So who's in the better form, actually efficiently trading and being able to get early round
advantages.
But then it's also going to be the, well, if you come out behind in those situations,
what's the adjustment factor going to be, you know, whether that is mid-half or
mid-round or whatever the case may be, and that's where Mara's value comes in
space for Mongols as well as the experience that players have having dealt with those
situations many more times.
So yeah, your favorite models on the experience front,
but foot or in the better form right now?
Yeah, that's what I agree with as well.
I was looking at the odds and I saw that for a moment,
foot were slight favorites.
Kulio was saying that they're kind of heavy underdogs
and that's the position that they like.
I'm not so sure that that's the case, to be honest.
Like the way that the tournament has gone
for these two teams, it's pretty clear
that foot are in a better form at the moment.
It is more the experience part
where I'm a bit concerned after yesterday,
especially some of these oversteps, you know,
situations where they get a little bit ahead of themselves.
That's definitely going to be happening today as well.
It's more about Mongols have those missteps as just the same,
you know, it happens on both sides.
I'm just so surprised by both of you,
because I honestly feel like Mongols by rights
should come into this,
and they should be in the grand finals.
I think the experience that they've got,
what we were able to see yesterday with ParaVision,
did they play badly?
Yes, they admitted themselves.
That was some of their worst counter strike.
They still beat ParaVision.
That to me speaks multitudes about where this team currently sits.
I think the issue for me with Mongols is I'm just not seeing any consistency
in a visual performance outside of 9-10.
I mean, Mazzino's had a couple of good tournaments in a row lately, but
just I don't think anyone's really stepped up to really be that consistent
start that they wanted.
Meanwhile, Foot just has so much firepower across their entire team.
And it starts with the in-game leaders, right?
I mean, Crabenian Blitz are two IGLs who play yard.
You know, some people put their star players there, some people put their
IGL there.
In the case of Foot, Crabenian is kind of one of your star players.
It's kind of the best of both worlds.
But also the op-ing is going to be interesting here too,
because I think Cemetery is probably one of the guys on foot
that is under the microscope the most, right?
You know, I think a lot of people get what they want
out of Jules and out of Cabini and out of Launc's.
The human has his issues here and there too, to be fair.
But Cemetery has been the one that people
have criticized a lot.
And he's had a career best performance.
He's one of the best players in the tournament.
So let's even keep it up.
For me, it's more speaks to my faith and foot
after seeing that because I do think
that they are really strong, well put together team
when things go right for them.
That's more where my concern lies,
whether they're going to be able to stay put together
as they face off against a very similarly kind of mindset
team to them in Mongols.
Otherwise, I just do think that they are very, very strong
in how they approach the game.
People call them a little bit crazy in the head.
They actually call themselves that sometimes, I think,
long-spot that did one of these tournaments
in the last couple of events.
But everything that you see from them
makes a lot of sense.
they always have a very specific approach that is structured, very simplistic, but there
is a structure behind it where they always have a specific idea of what they want to
do in each round, whereas Mongols are a little bit more dynamic, more on the flow rather
than anything else.
Okay guys, so it's time for me to call on our casters for this one, Moses and Dinko.
Dinko, a little birdie recently told me that you moonlight as a bit of a rep god
when you're not commentating.
When is the album dropping?
You know, that was just a warm-up to get it, you know, make sure that I'm ready for this game,
because I'm expecting this to be super fast.
I was just, you know, doing a wrap call to try and warm up at the karaoke.
Hey, you nailed it. I thought you did great.
A beautiful voice Tinko has over there.
A multi-talented figure in our scene.
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Yeah, look, you too, Dust.
Mini-john was the same with Cocker last night.
He's been talking to this guest.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
I don't know how this game doesn't turn out
to just be an exciting brawl, just like a fiesta.
Both these teams love being aggression.
You saw that quote from the foot players as well.
Like, oh, we actually feel less comfortable
when we're being passive.
So we should just play everything aggressive.
Like that mindset makes me just so pumped for counter.
So we've got three sets of dualies on the pistol round.
Well, Mongol is going to be starting on that T side.
I mean, this is a matchup that you just get going.
A little bit of a problem.
I don't think anyone's watching Mini from foot.
I feel like Blitz is gonna walk in
and just get a free kill.
While they come in early through hot,
so it will be one from Blitz eventually,
Cobra also picking up a kill here,
has Mongols move into the A site,
plant this through and a retake require.
We got Demon, Krebbeni and Jukes trying to come back
into this, two flashbangs available, four Jukes.
Oh man, that was a little bit rough, nice and easy.
Blitz gets a lot of runway to just walk in.
So yeah, let's see what this retake has in store
for us without the kits with the only one flashbang.
And I don't know what foot's gonna do here.
might just choose to back away.
However, they did say they like being aggressive,
so, you know, maybe you just give it a shot.
And indeed, they'll set up for some exits.
Yeah.
Okay, so pretty simple pistol run for Mongols.
Yeah, very effective, getting the job done, getting in.
You know, looking a couple months ago,
we'd absolutely say this is a Mongols game all day long.
Still favorites coming into this.
But a couple months is a long time in Counter Strike,
Dingo.
It definitely is.
It can change a lot of things in foot.
How, really good in the story,
in the first season of 2026,
the way that they've risen up through the ranks
become a competitive team, you know, pressing playoffs,
the championships level events.
Yeah, they've had an excellent start to you.
They've been a lot of fun to watch.
I think very quickly they've become an exciting team
to keep track of with a lot of really compelling players.
Obviously fourth back at ESL Pro League season 23,
ninth to 11th at Cluj, ninth to 12th at Krakow.
I think like it's one of those things
where the results don't really back up
kind of how interesting this team is
and how dangerous they seem when you see them
inside the server, but still yet.
And I think that kind of lends itself
to that quote we've touched on is,
Look you are gonna need to learn how to play passive to be able to go deeper into events
You got to have more than one style so it's very cool right now
But when you hit the wall you got to develop the other angle
Mongols moving outside with some confidence realizing they're not going to have threats up against them for the same level as an AK-47
So confident to take this space
But if you get close to the 5-7 here a cemetery with those unbroken windows, that's where in this could be a very deadly weapon
There we go. Oh really should have been taking that one of your cemetery. Yeah,
Cobra gonna turn and somehow wouldn't that fight? Yeah, quick reaction. And now
he just controls everything and Grveni has no idea they could be wrapping up
heaven that he could be coming to fight for him. So smoke just to give
himself some safety, which I think tells Cobra there's likely nobody here
from the CT side. So Mongols are gonna be happy to wait this one out with
such a strong position position here. I think foot this this might be
where if you're not gonna be able to stack a bomb site two players lower
You have two at the upper site.
You might want to start thinking about a way
to get some of these pistols to save,
so you can fight again in the next round.
Again, blocking off Heaven.
Oh.
OK, another one is into the kill feed.
This time, four foot, though.
It's Kobenny's Deagle, connecting onto 9-10.
He's trying to get back to safety.
He knows if he gets stuck behind Tetris,
very limited chances to get further impact.
But he pushes into the lobby and techno
peeks to stop him.
That window of opportunity of the smokes up in Heaven
is the only chance they have to win.
So one kill is not enough from Kobenny,
but this position is just way too strong from Cobra.
whenever he decides to pounce, and he's even got one more kill.
Really good patience, really good play from Cobra.
And that's the Mongols securing the round.
Blitz has even spotted the leg of Long,
so he will surely fall life out.
Easy kill, two to nothing.
Now we were talking about that foot pro league playoffs.
We got to cast that mouse game
in the opening game of the playoffs.
Yes.
Foot started really slow,
and they had to come back into the game.
It looked like they were gonna get their asses handed
to them to be honest.
you know, miles are handling business,
footwork not rising to the occasion whatsoever.
Second half they come back,
they pull off the feet that we just didn't think
was possible to go on to win.
So for foot, I no longer have the fear
of them getting drowned out in the beginning of a map
and not having the capability of going back into it.
I think they've shown enough tenacity
and enough class that should they can stay in maps.
I think that's a really important thing today,
up against the Margills,
especially with them winning the pistol here
on the T side and converting it.
I think there's that conversation that you hear all the time, I mean the Mongols obviously
going to create some difficulty for you, see that mentality and staying in it, that kind
of tenacity as you mentioned is going to be critical for them.
Especially if we see Mongols go out to an early hot start, first two rounds off the
pistol, now they get that easy one up against the USP so a chance to build up some money.
And then yeah, then we start to have the conversation, that first gun run going
to favor the Mongols then we better see Foot find a way to respond quickly.
Well, they should be around without any issues.
Should be, but we see them frequently anyway.
True, 5-7s, Jason. They're very strong little weapons.
And sometimes cause some chaos out of nowhere.
I'd say foot has looked really good at this event in terms of getting through just the opponents that have been up against him.
2-1 versus inner circle to start things out.
2-0 versus energy. 2-0 versus paravision.
undefeated in the group stage to make it here and then obviously the 2-0 win in
the quarterfinals over Bate to position themselves in this matchup against the
Mongols. Mongols had a little bit of a hiccup, a loss to Astralis in the group
stage so they had to play an extended and extra day but make it through all the
same. Yeah, but I think the games we've seen from the Mongols, we haven't really
set their playing for it. They're not playing to their level, let me tell them to admit that themselves.
Sure, but I mean you know they still come out with wins and I think in an event like this
They're kind of they're in a situation where they can get away without playing their best counter strike
Probably not any longer in the tournament against foot against obviously in the grand finals and the series that will be but you know
They played wild card eyeballers BCG. Those are teams that can be very forgiving to you not playing your a-game
9 10 is gonna take a little peek in through the squeak door
Krobeni just skips on top of the hut but spotted on the jump up.
Yeah, Nantan awkward scenario now.
He steps a little bit too far into the open, could have gone down there.
Krobeni descending down into the hut, now pushing into Lobby.
He's actually coming this down quickly, he's gonna get in behind him.
Mzino is gonna die.
He turned around, there's an AK-47 available.
One player in A main, that's Boyce, but he just passed his crosshair.
And Krobeni with some style right now.
Cobra at least getting one kill in this lower bomb site.
But it's still a 2v2, this is still very doable for Furt.
Extremely, but how does for Benny get it? Oh my god
What is he doing right now for a penny? That is a ridiculous round of the kills that he's picking up are absolutely
Unthinkable, okay. Well, that's how he gets it. That's how he gets it
I did that's a crazy round from Grveni
He literally when he spotted from the moment he spotted on top of the hut
Every single decision made every single like tree of where he could have made a different decision
He picked the aggressive one pushing in towards hot and then wrapping all the way around through lobby
I mean part of that is also in a situation and around like this
we're like wow if I don't make a play we're just we're definitely gonna lose so
I might as well try something a little bit crazy but what does it work I mean I
started this round saying all right there should be no issues and then this
happens crow Benny those two the blitz and the vents is two very big miss
kills for the Mongols yeah let's say so but Mongols gonna buy again they've
got the offer 910 gonna take it for a spin out so I boost them up in the
box, even get better at eyes outside.
We got cemetery.
Now waiting is techno just around that corner.
9 10s all pays picked up the opening kill.
Yeah, fun while lasted.
Craven a put back in your place for the moment.
There's a little bit of an execute of this aggressive piece
towards trophy towards radio.
Cemetery's got the angle deep.
Haven't gained anything off of it yet.
Although foot with that death outside have shifted two players
down to secret.
That's long some demon who are going to defend.
And it looks like Mongols traversing behind this wall
into their position now.
Don't have to be committed to the lower play through secret I'm gonna hit in 10 seconds left on the clock
Just two players here including the bomb
There's techno is tech nine kill
And a double opener here for the mongols pulled back
instantly by cemetery and lounges yeah but now how do you shift this defense you
have two players downstairs that need to get up top very very quickly but you
know they can guard they can watch for this vent escape
yeah so we go back show my lancers walks up the ladder there's a real risk
involved in that decision but he's I should get away from it 9-10 is gonna
punish the peak cemetery waiting for that heavy angle here from co-brother
from the rafters he'll spot his target and force that AWP further back so it
It does feel like Demon stopped the plant, maybe.
Demon's gotta be the player to step out here,
but Blitz is ready.
They didn't even commit to the plant.
The mall calls are just fighting instead,
and that's gonna work out for them.
Yeah, that's, I mean, man, you take two rough losses.
The Krebene getting picked is one thing,
the Tech 9 close to door.
I think that's, again, we'll just reference that quote.
Jug saying, you know, moving up and being aggressive,
they've mentioned they don't feel comfortable
in not playing for information,
so he goes trying to find something
during the silence in the round
and just takes an easy death to a Tech 9,
Picked apart in so many gaps exposed in the defense, especially when you have two bodies dedicated to secrets, the lower bombsite, not enough resources for upper.
Mongols exploit that, they've got a third round, but foot by back up in, and Cemetery's got the AWP.
We've also got Krabeni here, just in front of the Broke Unbreakable, Unbreakable rather.
Unbroken Pulse.
You are the Rap God, so you can make it work.
That was worse.
We've got Mzinho and Techno just going to sit back here in a 2v5.
I mean, it's a perfect start to round here before it's just not going to go anywhere.
Yeah, no, this is excellent. Really good cover from Krebbeni as well to make sure
his Alpert can get away safely.
Taking out the player on top of the roof.
All right, well, Mazziniu's got one back.
Although this flank from Demon sees them not scaling towards the yard.
And if he pays, just stays passive, you can see they're looking for it.
I don't know if they heard it, but just expecting it.
And there's the body dropping from the sky.
This is getting a little scarier than it looked like it was ever going to be.
This is that conversation of like, this is where you need to learn how to play these rounds without
pushing, without being ultra aggressive. Giving away two back, now all of a sudden Techno feels like he has the opportunity.
Good positioning from Cemetery though. Better from Longs.
When do you ever see an AWPer in this spot though?
Yeah, Cemetery's playing.
But you saw him slide into it when the kill happens on top of Silo because he knows the next move is to go up
the ladder and go down the vent down the ladder in towards lobby right so he wants
to be behind that wall just for the protection so three to two foot don't
let Mongols run over them and take the economy way very very early on they
fight right back even hunting down this op a little bit not super dedicated to
it not a lot of money built up on the foot side of things
monster swaps out for an AK-47 and we're gonna head into round six
Feels very, just very chill right now, kind of like everyone's just kind of testing the water, seeing how this game is going to open up, everyone's feeling to start the map.
Seems chill, but seems like things are just warming up. Everyone's looking sharp, everybody's having their moments individually speaking at least, and that's exactly what we want in this game, right?
We know it can be absolute fireworks on both teams, everyone's just popping off.
Speaking of individuals, Flitz got four players in the top 20 of this event, which is pretty solid. Mongols doesn't have a single player in the top 20.
Everyone from Mongols is playing okay well, but not peeking anywhere crazy Blitz goes down
But that's all a fake to show up a rush real move is in here towards demon
Yeah demon
Head away goes back into the spray and only manages one and then emzino making that AWP sing so cemetery dying
There's gonna even out these players at a 3v3
Kermany's low as well 14 health rotation from long says now arrived towards the control room window
He's going to wait for that cross, bombs up first, here comes Tecno into the wedding arms
and longs to welcome him with a deadly embrace.
He's kind of pinned though, that he hasn't shifted back to stairs, now they're kind of
no and with the AWP training on this angle going to be very hard.
teammate is here though to swing off contact, good shot for Mizzinho and P9 can't get
the kill, Mizzinho's got to be careful pushing forward.
A minute on the clock is they start to move and they still got time to play this,
Composed that bomb is getting planted.
Amzina has died, and 9-10 only has a deagle in hand.
Let's see if he can pull off this 1v2.
Krobeni is low.
He's coming down to the rampards now.
Double doors swing wide open.
9-10, adjusts his gaze to look over that.
Oh, he's trying to stay hidden.
He's trying to get a job at it.
There's the body shot, but he's out of bullets.
And Jules will come in, the 1v1.
All of these rounds extremely close,
but Furt will tie things up.
Yeah, that's the kind of baiting you like to see
from jugs. Making sure he knows exactly where his opponent is before he swings.
Krebbeni with low health is obviously the bait to just kind of throw out there
and force him into the open. Good check of dark and a really good swing and a
nice round played and kind of recovered in a way. A three on three was really
sketchy with with Krebbeni at low health and them pressuring the lower
bomb site. Three to three. It's Foot who's going to take the first time
out out of a victory. I think them settle things down, get a little bit
more comfortable and talk about how you want to build up this economy to
have a clean round against the pistols.
Welcome to a decent amount of money, couple players were done on weaker weapons in the
previous round, we were able to upgrade into them but can't really do anything with the
cash they've got here in terms of fighting back with any kind of strength.
There's the penny, and Long's in the window was really the saving grace, Jokes helping
out as well at the end, and this is the final swing.
I'm going to see a lot of that today long says very much become the heart and soul of this team. It feels definitely the face and the guy who's given the mentality. The most experienced player on the squad.
Making sure the young guys are learning from the mistakes that he was involved in early in his career. He's talked about it many times during his interviews.
happen again when they have it here.
Well they don't have to worry about that at least for the moment.
They've overcome the early push from Mongols,
the early success from Mongols.
Now they've got some money building up,
five players surviving so far.
That's the big thing, right?
The fact that these rounds have been
clean and back and forth for the first couple of rounds,
but it has really left the money in an awkward spot there for
so really important that they were able to win that round
without losing anybody.
It can build up so much residual cash.
Yeah, a little buffer behind you.
So I feel more confident.
Let's see if they try and get into something aggressive
Now that they've got utility, now that they've got the AWP out,
playing obviously all in force.
And the buy kind of sucks from all goals as well, right?
They got some goals in play.
I mean, it's got a lot of utility, but it is not
looking great at this point of the game.
I wouldn't say it sucks is a strong word.
But yeah, you'd obviously like to have a few more AK-47s
in the mix.
That's maybe a little bit dramatic.
Well, at the time, Techno didn't have a rifle.
I think Techno and Blitz bought a little bit late.
So it looked a little bit sketchy.
They managed to scrape together just enough.
Well, cemetery on the prowl outside, having a little look towards silos, towards red.
And now we've got Cobra.
His shadow is spotted, cast against the floor.
Deven puts him up against the wall, though.
And as Cobra is going to be knocked on his ass, now it's going to be a 5v4 for taking
that opening.
And this is chance to smoke the choke point.
He's going to take the risk now.
Yeah, do one more time.
Isinho going to try and swing, and he's going to be held back by Poland.
It's very close.
Yeah, he's got to feel pinned, though, here, Deven.
So I guess if he waits...
Nope, this is the issue.
This is the cemetery play into his hide, he's got the scope up.
Well, Ramp is dead, demon's gonna die here for free.
And then it becomes how much panic do we see on the minimap?
Oh, the turn!
Oh, he turned around, got the info on Blitz, but he wouldn't get the shots off.
Because the reaction longs immediately rotating down, he wants to be at least some presence
there for the CT side.
Yeah, second player is Walker, Benny has arrived, both of them playing control side
for the moment, but they saw Longs in this position in the previous round, are
they're gonna let it go unclear again.
One smoke, one Molotov to attack into this bomb site.
You can block off one choke point.
And it's exactly where Longs was playing
in the previous rounds.
Yep, up towards the control room.
One of the windows shattered.
They won't actually get that information.
So he just found down through it.
Trying to connect onto them
as they move into the site,
but they move in.
Now Molotov, big kill from Politz.
Emzino also connecting.
Semitra's taking techno output. Plenty more is still needed.
Utility, heating things up for 9-10, but he'll just move slightly, adjust that bomb plant position.
Trying to get a wall bang, trying to pull attention and free up that ramp flank.
His juke is now arriving. He's gonna be able to get something here.
And Xenia in my cover.
And a good quick shot from the Mongolian. So Semitra's gonna have to fall away.
The Mongols are gonna tie things up.
Yeah, this is... We've seen a couple times where the outside defense has taken their gaze off of that, right?
Like we saw in the pistol round bits that blitz had a lot of runway
I mean the idea that he's just walked all the way around to heaven without being spotted by anyone
It looked like foot was lining up with that with that smoke towards radio room to like execute some kind of a lobby crunch
Obviously blitz throws a wrench in that plan and then it's scrambling to try and recover the lower bomb site
so foot out of position and
There's a number you had an aggressive stance and you also kind of weren't even weren't even getting information outside
So that's that's a little bit brutal. I think that's that's gonna be painful
I think Mongols is going to keep testing that until foot continually put defense outside.
Alright.
So try and break something.
Try and break the smoke, I would imagine.
Cemetery going outside with the AWP, so Kraveni wants to try and set him up
For an easy shot and easy kick, and maybe this is the idea. Get the AWP outside, have him kill Blitz, have him be a little bit nervous about going outside against the AWP or yet again.
So here's the smoke wall and Krebbeni's going to try and break.
There's the break and there's the shot, Blitz sending one all the way back towards garage.
Techno will follow up here from all goals. A really tough scenario now for a foot. You've lost so much space outside.
You've lost two members. You're not going to have great strong rotations
I'm gonna have to try and defend this piece site as you know, you've lost secret
Yeah, Mongol is very well prepared for every peak that was coming out
Right the break of the smoke showed the AWP on the second break blitz is ready for that's still a stunning shot against the upper
Even techno ready for the follow-up
Yeah, Demons just patient 910 is going to walk towards him. So that's gonna be a free kill
It's gonna hold for a while actually goes out gets another one, but just like that the two-man advantage is gone
Now they're moving down into a double setup on the lower bomb site and Mongols can find themselves in a fight e3
Haven't a fight their way back into it, but it's cobra that has done exactly that two kills
They're free up the Mongols again a sigh of relief as they get into the B bomb site
All right, and actually get scaling from cobra as well demon has no idea
He's dead easy easy close to the round triple for Cobra recovering the situation just as it was falling apart and
Mongols regain the lead and all that money we discussed that foot had built up a few rounds back all
So much of it is just gone now
Corbett is bought up at M4 for potential the hero M4 everyone else is gonna get pistols
Here's Dean and bringing this back into a doable situation long see been hiding on top of it
This happens being back and forth in terms of round way
but also the rounds have been back and forth hard to call you.
Yes, the Mongols going up into a 5v3, you're like, okay,
surely just round this one out.
There suddenly is a 4v3 for the foot side,
and it's crazy watching this all flat back and forth.
That's what I wanted today.
That's what I wanted in this matchup,
because we know both teams like to make aggressive decisions.
They're very crisp on shooting.
They've got a lot of skills, a lot of talent with the rifles.
It's just going to be a battle.
And you like seeing that swing back and forth in each round.
Grabeni waiting.
Flashbang doesn't go nearly as deep as I think they might have liked it, too.
There's an easy kill for Grabeni, and he's gonna stick around for another one.
Double kill, in secret, and backs away.
That's the only rifle available to foot, and it's given you a huge advantage.
Oh, brah. Double dink from Cemetery, even.
With a default weapon. Still finding impact.
This is definitely back and forth.
Yes, this is the definition of back and forth.
This is crazy 9 10 and techno in a 2v5 now
They've got better weapons and they've got a little bit of time to play with and at least they've still got the ball
But that's pretty much all that's going for them at this point. Yeah, this is gonna be rough
Pishel pistol take contact have cemetery swing off it with the 8k 47 techno pulls a molotov out to bring him back
And Mongols just get nothing going in this round all five players outside all five players deleted well those money problems once again
Resolved as foot win this round somehow
And they win it with only losing a single player.
Yeah, Dustin mentioned Krebbeni as the IGL is kind of like doing double duty.
He's double dipping.
He's one of the star players as well.
He really is.
So, I mean, he comes in with the single M4, the hero M4, and God he delivers for the
boys.
And he was also the player to step up earlier in the game already.
So he, you know, he had that big round, drops into the van, he jumps over at Blitz
and gets him towards main.
You know, this is two huge rounds from Krebbeni that have started to turn this
half towards foot.
The timeout being taken here for the Mongols.
had one you so far from foot now mogul's taking their first it's a good time
for it last couple of rounds of this half we'll see it's gonna be a tight game
or one team pulls away to a seven to five lead
there he is for Benny back you know you you said double day to me just
doubled it I know I was a surprise that he went back for another one it
is really nice timing or he's jumping up on the railing we're couldn't have
work out better for him. All right, well, Blitzsitters has had 9-10 pick up the AWP bringing
into this round. Mongols has completely invested into it. So AWP, Gouill, 2P, 250s and a D.
Eagle. They're looking outside and they've got another opening. It's just like trade
rounds of who's going to find the kill outside first.
I got demon waiting on the stairs.
I'm going to be crossing over towards his rifle, waiting in place, wait, good shot.
That's demon dead.
Two openings here for the moguls with weaker guns.
This really is kind of a dickless out.
It's not a seesaw at the moment.
Yeah, I mean it feels, yeah, it's a little bit crazy.
Oh, what?
What do you back up? I have no idea straight into the void. Yeah all the way back through the fence out of bounds
Well, that doesn't shoot a huge luxury for Mongols
They should have lost the bomb and then panic stations trying to go back and get it
Yeah, you would had to burn that smoke to be able to be able to pick it up cemetery
He's kind of wide out in the open
He's got to take a huge risk to try and bring this round back in very very exposed over to de con at the moment
Okay, we got this flash being pulled, coming out from Blitz, Smoke's gonna be deployed as
well on that cross.
You at least get to fall back if you're cemetery, you take a lot of damage, Roadbreak
is throwing Xemio, stepping right into it for some reason, he's going down towards
Jukes, here he comes, stepping up into the fight spotting on legs towards the
double doors, Jukes doubles up.
And now we've got a 3v1, all of a sudden Techno is on his own and he's in the vent only arriving
with a P250, so Mongols do a good job at getting into a winnable situation on this lower bomb
site, but winning this is just going to be so difficult.
Techno, if you get this down to 1v1, no cemetery is low and he had a chance to get that second
kill off towards the site, but eventually Ft.
Pull it back.
That's a wild retake.
That's a wild...
Bosnian runs out of the bomb site because of the Molotov.
Nate on the right, Molotov on the left, forced the planter into the open.
Nice spray down.
That's just a well-coordinated retake.
Crazy that Mongols, it fell apart.
I mean, so many rounds now have been pulled back from a disadvantage from the foot side.
I think you were mentioning their tenacity as like a big picture kind of a concept.
Look at it within rounds.
Krebbeni with the two huge impacts he's had.
Even he goes down early here.
Like you're in a three on five going into this lower bomb site.
A lot of teams would have saved.
I thought there was more to say.
Sure would.
Aren't we glad we're watching football long those are not.
Yeah we are.
I love the great time.
I love that.
Oh here we go. Up a rush. Double spray down from walks.
You don't even have time to count the replays watching these teams.
They're straight into the axis. Straight into the fights. Two kills.
As soon as we return to the screen, the Cobra
coming back with two of his own.
It suddenly blitzed and Cobra in a 2v3.
Now the issue is here for Cobra
is taking a lot of damage. He's 17 health.
So you really got to rely on blitz to be the playmaker the key to once again unlock this round
He's coming up towards heaven and he's got a chance because cemetery just dropped down
Oh, this could be perfect demons watching though demons watching out from cct then oh
My god blitz yeah, what how does he get away with these chances?
Yeah
Well, he's speaking in a way that demon can't really see if so now it doesn't really matter
But because he was speaking in that fashion wasn't an easy clean kill nice tap down the one beat two
Blitz has had some banging shots in this game, so I'm gonna give him a puncher's
chance here. How does he go away? I have no idea. He's only taken a little bit of
damage. He's managed to take down demon. Jukes is low. I'm just wondering where he's
coming from. He's got utility picked up on that descent down from Heaven. Now
it's a 1v1. Cemetery is at the vent, and it's time for the Grandmaster to
make his checkmate move. He's gone for a play elsewhere, trying to fake it
out, make him think that he could be going back to what's heaven.
He could go anywhere and this is going to make cemetery uncomfortable.
Yeah, but time is now an opponent of Blitz.
This this might be one.
I mean, I don't think he has any great options.
11 HP got to take a risk somewhere, but he's taking the risk with the clock.
And now that he doesn't really have a whole lot of time to play with,
there's no time to like find a sick timing and backstab the opposition.
Nice positioning from cemetery.
Nice patience as well.
Seven to five lead for foot as they switch sides.
They'll be attacking into Mongols defense, but a very nice opening
half, some very close rounds.
They're fortunate to have won a couple of them to keep this kind of a score line.
This could have very easily been Mongols running away with a dominant half.
Yeah, Mongols absolutely could have had a significant lead.
But you've got to thank Krobeni for that.
He finds two big impact rounds at the right point in the half
to keep foot alive and get the money into the squad.
Yeah, he's the one... I mean that Digo round is insane.
That Digo round early on just helps out so, so much.
Double kill with the Hero M4 as well to set up an eco victory.
There's been some heartbreaking rounds in this in this first half for the Mongols
Probably some frustration mounting as you've lost a lot of advantage positions five on threes were dropped post plants were dropped
That's I'm gonna come do a close and then we'll get things started so CT side for the Mongols
As Kravendi is gonna try and get this offense going the way he did with the defense
Nuka is just the first map in this semi-finals, Mirage is coming up next, Ancient will be that
third and deciding map.
We've got Astralis waiting in the grand finals as well for the winner of this series.
And we heard Fuzzi in the winning interview say, I already know who's going to win, because
it's pretty much destiny that we have to play foot any time it's possible.
He is right about that.
I mean I would love to see it in the grand final though, because we've seen that
third place this year.
Yeah.
We've seen it in group stages.
Now grand final, why not?
Let's see if we get some extra spice moved in there.
That'd be a fun conclusion to a short-term rivalry, right?
Nice shot from Cobra.
Yeah, great work from Cobra.
9-10's also got one.
7-10, Krobeni, obviously not going to go down without a fight.
They continue to move forward.
9-10, peeking out from the back of the bomb site.
But he needs to take a second to reload.
So once again, we asked Krobeni to step up for his team.
And to this time, can't keep the kill on 9-10,
who shakes his head in celebration,
as Mongols win the pistol in the second half.
In celebration, I feel like he was shaking out
of frustration.
I don't know why.
I was looking at his face.
I like maybe didn't get the shot as clean as he was that's what I thought but then I looked at you had to hit a
Triple kill, so maybe it was just all like clean up body shots or he thought he shot. I don't know but you know
This round works out pretty dang well
I mean that's both pistols now for mongol. So you're gonna be feeling pretty good about that
Yeah, see yeah a little bit frustration I think those first few bullets will want it to be on the mark
I look for the positive side, but you're right. You are a glass half full kind of a guy
I'm the unlimited refill guy Jason true
I'm going to spray down through the single door upper and that's going to be jugs taken
down first.
Both pistols now for the Mongols.
An advantage to get both conversions as well in round two could be a massive advantage
for them on this opening map of the semi-finals.
Yeah, yeah
Kits tooth towards decon transitions out to the control room peak didn't look like there was a problem with that at all for Missy and you know
Not at all. All right, Kruveni
Maybe add one more on top of it. Nantan's looking in this direction ready for this swing easy kill
Kruveni doesn't even see him
So we're all tied up at seven Mongols with these good starts off the pistols in both halves
It's been quite a luxury for them so far
I'm really looking I feel like this is just the warm-up as well in this years
I think mirage is one of things really heat up
You know these two teams yes, they're capable mirage teams
Well, yeah new being a more of a tactical map and like the constricting map like yeah a lot of this kind of brawley concept
Gets contained naturally by the map, but when mirage opens things up. It's gonna get a little bit crazier for sure
It's not a good amount of spice in this game so far
one. Debutility from the CT side. 910 holding waiting with the AWP. 910 going for the ambitious
Geagle shot towards silo. Blitz just waiting down towards secret. He will send a couple
of shots towards silo and retreat into the lower side.
Holding the angle.
Gonna give time for these Deagles to take the peeks.
Foot just moving around the corner now.
Here's the turret corner in towards Mini.
Demon falls to his death.
Crater is preventing.
Deagles, it's doing work.
Game in, game out.
game out the whole way through swaps out to another m4 not even necessary mongols contain
things and no big deal they regain the lead it's eight to seven
no you could get into a situation unit you highlighted it as you were coming into the
second half that it wasn't if it wasn't for those preventing rounds at crucial points in
that first half it could have been mongols taking a significant lead it could be that
scenario here in the second half, which is the worrying side. You know, if I clean start to the CT side, you haven't disrupted it,
Moldovs could just take control of this, especially with 9-10 on the AWP, and no one to challenge it on the other side yet.
Especially if they just stuff this attack right out of the gate, Blitz already looking up towards top silo, going to be in position
that's not really all that pre-aimed.
Although Demon on top of the silo, just looking for pushes, not committed to any kind of a swing whatsoever.
So, if it's going to wait out some of this utility that's out in the field, it smokes up in the choke points from the CT side.
Looks like Longs will be a solo play outside if he wants to lurk it or be aggressive.
Just now, Cemetery starting to shift over towards Radio Room as well. Looks like he wants to peek towards RAP. Jugs is with him.
with them. 9-10. Blinded. But still connecting. And that's like one of the pieces that kind
of is a bomber. Nice rotation back. That is a sick movement. Yeah, 9-10. Really stuff
in the moment. Two kills taken away from foot. Bomb waiting towards us. Quickie, don't look
at this. Oh, he's just gonna walk right out to Cobra. He was gonna be looking towards
that event. But unfortunately, he's just walking fully out there. Yeah, he seemed very convinced
that someone was going to be tucked into the corner, right? It was just a hard aim data,
just sidewalking out the door, not even considering other options. We just cut. Yeah, maybe you
made a noise. That fight. So maybe Cobra have made a noise in that corner and intelligently
back in the way trying to bait him into the peak. But either way works out very
well. And 9-10 gets the opening. Cobra shuts down any sort of relief that Krebbeni
tries to create. And that is that scenario that you mentioned, Jason. Well, they
They do just stuff this first round.
Yeah, 9-time especially, just spanking you with the AWP,
taking out the lurk outside,
shifting over to ramp room at the perfect timing,
hitting one more kill, then back and away,
grabbing one before the round ends.
Just strong, strong play so far from the Mongols
on this CT side.
Doesn't look like there's too many gaps
that have been opened up at all.
So AK-47 on Krupeni,
Tech 9s and one D.G.E.L on Demon.
Talked about Mongols throughout this event, not necessarily playing their A-game looking a little bit lackluster at moments.
Great shot from Kerbenny again. Stated a lot this game.
Today looks like Mongols elevated things a little bit coming into the semifinals.
That went over ParaVision, sending them plenty of confidence moving forward into these playoffs.
The 10-round comeback in the second half was absolutely incredible.
I'm going to try and get away. Good catch from Demon. Into a three on three we go.
Cobra checked in the corner. We've got cemetery and demon looking to just try and
Run past the crosshair Cobra. You want nothing to do with this?
He's trying to get away
But as he does so foot actually take some really important kills and put all on blitz
Yeah techno turns techno turn to kind of help out towards heaven when Cobra drops in he's trying to provide some covers
Those players can't come out
But I mean his teammate dies immediately and then he gets backstab so blitz the only one remaining on the map in a 1v3
He's been matching his counterpart on the other side in terms of some incredible shots
throughout this half.
I think a 1v3 is just going to be too far to reach, so prioritizing the AK-47 brought forward
into the next round.
Plenty of money for the Mongols to re-buy.
You see, Techno's going to need a drop, but Cobra's air has got like $9,000, so it's
all good.
And perhaps just a slight hiccup for the Mongols.
But another round with disadvantage stolen away, right?
But, again, just find even in round with weaknesses, the one AK-47, three tech nines and a deagle
and you steal it right off from beneath them.
Off the back of a Kribbeni opener.
Well, I got to start turning this into consistent round wins now for the side of foot.
Let me start carving out a T side.
If for no other reason, then you're making them chew into their economy right now,
right?
Talk about it all the time.
T side, get that money as low as you need that breaking point.
So once you have that moment of opportunity, it feels like you have a short window to kind
of pounce on it and really make that loss extra painful by taking money away.
So Mongols have to buy a pretty deep Blitz has 350, Techno 450 left over, 910 less than
1000 as well.
You got some guys at that point where it's starting to get a little uncomfortable for
them.
So keep that pressure up.
18. The AWP is back out for 9-10.
Yeah, the buy is still very good here for the Mongols.
Still gonna have to deal with that uphill battle with your foot.
The Mongols with a one-round lead. 9-8 on the CT side.
Demon.
Quick plate over the top, and here they come.
Faster plate into A.
We've got Tecdo off rafters. Only that is in one kill.
Cobra tries to leap in to help them, and the round is done.
Foot collapse upon the A defenses, and it's so successful that there's no where 9-10 can go other than try to save this AWP down on B, but they're even coming for that.
Hell yeah they are. They've got four players alive. That was so convincing, although they're going to run right past them. So good position to save in if you're 9-10.
But that is the exact kind of round foot they're going to love to play. If they can have that kind of pacing, that kind of momentum, I think Mongo is just completely shocked by that pace change.
We didn't really see them do anything too similar in the first half.
No, there was nothing quite as aggressive as that.
No, that's his own special piece of aggression.
But I love the demon drop on to main. Immediately when you get that kill,
comms kind of flood out of our gym, and the rest of them push it to A.
Just come charge at me at the same time.
That's like the ideal kill of the tactic, right?
When it comes exactly as it does in that way,
because that really is the most important kill to just win the round.
With the pacing and the kind of aggression that you're following up with,
Very very impactful to eliminate that position because you don't even need to worry about it
If you're those players coming out of hot and out of door right you have to think about a main is a worry anymore
You just focus on the other positions in the site and in the rafters and honestly look like tech
Techno might actually be able to get away with a multi kill there
It looked like he'd stabilized himself quick enough to take a second frag
But I feel like that position is like sneaky sometimes you feel like it's always good for that second kill
Yeah, but I guess that's what happens when you're looking directly down true
interesting that this is second time out by foot their first one was taken out of
a victory as well when Mongols was going to be on a little bit of a busted
economy now they take another time out of a win again
don't normally see it but one final buy for the Mongols with that save data the
UP MP9 and Techno's hands M4s for Mizzinho Cobra and Blitz maybe just
trying to figure out the money situation and figure out okay how many
Any weapons or molecules are likely to have you and they have a lot of guns, they just
don't have a whole lot of utility.
Well, if 9-10 can have a round like it did in the first gun round, it might not matter
a whole lot.
Here's the smoke wall coming outside, Blitz is backing off towards underneath Heaven.
AWP is up in Heaven to try and peer over the smokes and once again, Longst is
going to be sent as a little bit of a lurker. This time though he's got a couple players
joined up with him at least for this first phase and follow up smoke while deployed as
we speak. Bomb now going to commit as well behind Longs' position.
connecting on to demon so the player who opened up the previous round is dead
first
see moves from foot all the way towards CT Krebbeni
oh space he's got here he's got long trying to assist him he's gonna start
sending nades towards blitz towards the back of it but Krebbeni detected by
Mzino. These slower paced rounds of kind of map control and moving around
and trying to wrap. They're just getting picked apart this time.
Longs has kind of made it, but there's just way too many players to deal with.
You can't get in through the window without getting away the sound too.
You can't jump up without Blitz spotting you. Easy.
Well, not easy, but great headshot from Blitz.
Now the final attack is so weak.
It's just one player and Juge's also getting flanked out as well.
So Mongols, they catch it a break there.
They don't have a huge amount of utility in that scenario.
I think also Mongols will, because of the lack of utility,
play it much more passive right so even if the even if the even if the foot guys are being aggressive
there's not there's never any like real fight for them to find with how far back everybody is i mean
you could see blitz isn't even encountered until the opponent gets over towards lockers
just peeks one off silo early and then kind of plays it really really safe
almost saying you can you can be aggressive kind of come into the trap third and final
timeout for foot is used burned going into round 20
So Mongols made him a little bit nervous. This is potentially one of the like the the last
buy they'll have before having to save at 9 to 10 and then you elevate Mongols into the prime
position to close out this first map of the series. I have to think this is going to be
faster pace again. I don't think the foot to the kind of team that enjoys just playing
a slower round where they all get picked apart. Definitely not twice in a row.
Crossroads down, there's the XM-1014. I don't know how tech knows he's taking a kill there.
It looked like he was just peppering them with bullets, but not enough to bring it down.
And so, a fast play, they've like, food to say, you know, these slow rounds, they don't really work for us.
Like, so it's just, turn it up to 11 again, smash them on the A site.
I mean, it feels like you couldn't go into any round and just, you know, flip a coin.
Which team is going to get all the kills this round?
Yeah.
Like there's like some of these haven't even been all that competitive.
I mean that is literally what this game has been so far.
By the way, that's the, that's, I don't know, I'm not going to say exact same,
but at least very, very similar to the first round they ran.
That was, that was very aggressive as well.
Demon dropping on Mini, getting out of the hot very, very quickly.
Twice now Mongols have been unable to control it.
And I think Futs loved in that fact.
Going to make Mongols defense very, very nervous, and the AWP is taken away.
Money wants to get an issue for the Mongols.
I have to imagine this will be a timeout for them?
Could just drop down to a half-buy to a small buy
with some players and save that timeout
for a little bit later.
But it feels like this game,
that I feel like they've wanted to fight,
they've wanted to contest,
and they've got enough money for M4 and Blitz,
he's gonna go for the hero M4,
it looks like that's about it.
So trying to do a foot impression from the first half.
Well Blitz trying to be in an unorthodox position and perhaps that can catch him the surprise
that he needs to get the kill.
Yeah, all five players in lobby though for foot, nobody outside at the moment there.
Just want to make sure there's not going to be any kind of lobby crunch, no kind
of shenanigans coming.
And now we execute towards Ramper.
9-10.
Half blind does grab one kill.
immediately well done from demon and ramp control in the favor of foot you have
access to the lower bomb site can wrap underneath heaven yeah he died so quickly
though as well no intent he can't get clean information as to how many players
are coming towards ramp either he just knows I got I got a one for one there's
definitely a second player there but we'll see what the foot team do with
this positioning going down into the lowest side the rotation is here for
mongols it got two players down lower one of them in Zeno he's got the
5-7-L, can he do anything with this little gun?
Head spotted out towards the left,
he's anticipating to peek from the right side,
but it never comes, and Grabeni gets that kill.
So now Cobra, he's up next towards control room,
he'll peek out, a lot of damage being done here
to the foot players.
This is making it a lot easier
if Blitz gets himself in competition to clutch this,
and the timing, yeah, has just missed it.
Techno, it's gonna be looking towards Lowes.
Can he drop him?
No, so it is all on Blitz
to try and make this 1v4 happen,
And now they spot him and they peak him on different elevations.
Really nice to see that kind of patient, that kind of discipline from foot.
They get four players downstairs, no one's rushing into the bomb plan.
Everyone kind of ready and waiting a couple players dinked.
They've called out their low.
So everyone's kind of on notice for that next Mongols player,
where he's going to show up for the fight.
Really, really well done from foot to gain the lead 11 to 10 in round 22.
And the Mongols take their third and final.
Save it for this exact buy.
The HeroM4 in the previous round doesn't do anything for them, but now you have two MP9s
on Cobra and Blitz.
This is the Mongols' map pick as well, taking this fight to Nuke to kick things off.
Mirage coming up next.
We know both teams are very capable on it, but with a level full of play now at this
competition, if they do win this opening map, a real opportunity to 2-0 Mongols head
into the grand final for that matchup.
It was a joke to do it like Kastonis.
Yeah, unfortunate for Mongols, Nuke is the most logical map for them to go to in the series,
also a very good map for foot with an 80% win rate on their resume on the map, showing
it off here a little bit.
Yeah, a real shared map hole, which we love to see, especially when they have similar
philosophies in counter-strike.
Well, it's going to be caught and heading this way down into the vent.
Oh, it's got to be a little bit nerve-wracking with the two MP9s in such a critical round
like this.
Cobra and Tecno using those at the upper bomb site like the close-up angles around Hut.
Blitz has shifted over towards Secret.
I think he's going to want to provide a little bit more resistance.
You could see there's kind of like bait shots through the smoke.
All wrong timing for this.
Wrong timing to jump up and try and get that done.
Lounx has found him and an open and kill provided.
And throughout this event, Foote has had an 87% win rate and 5 on 4s.
These are rounds they do not frequently drop.
With the 5v4 making their way down lower.
Leave a couple of lurking players to try and join up with a split down to the B site.
Inzino backtracking to safety and just as he arrived to his position,
Jukes peeks out.
Inzino is trying to run himself for the 5-9-10s up next.
Awkward engagement, but Jukes will win it.
And there's no shot at winning this one now for the more goals.
in the bin, 12-10 here for Foot Esports.
Two chances to try and close this one out
on the opening map for the semifinals.
Might even just be worth trying to save this M4.
You've been spotted out now.
Silver player, I'm not able to punish it.
Krebbeni's gonna push forward.
Koba sticks in and goes down.
Nothing to do there.
Techno pushing towards T-Spawn.
It looks like he's gonna be found as well.
Foot's gonna take everything away from him.
And then they're up 12-10.
And what do you buy if you're the Mongols?
Two round losing bonus, they're going to get $2,400 in the bank.
That's what they're going to have to spend across the board, across each player for the final round potentially.
And that's just to battle for overtime.
You might just take this empty note. Surely you don't lose the check out, and you won't.
There's a better weapon. He's risking it, moving into the open.
Didn't get it.
Did not find the upgrade.
I was too worried about some more players kind of coming to come into chasing down with with jokes at the end there.
12 to 10. Lovely work from foot. I mean we mentioned back and forth the whole wave just right up until this like kind of second half first and half way sort of blow for blow.
Small runs from each team. This half opened up for straight for the Mongols but then five of the last six in the favor of foot.
They figured it out man. Those fast aggressive hits towards the upper bombsite break the economy.
Mongols haven't been able to get the money beneath them since then.
Now for the Mongols, two rounds left if they want to pull this back into overtime.
Has to start right now with a demon with the opener.
There's the follow up and the Mongols are crushed on this ace site.
They will be losing Nuke.
Their map pick goes against them here in the semifinals
and Foot was some speed into the ace site playing their counter strike
and playing better than the Mongols.
They're one map up in this semifinal.
They want that final showing versus Astralis.
What a brawl that was on you.
What did you think about that map?
Well, we always knew with how aggressive these two teams were going to be that we were in for an absolute slug fast.
We were going to be seeing haymaker after haymaker.
While bongos were the ones who struck first in both halves, it was indeed for who struck harder and showed no mercy in this game.
I mean, just the recovery in the gun rounds that they had, which is so good.
I mean, quite frankly, it wasn't that crazy of a map in terms of playstyle or anything.
I think you couldn't necessarily conducive to that to be honest because you know there's only so much aggression you can do as a
CT you know to try to take place
We saw a lot of it from Corbetti, but effectively all of the rest of the team was pretty much turtled up in their spots
But honestly, you know you were talking about an experience about foot and that's kind of being being a big question mark
It was mongols who threw away a three rounds that they weren't supposed to be against pistol low buys
That effectively in the end cost them up
Yeah, I mean going to your point though about the CTA aggression what foot could do they did
I mean as well as situations where you got cemetery playing such forward
I think often you never expect an offer to play in whether that's pushing hot or just doing these like weird control side
Peaks and window this really ludicrous stuff and then yeah, just making the most of what resources they did have
Krabini again being the star of this team as well as the high GL
Delivering big things in the yard Jews even have a really big round where you know
It's like every time something got thrown at them. They chose the aggressive option in response
It includes, you know, for example once to a mile tall and just basically shuts them a lower bombsite one time in the first half
So they just really showed no fear in this game
The school line was still close though because we had this like a round training happening
It reminded me of like Oprah back in the 90s, you know, you get around you get around you get around you
That was a very similar thing that we sort of saw that backwards and forwards
Yeah, I mean towards the end though like it was it actually looked like the Mongols would be able to take it over the line
footwear trying for these slow defaults and then they realized that was not
really working back to the upper bust and that's basically how they won three
of the last four rounds where they were just like okay so slow pace stuff isn't
working let's take quick upper let's take quick cramp and from there they just
closed it out on firepower alone effectively. I mean I'll say this though
you know the score is close 13-10 even though it felt like it back and forth
to fair because how the rounds played out let's be honest other 10 rounds that
Mongols won they won three of the first four rounds in the first half
by winning two-side pistol and then they had a 4-0 start in the second
That's seven of their 10 rounds right there.
So I mean, once the economy of foot really got rolling in, inversely,
you know, Montville started to really struggle to get full purchases
kind of towards this last stretch you see there on the timeline.
Foot kind of, not necessarily dominated.
The rounds were very back and forth and far as kills being exchanged,
but they always were kind of in control of those bigger moments.
Can we talk about the wind condition for foot?
I mean, what do you think it was?
Kerbini, I think we can see the that's like I was talking about it how much he was taking control outside
It was this kind of this E-colon that picked it off for them on the CT side
They ended up losing the next round, but then he was back back into it with the M4 outside
He was just re-aggressing the secret
This was the second E-colon that they won he had a safe gun and then he ends up getting three kills
They effectively have a clean round that allows them to get five on the CT side, which is not great
It's not amazing, but it could have been a lot worse if it hadn't been for those two players.
It's just so fun to watch Krabini duel with Blitz.
I mean, Blitz was like the fragging IGL about the last couple of years,
and everyone always really kind of got behind because of his aggressive play style
and playing star positions and leading a team while also fragging at a high level.
Now you have Krabini this year who's kind of stepping into that mantle in his own right.
Again, he plays a lot of the star CT spot.
He is a guy who can go in first for them on executes as well,
and he's just been delivering on all fronts as a caller and as a fragger so I mean you just really can't ask for more if you're a foot fan.
For me, he's just such a unique player to watch sometimes.
In both sides really, we say it more on the T side where he's effectively the light round long lurker in a lot,
but it's the first equal that I was talking about where he's trying to be oppressive towards door right there.
He's just, they just know that he's here with the Beagle.
But look at how quick he is at adapting to that and he's like instantly on the push on the flank
Right, they had no idea this was coming and this is preventing in a nutshell
He will reagress he will kind of subvert expectations where most people would be like, okay
I'll back off. No, he will go forward. He will he will keep pushing. I mean this feel was kind of ridiculous
He just drops into the vent and I guess the third one
Yeah, this is this is how it all starts then the round 10 where he was also the start of the round
just really, really, really good stuff from, from Corbetti.
It's well matched for the rest of his team, too.
I mean, you've got rounds where demons push in trophy,
you know, you've got rounds where cemetery is getting in these crazy forward angles with the AWP.
I mean, it's a, a team-wide philosophy to play this way.
And when you're on the same page, you're doing it in a coordinated fashion
with good timings and utility, you can really kind of catch people off guard.
And they did it against models multiple times.
Which team is, is watching this right now going,
hmm, we should, we should inquire about that one.
one. As in...
Krabini.
Oh, okay.
It's got to be some top...
We've spoken enough about this.
After the major, it is game on.
People are going to be running for everything.
So who's looking at that right now going, actually, that might work for us.
I don't know, Sam.
It's just the language that's been coming out from the camp is like, no, we're a family.
We just saw it in that Coolio interview from today.
And no family.
And there's a paycheck in Volstraka.
Yeah, but...
If they're well-paid enough and successful enough, there's no reason to break apart
at this point.
Yeah, it really depends on what kind of a deal they have at foot, you know.
they're being underpaid to know that stuff but from what Kulio was saying like this org is actually
really big on like internationally and other esports as well and not necessarily in Counter
Strike we obviously their first entrance into the game right but other than that I mean they have
money to throw around if they need to and if they see that this team is delivering they're
going to do what they can to keep as many of these players as possible of course there will
be approaches not just money sometimes the dream is to play with the big names so so do you
think that there is a team? These are the next big names. We're not dodging. We're just
have full faith in this squad as a five. Look, if at some point they hit a ceiling, or they
hit a plateau, or we feel like they're regressing, then yeah, you probably are eventually going
to have to see changes happen. And yes, I undoubtedly believe that there will be
multiple teams who will inquire about Swedish players. There's no doubts about that.
But again, if they feel like they're comfortable, they're getting paid well, they feel like
like they have the capacity to do big things as a unit.
I don't see any reason why they would drop.
I don't know if someone saw me.
I could play with Manassee.
I might be looking elsewhere.
Look, yeah.
If that happens, maybe that's going to be a bit of a,
there's going to be motivation to leave.
But I do think that it's something that we spoke about
before about this team, right?
They're coming into this tournament.
There's kind of increasing pressure on this team
to keep delivering the results and actually step it up
because otherwise there will be more and more approaches
than some of these players, you know,
regardless of their feelings to their teammates
and then feeling like a family, at some point they will be like,
OK, but I want to win now.
I want to win, and this team is not doing it.
It's not cutting it.
Yes, it's only their first season,
but yeah, if a falcon comes knocking, if a mouse,
you were asking about the game leaders,
there's been rumors flying around, around Miles and Brolin,
and whether he might be on the chopping block,
that's a place where he could easily slot in.
Even he's kind of as young as the rest of the guys,
so I think he would fit in very well too.
So maybe they would steal a couple of players
if there was a possibility and then that could be a winning team, you know, potentially.
So that's my question, like, can this team get good enough quickly enough to withstand that?
I'll jump onto the other side.
So I have Moonlighted in some other games and I know that FOOTS as an organization,
very loyal to their team and they like to win.
I know that there was clauses in these contracts.
This team cannot be bought as a core.
There's a very specific reason you're doing that.
It's because you want to move up the VRS.
And if FOOT gets to the grand finals, they're going to be able to do just that,
which is a really positive sign.
I think if Flip make the Grand Finals, they win the tournament.
That's where I'm at.
I think if they can get past the smuggles after what we've
already seen them do against ParaVision, what we've seen out
of them just throughout this tournament, again, to this point,
they have only dropped one map that was to inner circle
their first map of the tournament.
I think they could hoist trophy.
It's the perfect environment to do it, too.
It's not the biggest field.
It is a studio environment not in front of the big arena.
Like, these are the conditions that will help a younger
team actually be able to pull through.
They're going to beat Stardust.
And they've also got to win from Mirage.
So let's talk about Mirage now and what we think about this.
What was their map pick?
Why did they go with this?
Look, this is their home map.
This is both teams' home map, really.
I mean, this is where the series, I think, does enter the blood bath that we kind of
expected from the get-go.
As I said, Ucom wasn't necessarily conducive to that, but Mirage is all about that.
It's all about the Brawley counter-strike.
It's all about the re-aggressive middle, you know, big fights, big, like 3v3, little
fights around the map, like, depending on, you know, where you want to take it.
This is where all hell breaks loose, and they just go for fights everywhere, all
the time.
played from foot on Mirage this year, 10 wins, including get
some of the best teams in the world. Mongols though has always
been a Mirage team, but it hasn't been quite the same form
that they're used to. So, you know, foot does come in with
the hot hands, so to speak, but Mongols do have the deeper
past. So it will be a lot of fun. I think for me, though,
what I love about foot is how diverse they are on this
map. Yeah, we know that they play a lot of pace, but they
just have so many different opening variations of their
default on their T side that makes you really hard to
know just how many numbers are committing each direction
and where the resource is truly live and you got rounds
where Loft is doing crazy stuff in window.
But then you also have rounds where there's just one guy there.
But meanwhile, four people are running you down the A bomb site.
So they're very hard to read.
But the other big thing to think about
is that both these teams are very mid-heavy teams on this map.
A lot of other squads have gone the route of set pieces,
really fast splits.
Both these teams love the brawl for mid-early and often.
And so I think that these early duels are going to really
dictate the pace of this game.
I mean, again, my favorite player throughout this tournament
has been Kobani and the way that he
kind of crafts some of these lurks.
He does this on Mirage all the time.
You'll see him trying to lay flank through connector,
sometimes getting boosted into window,
whether it is his or Long's.
It depends on how they set up the rest of the round.
And basically, he is just a rat in the best way
that is possible, realistically.
So look out for him.
Yeah, again, another battle, the in-game leaders,
Trebini and Blitz playing the star positions
on both sides of the map
and being really heavy aggressive fraggers.
But also, this is a great op-ing playground.
We know how important dynamic defensive op-ing
can be on this map.
We know how 9-10 will be rose to the occasion to be the star of this team with the absence of Sinzhu and as you said he's very confident here.
But again, Cemetery is having a hell of a tournament right now at the off and this is a map where he's at times can really have the impact too.
So I'm going to be really watching out for that throughout this game as well.
Who's winning Mirage?
I like Flip, man. I really do.
Yeah, I think now I feel like it's going to be foot. It just felt like it was a bit flat from Moulinuq.
Stryker and Dust are going with the young guns, but we know that Mongols has something available to occasionally bring it back
Let's see if they can do it. But first quick break
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one
foot in front of the other and one step closer to
the grand finals of PGL Bucharest 2026. Foot take that first map of Nuke very very close affair. Now we
switch on to Mirage where the Mongols have got to recover but this is this is the map in Foot's
map pool and they love being aggressive on it. Do you think they love being aggressive on other
maps? This one is going to get cranked up even more. Yeah this is where they're most comfortable.
This is where they thrive and where they really broke onto the world stage but the Mongols
also a team that thrive on Mirage. We've seen them get a 13-8 win over ParaVision
on this map yesterday.
Paravision team is struggling on Mirage though.
So it's hard to see how much of that
was a Paravision weakness,
but we know Mongols like Mirage.
So at least you've still got that available.
The one worrying sign for me about the Mongols
was that loss versus Stralis earlier on in the competition.
Oh yeah.
In the 2-0 game, they lost Mirage at 13-4.
Yeah.
They did get blown out of the water there.
I'll tell you what's worrying me for Mongols,
and I mean we'll see it,
and it'll be mostly in the second half,
but Crveni had such a good nuke.
Let's tell you who plays on Mirage, but we know on the CT side
He's gonna be in your face throughout down con that con player. He doesn't like sitting back on his heels
All five players quickly to the a bomb sites
You're gonna be going through palace in this pissed around three defenders here for the Mongols including Dooley's on Mazzinio
Which is up on top of the balcony
Let's see if they could contain this attack
There's some senior descending
Went from the word trying to get to safety, but lots just not gonna be allowed that to happen
for East Boys moving into the site now,
doing a good job at taking kills in some space.
9-10 at least getting something here for the Marcos,
but you need a kill from Blitz,
which you do have, but the trade is immediate again here.
Balm is being planted, and Cobra and Techno
trying to race in to a retake position.
I like the idea from Cobra,
needed to take a risk, needed to make some space there,
and this hasn't quite worked out,
so foot East Boys is gonna be charged.
What's Pistor on, but how is Techno?
Come away with a double kill.
He could win this still, Techno.
Kruppetti's actually just straight up fighting him from ramp.
Bombs up, let us recognize him.
That's why he's trying to fight him, I guess,
because the bomb is implanted for him,
then he doesn't bite, he doesn't peek,
and the first go here, Techno moves under the wood,
pulls Kruppetti in, and Techno goes back to that diffusal
and well-earned high-fives,
and the rest of his teammates make out that
is a special clutch from Techno.
Yeah, well, there's the mistakes
from the more inexperienced team
that we've seen come out to just punish them
in this pistol round as you don't need to be fighting
Techno like that.
Let him be.
He presses the issue comes through the smoke, but you don't need that second swing play the bomb. It's a teammate
You essentially had a four on one and you let the round drop away after such good openings as well
After such doing such good work to get in here
So really really painful I would imagine for a foot that they let this one slip away
Not necessary to find this kill at this point whatsoever
That's three for three on pistol rounds so far for the Mongols
Really disappointing start, but Foot's gonna try and get it right back.
They invest in Galils off the bomb plant, what they're missing is Nades.
Two smokes to utilize for the entire round.
If Blitz closes this map and shrinks it and gets information with Cobra, Foot's gonna
be in trouble.
Oh, spotted.
One kill.
Somehow gets a kill out of the situation, but that's information at least passed
over to the rest of the Mongols.
As a peek out to the window from Techno, Krobeni, hitting the deck.
Here comes Jukes out of Palace.
Hasn't been detected yet.
Oh, look to your right.
And you've got Mzinho.
He's going to hear it.
He's going to react.
Mzinho gets away with a good shot from Demon.
At least the response is there, but still so many targets to still pick up here.
Nintang couldn't finish off his meal, couldn't take down Cemetery.
Now Techno racing in again to try and save Mongols from an awkward spot.
Push out from Nintang has been punished.
Semitran 1 HP a single point of health, but he still got a chance at winning it
It's got to get the bomb though the bombs the hard thing
Techno again required to save them all goals back-to-back impact from techno
Now do you buy up again if your foot power grab like we know you like to be aggressive in the style of counter strike inside the map
How aggressive do you want to be with the economy here?
You bring it down to one player surviving you could go for a similar buy with glills
You could go for tech nines as well with utility and you could see if you could steal one away and break the economy early
that would be incredible if I don't want to see this in extra months you know
just saying what we did now that's got to be right after the pistol round as
well yeah that's certainly certainly gonna yeah you kind of have to say
something like that yeah okay just don't do that again I'm not mad I'm
disappointed yeah that's definitely worse
Oh we got well we saw the hooks he has an IGL earlier today have some some spicy words amongst the team as well when he was a little bit disappointed in the performance
I am loving the hooks he listenings. Yeah, they are great. Aren't they? They've been fantastic at every event so far. Yeah
IGLs across the board just real on every once in a while you got to have that stern hand
Here's the pop out of palace one quick kill can they get more 9 10 doing great work
I killed them, Launx sets. 9-10 being picked up.
PAAAAAAARGH!
Wait, wait, wait, wait, the bomb is at the B bomb site.
This fake has worked so well.
Demon could disappear.
So can Launx.
They're going to get away on the timing, and I think Mongols is about to realize they're
on the wrong side of the map, my friends.
Hold on.
Yo.
Oh my.
Techno just said it.
He just said it.
And now he's going back.
Oh, it's B.
I'm sick. We've just been absolutely bamboozled, outplayed and made to look very silly indeed.
This is full. We're talking about them coming into this round. You're asking Jason, are they
going to go for an aggressive approach to the economy? Will they buy up into this? They
didn't. They just upgraded some pistols and it's enough.
You know, I'll tell you what, it's like you rarely see those four ones kind of work.
The idea is obviously very, very effective. The only reason it actually works is because
you get these opening kills with the Deagles. If you don't get kills, no one shifts
off the execute. We see that happen so frequently but just the fact that you're able to just
run up and get a couple kills make it look really easy. B bomb site's wide open. Wild
turn of events. Mongols still have money to buy. They still have a lot of cash to buy.
So they reinvest into this. The AWP is out for cemetery. M4 is on techno and blitz.
pistols on the other three as they try and fight back but foot have thrown a real wrench in their plans in the early stages of
Mirage. Bigel Franzinho pulls out. Oh he's nades just at the wrong time. Longs is just going to march towards and take that kill easily.
Techno at least rattling one back in favor of Mongols. He goes to the top of the stairs. Techno, real chance for a 3k.
to 3k depth, important trade from Krebbeny.
But look at the Blitz fling.
Look how quick he is to get in behind.
Here he is, M4 primed and ready.
They consider it and they turn around
and Blitz is going to be so frustrated about that one.
9-10 stuck in connector, flashes there
to allow Krebbeny to fall back to safety.
Oh, it's a tough old scenario here for the Mongols.
Money is going to drain.
Easy shot for cemetery at the end of the day.
Second round, Locke's getting him hyped up.
Well, Kobenny's got to be pleased as well.
Hasn't seen any of those mistakes now.
The benefit of that pacing too is, I mean,
just getting in and clearing out that defense,
breaking into the eight bombsite,
you have a minute and 20 seconds left,
and you can just be so patient.
You can just kind of chill
and wait for all the follow-up fights.
Mongols, with like kind of a four-spice,
didn't have all the utility for a clean retake.
Unfortunate for Mazzinho,
but just lovely trading coming in
and a heads-up play from Cemetery.
Triple-killing around from the foot,
Alper, we're tied up at two,
and Mongols are out of money.
Yeah, it's gonna be a foot lead coming up here,
They're going to be going direct towards the A-bomb side.
Look at this, already arriving at the ramp.
We've got the MAK-10 ready to go forward.
And look, they kind of did this over on two.
Not too concerned about that loss just yet.
Only USPs, this should turn in the favor of foot any moment.
Also taking damage on jugs.
Don't want to lose too many players here.
If you're foot, you're not going to lose this round,
but don't want to lose too many of these weapons.
Definitely don't let any of these weapons
fall into the hands of the Mongols players but always looking for a fight yeah they
really are they I mean they want they want the stat pads don't they kind of a
big risk for a Kareni to just kind of walk through the smoke on his own you
mentioned not giving the guns away to anyone and then look at the kind of
end-round sneakiness of Blitz who's gonna be over in Palace trying to
grab an exit kill as well unfortunately for him foot they rotate the other
direction. Mazzini grabs one on the escape but Krebbeni already called out that he
cleared CT spawn. USPs are coming for the fight. Demons ready for it. Takes the
damage. Another death. Okay, that got costly but the T side is kind of equipped
to deal with those losses.
So three to two heading into round six and this happened on Nuke is what I was
gonna say. We saw the conditioning on Nuke and we saw them repeatedly
hitting that upper bomb site on their T side and just steamrolling Mongols
constantly constantly early stages of this half pistol round to the A bomb site
gun rounds the outside of like the 401 fake attention has been towards A and
they've won a couple of rounds early on there so Mongols might start feeling a
little bit sensitive to that side of the map if you throw any pressure at it
down 9 10 I'm ready towards top middle
Cobra waiting for that swing out it's
gonna be one to kill bread 9 10 two
frags collected and Mongols at a better
spot especially with that extra damage
done towards juke's that's gonna be
blitz to come in from jungle and finish
off all that damage okay well cemetery
he left the bomb all the way back you
wanted to try and hustle and grab
this killer con so a timely smoke to be
able to drop that now that's from
blitz 1v2 for cemetery does it want to
stick with the AWP or swap out to an
AK-47 be a little bit more versatile.
Let's see what he decides to do. You mean he's got plenty of time and so he'll switch to the AK-47.
Seems like the right decision. Plenty of time at the clock. Not so much plenty of time with Blitz coming
wrapping around through T spawn at the moment, but so much restarted picking up the pace hustling.
It's the perfect play right now. It is the gap. A lot of angles you got to worry about, but he's gonna see nobody's home.
And as Blitz kind of closes the map off walking through T spawn you're gonna start probably seeing techno shift towards short to be able to get some eyes
And then they can kind of join up in middle
There's you go B
Or CT
Gonna go towards the B bomb site. Okay. Nope. He's he's decided it's the CT spawn play
Yeah, he's checking to see like you can play like back in market to kind of swivel and peak towards murder hole peak towards the B
the halls, peak court short, so he's trying to find a position that CTs would be playing
to be safe.
Blitz has somehow walked all the way around the map to get himself right back at the A-bomb
set at the perfect moment.
Yeah, on the stairs as well.
Oh, but, missed his chance, so Cemetery putting the utility down, that Grenade is going
to drop him to 21 HP.
Perfectly placed, HE Grenade.
Cemetery also having to deal with another one, so Grenade's landing towards C.
There's that B-defender coming over who hasn't had anything to do all game,
had Nade flash Molotov. This image is like great that's that's fun I don't even get a chance to try.
Not too shabby though. Really good piece of mid aggression from the Mongols and foot run right
into it. 9-10 helps them come out on top of that exchange and even though Cemetery's got a
couple back they lose so much in the progress. So three to three we're tied.
Well I mean foot's rich man like even after a buy they've got thousands left in the bank so
so they're all good for at least another round after this.
Mongols look at his string things together,
9-10 has his AWP.
Here's Foot yet again.
As I mentioned, they had success today earlier.
They just want to keep hitting it.
And it's only Mazzinho here to defend.
He's playing retake all the way back at ticket.
9-10 inside all the connector attempting to shot towards Palace, but what's happened is
the teammates have died and 9-10's under excruciating pressure to try and pull one back, but runs
into the connector.
It is a blanket of flames coating the floor, and so he walks over it to his death and Cemetery
now moves up towards CT spawn.
It's just too strong here for the entry into the A site from foot.
Again, Blitz is going to have a flank, but none of these flanks have really done
anything to you.
But the time he arrives, they've got the read on it.
Jokes just drops him and Tecno, there's nothing he can do here.
Dude, some of these shots that Futs are hitting in these rounds
is like Mongols players, they don't have a chance.
Like, there's some of these fights
where it's just like you don't have an opportunity.
9-10 tries to be aggressive to kind of save the situation,
try and shave one player off
and then he has to retreat back up into two Molotovs
thrown in towards Khan.
And you got the read.
Landing in Nade at Tecno's feet, you're being hunted.
Yeah, I'm gonna take everything away.
No mercy from Foote whatsoever at the moment.
Brilliant to see them play like this on the T side.
Yeah, and this is the same issue as Nuke,
where we saw Mongols not able to stop
any of the hits to the upper bombsite.
Now on Mirage, we're watching them unable to contain
any of these hits at the A bombsite,
even when there's players here,
even when they play retake.
The different approaches they've had,
none of them have really worked yet.
And Foote are gonna love that.
I mean, it's a great feeling to know
that you can always return to an A execution
to get around with.
And that you've set it up so nicely, or like for an IGF or Krivani, this is such a luxury.
You've had three like gun round execute wins at the A-bomb site already.
Kill brought, good spray down. That's gonna be two.
All towards short and got juke's just jumping out of the window.
Oh my God, okay, a lot of space, but not a lot of chances.
Oh, that's a little bit disastrous.
Okay, these are gonna make me, Mongols are gonna make me a little bit of crow here
because that is foot trying to exploit the fact and go for that poppy bee hit really, really quick.
Looked extremely disorganized. I'm gonna say that obviously doesn't help when you're trying to split into your teammates go down in
Middle that's probably a moment where you call that off and that calm never happened that switch up never happened
19 called over to watch the cross of Krebbeni
And that all shoot confirmed the round win here and it will sell nine ten to drop him that is
No, a great look that from foot. It really is deja vu to the first map of the series
Where it's just like some surprising just out of nowhere round wins
absolutely. Kiro M4 gets you a double kill up mid on the push and then your
pistols clean things up at the B bombsite when foot commit to the attack
regardless of the fact that they're missing half of it. Well that's a chance
the Mongols weren't expecting to have so they're going to take a timeout, get
Mara on the mic, you see Kulio dropping his microphone down in front of his face
as well. I'm sure he's not going to be too happy with how it
things have started. I mean you've thrown away the pistol round, that's a
round that looks pretty ugly as well. This could be a far stronger start
from foot on the T side.
Yeah, I think I think the frustration out of that round for from
Krabeni is going to be probably focused on himself. I think more than
anything, like trying to just kind of call a blind counter based off
that success and then not being able to pull them back in time to
actually try and recover the scenario.
Around felt like it was just kind of kind of just thrown away by
default.
Round nine coming in, we're tied at four between foot and mongols.
Again, Astralis waiting in the wings in the grand final for the
winner of the semi-final of PGL Bucharest.
Krabani trying to get up through connector here, going to jump up on the bench, Techno
extending into the open, not giving him all that timing to get behind the cover.
Also, he exceeded the timing of him to push after Kravak gave up the bench angle. Oh lovely shot
Techno is definitely being a shining light on this map for Mongols another important kill kill, right?
It was fantastic in the last round here. He is a gang cobra coiled underneath the wood and strikes on three goes back to the
4k but techno arrives
And now we'll end up being another Mongols victory
They do make the most of their previous round success and they're starting to build something here in this first half
Yeah, that's pretty hot from cover. Those are some nice shots really good movement as well getting down
Down the ladder as well that second kill is a thing of beauty and a kind of a retreating battle
It's a good thing you got it too because he did kind of let his teammate die here
Missy new gets hard peach maybe a little bit frustrated
But when you watch your teammate do this after the fact you stop caring all together
Techno cleans it up through the smoke and that's the money taken away from foot all of a sudden T side running flat
got nine tank cracking open locks that's a good start against the weaker weapons
but it's kind of round to go the way I thought they need to miss smoke find
successes and they just kind of roll on that maybe they're blocked everywhere
How many of the point for a preventing to get a little cranky about the miss PC utility probably takes away exactly what they wanted to do and then the extra frustration of getting blown up about a grenade right afterwards.
Three versus five Mongols snapping into place here.
The later stages of this half this is looking like it's going to be a third round in a row for the Mongolian defense but hold the phone jugs has a cannon.
But has no clue that techno just outplayed him techno going to wrap around the back.
around the back. There's the head right there. Techno's just gonna wait patiently for the
apartments players to come out. And then Techno should be taking this, no problem. He's pulled
off the knife as well. Making some extra money. Techno, I've watched him get two knife kills
on this B-bomb. That's right. That was it. That's one round. He's got another one.
Oh! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Not like this, Margot! It's a demon
delivering two on the D-goal. Doesn't even want the reload. The flank in the
apartment should be the insurance policy there. And Xenio coming around the back.
He's going forward, and now he's got a better gun.
Does he make the read to look to the apartments?
He does, and he's up there and just about winning it out
for the Mongols.
Demon was starting to make something ridiculous happen.
Holy hell, I cannot believe he almost pulled that back.
Mongols, you gotta get better at that.
That's a round that you almost let slip away.
You almost give up.
Now they are the worst rated team in these playoffs
in terms of trading deaths of their teammates.
Only like 15% of kills that come out on the Mongols
get traded by them.
And here you could see just exposed and exploited where Demon's able to find all 1v1s with the Deagle.
What's what I love about these two teams? They just can't be around out of nowhere.
Like, this just starts when it looks over, it looks done.
You have Techno going in for a knife kill, then Demon in a 1v4 suddenly gets it into a 1v1.
But outside of like the Alper in market, the other two kills he gets in that bomb, so you're like,
what are you guys doing? Why are you wandering in the open?
Well, there's two of you there, just set up and hold angles.
Like, you just don't play to live.
And then you don't have to lose all that money and all those weapons
and potentially give away a 1v4.
A 4v1, I should say.
Round 11.
Off back in the hands of Blitz.
910's pushing middle with Cobra up on short.
And actually they want to be real aggressive.
Krebbenny's brought down so low by utility.
Blitz just being patient.
We'll get that peek he's looking for.
Long stepping out towards him, 9-10.
Walking up towards top middle and the Mongols are getting into a rhythm.
Yeah, this feels like they've hit a critical mass.
They've really built up into this game quite nicely.
Really good early hot start from foot,
but not able to establish a whole lot of success outside of those A hits.
Those A execs so strong early,
but the B hits looked ugly, not able to take mid control.
Like really, Mongols has been really disruptive.
That's the game plan they've had this half against foot.
They've pushed up in some of the full buy rounds.
They've had multiple people fighting,
take down one or two foot players.
Foot's never been able to execute any splits.
They've never really been able to execute anything clean
from Khan.
All of their rounds have been basically
extremity attacks because Mongols
just isn't letting you have the middle of the map
and you've never been able to wrestle it away from them.
Smoke at the base of Catwalk, smoke at Khan, smoke in window, four players going towards
the B-bomb, so they're going to try it again.
Krebhendi is going to be the lone player splitting up Catwalk.
Last one on the half here, they come at Cobra, secondary AWP, looking clean, and then Zera
in the apartments, having to shut down with the AWP, it's just perfect as Cobra holds
on to that B bomb site. And that is exactly what the Mongols were hoping to see. Yeah, the
newest addition to the roster having the two most stylish rounds for the Mongols throughout
this half. The M4 over on the balcony at the A bomb site. Now the AWP shutting down that
B hit. Man, the way this half started felt like FWITZT side could really get up to
something really cool with the way they were conditioning Mongols. But Mongols just
set up the brick wall from there. Yeah, I'm shocked to see for actually only leave
this half with four rounds. It's wild to see that happen. That pissed around, I think it was the start of
the messiness. We came out, they looked so strong. They basically won that pissed around. You hear
Krebbeni saying, I don't want to see another round like that, but never really stabilized any point.
I think it was they really struggled anywhere other than the A-Bombside Executes. They struggled
everywhere else on the map. The two B hits we saw, this one here shut down entirely by Cobra
previously. It was a really ugly disorganized one. They tried to split it, but this is just
all Cobra. Fine work with the AWP. They found yet another kid out of Mongolia who's just got skills
all across the board. Lovely look from Cobra. Gotta have him happy and smiling. He's got his
team up by four. Eight rounds for the Mongols in the first half as we switch sides and now
Now we get the pistol round as Flick begins their defensive campaign.
Oh, they're mapped in the series if required, as they ain't shaked him.
We might just be going there with the way the Mongols have started to play.
9-10 has got the opener here on Croupetti, we've got Seventry trying to fire back,
but there's no matching 9-10 in this pistol it seems.
Another one picks up, Locke's doing his best, quiet enough first half, but he
He showed up quite quickly here in the second, and then Cobra's hunted him down alongside Emsinho.
So all on Jigs, Julbarot is coming back in for the savior of the round.
What an attitude out of Mongols. Good shooting.
Two kills on 9-10, so Jigs comes over, and now the Mongols settle into the bomb site.
Emsinho playing inside the pillar, and Cobra just spotting on both sides of it, getting the information.
Moving out, Emsinho knocking a budge.
Stands on default
Waits allows cobra to fight in Xenia was not even required cobra wins it pistol picked up here for the Mongols
Both pisterons on Mirage and now a huge step forward towards ancient both pistols on Mirage all four pistols in the first two maps as well
They got both on nuke so it's just been dominant in these opening rounds for the Mongols
They've gotten to start out in the advantage and even though foots wrestled it back at times
This one feels like it's a little bit far out of reach
We might not even get to see too much of a chance of Krebbeni.
We mentioned at the start of this map that we'd see it in the second half, but with the
way the scoreboard is looking right now, they're not going to have too many gun round opportunities
once they eventually get there.
No, but something great about the foot squad is they're always, always standing a chance
around like this.
Yeah, we've seen them win like four of them already today, five of them already today.
Yeah, five, seven, scout, Deagles.
Let's see if the foot can get this round win.
At this point, it feels like they need it.
Seventry better have a bang around with a scout.
And the demon Deagle is going for a P5-7,
and leashed into Palace.
Could be techno forced away.
Krubeni's Deagle, of course.
Cracking a skull here in Emsinho.
Moulin goes down to three players immediately.
Trying to get out towards that A site.
You got two players stuck inside a jungle, one towards Stas.
Seventry's still a problem.
Does get a tie-golf.
Softens up Cobra's Zera.
Krubeni's coming for you.
Here comes Krubeni, but Cobra reads it.
He turns, and he gets that kill back
to a 3v3 minute on the clock demon has arrived but lounges the one getting the
dig shots it's nine ten blitz and cobra all going down to the diggles and foot
do win this round that's a risky force if they're to lose that one mongols has
such an incredible they've likely 11 to 4 so to come back and have a round like
that when they have four players already at top con before you realize what's
coming the diggles again man and mongols and we we heard preventing
complaining after the pisser I would imagine blitz has got to be saying
some of it similar because again this is like the fourth or fifth time Nick lost
against pistols and these four spies and that is devastating. A real hiccup in
the second half to open things up. Kruitt's got AKs, M4s, a Mac 10 on jugs. For the
Mongols it's back to pistols. And that's the con around that can turn this
four foot. Yeah you get to the gun rounds like maybe two rounds earlier
than we thought you were going to after dropping that pistol round. Can't
Let this one slip
I'll see food sometimes just look better on decals in my fault. It's so ridiculous
We're settling into this one the default spread from the Mongols
Foot are aware of the economic situation over on the other side
So they do not as walk in and give any openings here to Mongols
Yeah, remember they don't like playing without information. They generally always have proactive CT sides
You can see the two defenders creeping close to a ramp. Oh, good shot from loss almost distracted at the faraway player
But the close-up peek could have been a nightmare. Cobra's still stuck in common. He's calling that out easy kill for Kerbeni
Round is a is basically over
Launx is the only defender here at the B bomb site last two players from Mongolia are coming in this direction with the bomb
And they're doing it quietly as well
12 kills for Demo, yeah 13 for Laox, 10 for Juggs, those three players leading the way
for foot, 15 for Cobra, 12 a piece for 9-10 and Techno on the Mongol side of things, but
they're gonna have to sit back on Glocks now.
Force by goes nowhere for them, they don't even get a whole, they don't even really
do any economic damage to speak of
all five players survive for foot and we're in the round sixteen
should be a seventh round here
four-foot
last time you said that didn't go
I have faith I have faith it's all glocks
it's all glocks
you lose this round I think it's just
Go to the ground final
Shouldn't be a whole lot for them to do this would be such a cool accomplishment for the foot guys
We kind of talked about I think I think anyone who's been watching counter sugar the past few months is gonna have this as a team
That's been super exciting to watch we've seen them kind of rise up through the ranks and become a dangerous team
But their results at events this year isn't anything special outside of ESL pro league the quarterfinal upset
They had over mouths got them a fourth place finish. They lost to Astralis in the third fourth place to Cider
9-11th occlusion, Apoka, 9-11th at Krakow, you know, like this would be another good result
that they have underneath their belts, like another really good, deep run.
First grand final at this stage, at this level of play, and we will be against a team that
they know they can beat.
They know intimately, yeah.
They'll allow themselves short to take themselves that first kill, and we'll be able to
kill in the mix, and another one as well.
Your bomb plant would be quite the wind here for the Mongols.
We've got nothing into this.
And then we've got a bomb plant to get another thing to off in.
Finally, the round will be one by foot.
But look how much damage was done.
Yeah, you have to chew down into the economy
a little bit to rebuy up into things.
Nothing too crazy that you can't overcome.
You've got plenty of money for the AWP as well.
So I think they're just going to be happy about that one.
Cemetery likely going to have that in his hand
past the M4 off.
I think it's maybe also a little wake up, a little warning.
Yeah, that was a little too close for comfort.
Those glocks getting a couple kills, getting a bomb plant, getting some dinks off as well.
It needs to be a little bit cleaner than that from foot.
We'll all focus on this next gun round.
Let's see how we're going to be playing in middle, if we're foot.
Kind of alluded to it, they like peeking, they like being aggressive, they like being
disruptive in the middle of the map.
Do they want to open up to half that way or sneak it in later on?
More of a standard opening.
are pleased with that because Cobra's already got pretty advanced positioning.
Well there's the top mid-play spotted and now Mongol's know where the AWP is.
And on cemetery playing towards latter room with that.
Plenty of time to change up his position and try and get involved elsewhere.
Mongol's gonna start putting some pieces in place.
You got the switch to the top, gone.
Window.
You feel a lot of pressure towards the B bomb site this foot.
They've shifted everyone over.
Cemetery's there with the AWP.
Kriveni's kind of looking towards it as well.
It's the right read.
Mongols do have extra players.
Headed towards this B bomb site.
They're not convinced to it.
Now he's sliding off.
Oh, Kriveni's dead.
Killed, bro, with that latter room push.
And now what happens for Mongols?
Stuck by a smoke for the time being.
And foot stationary.
They have not budged.
the two defenders at the A bomb site still just chilling.
At least one of the weapons you're bringing over is an AWP.
So you can try and see if you can catch a player
as they cross into the site.
The utility's starting to be put in place.
Rotations will start to be made now,
but Sematary not holding that window cross demon.
He's low. He's not in a great position.
Sematary's missed a shot.
Mzino's made it in behind the van.
Sematary has got a kill.
And the bomb is going back to the A site.
Will Jukes be in position to deal with this?
Yeah, they should call it out now.
He should just be able to turn over and con.
You don't need to be aggressive.
You don't need to be the hero.
just maintain the position as your teammates rotate back try and grab some intel oh
That kill would admit things a lot easier here for foot. They still have to play advantage, but a really important kill here from 910
Let's get in a con. I don't think you ever clear this if you're demon
I don't I don't think coming into this
I don't think you're gonna be able to hard clear this in any way nope runs right in and look at this
But it's actually letting him get closer. Let those CT players walk out as well
She's absolutely with
disaster for the Mongols huge round for a foot and Blitz is going to be kicking himself
Did he really need the trigger discipline in that situation did he really need to make sure that he got to the fact that he
Let's him get away as you know absolute absolute disaster
Just a catastrophic turn of events for the Mongols that is unreal
Great hold of the B bombsite for foot stuffing that attack under pressure plenty demon felt like he was gonna go down any moment on his own
and hustling back to the A-bomb site but that is all blitz
oh man I don't want to see it again I don't want to see it again oh well we
have to oh he overcooked it's too well done
Oh, no. That is the worst feeling. The worst feeling. That all falls on your shoulders.
The Mongols have fought right back up into things, trying to rebound after such a devastating
loss. Kalilla in the hands of Techno, AKs otherwise, but utility really light on it.
I think this is going to have to be a very spartan-executed split towards the A-bomb
site. You will not have a whole lot to work with.
Oh, but that helps. That definitely helps.
We're going to take that and the other one too. So not bad at all.
Flanks trying to pull this back to all, sprained out through the smoke.
He's actually pulled it right back to a 3v3.
Cemetery's still in a strong position over towards the A-side as well, behind ticket.
He needs reinforcements. He needs them quick.
Doesn't really know the scale again. How fast they're going to push towards CT spawn.
You can see Long's coming in through to join up with him.
You have a flank as well, Demon.
Demon, I think he's dead hard though.
Merage Demon, Techno.
Right there, yep, that'll be another kill for Techno's collection.
There's a smoke on Cemetery.
Oh, Techno's going for the long rotation, but with Mzino getting that kill, that is the
round.
So Mongols not going down without a fight, it is Techno again stepping up with impact
for his team here on this map.
Ten rounds for Mongols.
Samus, you're trying to hold onto this AWP.
Xenia is just keeping him towards CT, Spawn, he's taking damage as well as on 40 health here,
so he ends up getting taken down by Techno.
He's not the bomb, it's likely to have really damaged him too.
What a great recovery though from the Mongols now coming bouncing back in this.
They've outlasted a pretty decent run from foot.
This one's huge.
And this kind of a low buy of returning after that horrifying loss in the previous
round with the Blitz miss.
getting a double kill with a glill right out of the gate that gets two armored
opponents as well. The aggression that foot loves so much has backfired. Punish
them there in round 18 so we gotta go again this one's is gonna be a Mongols
timeout. At least for foot you come back into the round and you're still gonna
very goodbye. Those rounds will be obviously a lot more frustrating if you
go aggressive and you get sent back down to weaker weapons again. We haven't
seen them do any of the aggression yet on the CT side yet they're like
outside of the palace for sure but we haven't seen any of the mid stuff
Yeah, every time we've watched foot on this map, there's been so much of it.
It doesn't feel like they've ever got a situation where they feel truly comfortable.
They're in a rhythm on the CT side where maybe they feel like they can do that, but...
I feel like they're trying to set the cemetery up with the AD.
The first gun round was getting the cemetery up in the window, there was a lot of room.
I think that was the priority for Probeni to get him there.
I haven't seen him himself. I execute any of the plays we know he likes to make.
Utility is out. Kong smoked off. Mongol is going to turn the corner with quickness. There's the flashbang into the sky. This time, we get it.
Two for two in middle. Good exchange. Coburn, Mazenya coming out on top.
Yeah, now the CTs are spread in.
We've got semi-trues posted up in the B apartments. They're gonna leave
any presence towards B from Mongol. So they're gonna drift that ball back through T spawn, and they're gonna be going towards A.
Now, you have got jugues waiting towards CT.
He's going to jump spot and just try and gather information for a squad.
Yeah, he's alone at the moment and you can see Launck's kind of moving towards Short to
be able to help him with Khan to be able to have that information that allows Juggs to
fall back a little bit and just play it safe.
Mzinho is parked up on the chair though in mid.
And Cemetery is parked over in the B bomb site, deep angle with the AWP into the
halls.
There's 50 seconds left on the clock.
Yeah, there's a lot of time.
And if they try and get in towards the A-side and run the clock down any further, Jukes
does have utility.
So he can try and delay and disrupt that bomb plant.
I like this call to shift the AWPer over, though.
I like this move as well, considering you have a player over at short.
You can cheat him a little bit closer to the A-bomb site to be involved.
The biggest thing is Jukes can't go down here.
Right.
And he's not playing like he is going to make that mistake.
You look at the timing.
Enzinho spots the head of Launce.
I'm surprised Lawrence didn't see it in Xenia first, but now the pressure's on Jiu.
He realizes the A-play is coming in.
He hasn't died yet, but his teammate going down makes it a lot more difficult.
More pressure on him to deliver, and he goes out into the open.
He denies.
Yep, he denies that ball flat.
Now the Nates go in.
Zong, 7th, Tristana just run away.
He's stolen out of the Mongols' hands.
Your agility lands at the perfect position at the perfect time, and Foot step up with
the victory.
That's a Covey if I've ever seen one.
What an underhanded just grenade dropped onto your head.
Incredible clutch.
That's the only way to win the round.
Mongols did everything right to get into this situation,
waited long enough to pull longs out into the open.
One foot player just gets taken down.
You have access to the eight bombsite,
but damn, what a piece of utility.
That's a crazy way to end it.
And I mean, look,
just another heartbreaking finish to a round for the Mongols.
They just suffered one of those like three rounds ago.
Yeah, it's a lot of stress piling up now on the Mongol side.
How many of those can you take?
And, you know, they're down to weak weapons now.
You've got a Galeel coming out, 10-9, the Eagle.
And they're going to go for a direct A-play, a lot quicker
at this time from the Mongols.
Utility flying in.
Jukes going to try to slow them down
and do damage upon that ramp take.
You've got Cobra taking 60 HP away with that grenade
landing towards him.
So they're into the site.
And moving forward on the CTs of foot,
just waiting for the right time the right time to make the move hit bait
presence from locks to keep jokes tucked in but there comes the pounce from foot
after the fact and it is complete annihilation yeah ball doesn't even go
down tied game looking like full of rest of control of it at just the right
time here no ball plan is actually massive because like $3,000 average here
for the Mongols players that's not enough to get a good buyout here so
The best case scenario, you can maybe go for a hero AK, that's what Mzinho is going for,
and then you put some tech nines around it, some upgraded pistols, but foot are favorite to head to 11-10.
Yeah, and this happened on Nuke as well, right, where I felt like Mongols was in control,
and then foot just stole it away from them right towards the tail end and cleaned up the map.
And Mongols are doing this fighting with a severely weaker economy.
Difficult scenario to be in, and at the moment, not even spreading across the map.
map that are the rifles to contend for middle whatsoever so it looks like they want to head
in towards the B halls. Three players in the bombs there. Blitz throwing utility. That
AK-47, the Hero AK is in the hands of Mizzino.
Demon and launch to defend the B bomb site.
they break through or will the Mongols be broken?
Demons blinded, Long steps up for the first kill,
Demons confident to step out into the fight
but he puts himself in an awkward spot and he gets nothing.
So, Mongols flooding to be in Xenia
with a headshot here with Longs.
And nothing can be easy.
As footer down to three players.
No, it felt like it should have been
a much stronger defense.
Longs and Demons gonna be very upset with themselves
that that wasn't cleaner.
AK-47 recovered as well and M4 picked up.
Now three rifles in the post plant.
This is all Krobeny. You need one more big play out of your in-game leader if you want to retake this bomb site.
What was the headspot out of 9-10, Krobeny?
Oh, no calm there, Tim Zinho. No reaction at all.
Kobra did get a kill though on the Deagle. Krobeny now arriving, cemetery chasing after Kobra,
trying to remove in the low and clear the Deagle. Still getting a kill from the default spot.
That is a wild kill from Kobra under so much pressure and the Mongols bend, but they do not break.
They get into the B bomb site and still hope here on Mirage.
Mad, Cobra's the only player on Mongols who's matching kind of the miraculous, the impact level that the foot players are having.
This is a really disgusting game from Cobra.
So many rounds you can point to where he's the saving grace for the Mongols.
11 to 10. What a disgusting shot as well.
Under pressure, being harassed, being chased down, and still have...
...mental, the mind space to just pause and take a clean Deagle shot.
I still can't believe you go away with that, that is ridiculous, 11-10 now for the Mongols.
That was the scariest round too because you have pistols, you didn't have a great buy,
you have some things to work with but I can't believe that the Mongols get in to be that
easily, especially after they take the first loss.
Yeah, well this is two teams, Mongols with the new addition, like trying to really
pull these pieces together.
This is an inexperienced foot team, I mean both of them are losing rounds that
You shouldn't be losing whatsoever for various reasons.
I was making it exciting.
9-10, get away.
OK, smoke clears.
And we have an opportunity to take 9-10 down.
Demon's got the opening kill.
Look at the aggression from Krobeni.
Starting to fall back.
Tries to get into the corner.
9-10 nearly had the opportunity to take him out there.
Yeah, it looked like he was going to get caught.
He was stuck between two different ideas
of whether he wanted to be aggressive or not.
This defense is shifting quite a bit.
Demon now rotating away from the B bomb site,
heading towards CT spawn.
Cemetery's opposite the B site paired up with longs no more information in middle for the foot defense
The jugs and Krabani both of them without utility gonna start pushing to get some presence on a ramp and how far do they want to go?
And Z-myo going out into the peak it's Krabani who has fallen at least a one-for-one at least forget that trade
That's gonna keep them ahead
But do they go for a B bomb site finish again?
I don't know, I'm not sure. Longs feels super comfortable.
AWP is going to position itself over a bench.
AWP is in connector though.
From the back of Blitz.
Yeah, but if you just peek, right?
If you're the Mongols and you just want to take a peek with this AWP?
Oh, big win.
He did hit it.
Down to ATHP.
Do they want to change their idea now?
Oh, not anymore.
Not the greatest, more like that.
Alright, well, Jurgs is still waiting.
Still chilling.
Yeah, this is Longs.
No, stepping forward.
going to try and catch them as they go into what's connected.
Now, Jokes waiting.
Yep, here are five bucks waiting for his moment to fire up.
We've got Blitz creeping closer,
but time will be ticking.
Jokes has stepped out, revealed his position,
gets a double, and demon comes in from ticket box.
And it might just be the ticket for the final destination
here for the Mongols, looking like they
are going to fall in this series.
Well, they still got one more chance.
Bazzino with 5,000, 4900 final time out being called.
A very important one to have the conversation doing just enough.
Welcome from Demon, this push, and this is that proactive defense that allows them to
piece it together at the end of the day.
Yeah, they take that loss.
They'd already cleared up A main pretty deep, and Jokes is able to be patient.
Pair it up with Demon.
Longs never heard any pressure or presence towards short, towards the B halls.
He never had to call anyone over, so Foot confident to just stay and
chill at the A bomb site.
Two rounds remaining.
And we're going to all 24. Who's going to have the chance for victory and regulation?
Mongols desperately trying to get us to a third map that would be ancient.
And foot, they can already sense the grand final of PGL Bucharest right around that corner.
That date with Astralis.
One more. One more for Astralis game for the road.
Let's see if it happens. We've got cemetery.
Could be trying to peek out the window, but 9-10 was so far off short,
Krebbeni just wasn't ready for the pace that the Mongols brought.
And look, Mazzinho in this round is already out-ramp.
Look at what space he's got, playing contact in towards the site, just running at them.
Yeah, this is actually pretty crazy.
Do they realize it's even possible?
Opposite, oh, Mazzinho's... dude.
He was sprinting.
Have you ever seen anything like it?
He's just going to go through with a flash.
Oh my God, the Mongols just so fast that the players were not ready for it,
but they have stabilized, they've got the essential kills
and they've kept it even.
We've got Cobra on the stairs
and he needed that fight to go his way.
Cobra has been so good so far on this map,
but they're really essential kills going against them now
and Foot flip it back.
Despite the surprise that the Mongols threw in their faces,
it still falls in favor of Foot
and the money has gone for the Mongols,
so Foot have one chance in regulation
and it doesn't get easier than this.
You're going up against a weakened by Foot
looking for a grand final showing
man i i think you have to give so much credit over cemetery with that kind of a
position for misinja that trade is so critical to grab that
to be able to speak out and grab that one single kill is massive he ends with
three on the round
fine work with the a w p
team in a long-sleeting the way twenty kills apiece and now we're getting
that aggression for bennie's just been waiting for the moment to mix it in
pushing underpass
A lot of mid-presence. Longs is there too. His attention more towards middle. Askerbenny makes his move up the stairs
Yeah, techno. It just moved away. Askerbenny arrives towards the top of the stairway. He's got so much information
He's telling his A-players to be ready. They're already up.
Ah, Semitras to cross in though. Utility has to be coming through here for the Mongols. Needs to be perfect
And it is long considering it but gets sandwiched by two players. Mzimio, miss shot from Semitri.
9-10's gonna punish. Mongols, a 5v3 with weaker guns. Here's Kruppenny caught mid.
Emsenio flanked out. The Mongols with the bomb planted and fighting for overtime.
Should have a great chance at it. This is a round. You've had so many disappointments.
This cannot be another one. They've got utility here for foot. Trying to get back into this.
There's Demon. Cobra gone. Utility applied towards the ramp. 9-10 still in a powerful
position but they know about him. Demon's got another kill. Just pulling them out of their
their spots, 9-10, low HP,
tucks himself into the corner,
but it's all on demon now,
and the time is taking foot,
not looking like they're gonna close it now.
The Mongols survive and force this one into overtime.
These teams, just either one of them could come in today
and win against a low buy, win against tech Knights,
win against pistols, this would have been the easiest
series, but both of them dropping these rounds
back and forth, and what a critical moment for it.
Cemetery a little bit slow on the off,
he missed a great chance for a kill,
even things out and say in a strong position, Mongols just barely break through.
Great round here for 9-10 this time though.
Yep.
But again, that's, I mean, part of this round is also, I think, the round prior, where
Mazzinho got all that space.
He's like, guys, I got all the way to take it without anyone really firing at me.
We'll do it again.
We're getting space at the A-Bomb side.
Let's go back to it.
And now, let's put him into OT.
Well, foot have to make that adjustment, but they now have to deal with Mongols
having all the money back.
They might be happy that's true. There's easier rounds for whatever reason some of the best rounds in this game have been but these teams
Play with Teagles against rifles
So what we wanted we knew foot and Mongols would be taking each other on yeah definition of a parole
Very very scrappy
So cemetery is gonna cover the progression of Kerbenian jugs to get control of a rep
They push it aggressively previously, but this time they're just going to stand in a nice strong set up, a bait and switch.
As long as that smoke is up in Palace, Cemetery is going to have faith that nobody's going to be swinging out for no reason.
And as it fades, he backs off in towards Ticket.
Mid control for Mongols for free.
Demon boosts it up towards the B bomb site paired with Long still
910 picks off cemetery is a response. Yes
25 seconds limited time to get that bomb into the site
Gotta realize you've got to deal with the ramp right now makes things very uncomfortable here from on goals
15 seconds bomb coming across tap, pulls off a peek but the bomb goes down and this is just too strong for a foot.
Really good positioning, no one to force them out.
Nine tanks going for some star points but no time to get the bomb plant and that'll end up being foot.
Flipping this one back in their favor somehow.
Yeah, the one more kill comes out of the long so not the worst thing in the world, a little bit of damage,
but man the round loss is rough. Never actually able to get in.
That round just takes too long to come to fruition.
Waiting behind the smoke at Khan.
And just strong positions towards A ramp means it's too much of a battle to actually move into the bomb.
So you could see Blitz trying to just like tap, he had to force them out into the open.
They didn't have utility, didn't have smokes, didn't have safety towards CT spawn.
Blitz got answers all day long against this Mongols team.
13 to 12.
And a timeout taken by the Mongols to talk things over.
Fourth kill doesn't seem like much, but taking a lot of money away from the CTs and overtime
can be really really painful down the stretch.
Wynn kind of alleviates some of that pressure.
13 rounds decides the victor here. Foot 3 rounds away from the grand finals.
Krobeni flashing himself through the connector peak and applying some pressure towards top middle.
If he back tracks 9-10's ready, then 9-10 is going to get a free kill.
Krimenny's given that look a couple of times throughout the half.
First time it's really punished.
Mongol's not going to do anything crazy off the back of that opening kill.
You can see Foot shifted immediately to the B bombsite just in case there was a reaction,
just in case there was a finishing move to come from the five on four.
Now that's Sumitri set up on the van to depth the deep angle in towards Halls.
content to slide back and once again defend this a bomb site jokes gets a
little bit deeper playing in dark
48 seconds on the clock smoke out for a ramp and that's very well timed yeah once
again time is an is an enemy of the Mongols I know they didn't overcome it
in the last round gotta try and break through here they've got the player
here at Tangent is your least, but a really strong set up here.
But so aggressive, June, heart cleared, no chance for him,
but Longs makes up for it with such a beautiful 3K.
Demon out from top ticket, and we've got Cobra going down as well.
Foot can shoot, and they shoot real hard,
putting the Mongols into the ground,
and another step towards the grand final.
Yeah, but frankly, that's just abysmal from the Mongols,
though.
Unfortunately, I brought that set up earlier.
They are the worst team at trading deaths.
You give longs at triple kill in that position.
That's a crazy thing.
One, sure.
But if you can't get the trade after that extended spray,
it's just, it's too much to give one player.
But you have to give foot the credit for that rotation.
Shift towards the B bomb site, don't feel pressure.
Let's go to the other bomb site.
Let's see if they're gonna be there.
And foot's been ahead of that rotation
at the ice site, specifically a number of times
on the Mongols in the CT side.
That's a 5 on 4 for the Mongols in the last round.
Goes by the wayside.
Oh, demon.
He's got that kill on Techno up in the kitchen.
He's taking 10.
He's down to 10 HP.
I got a chase after him, he was trying to deter them with the utility, but he got launched again,
having to step up, he was the player on the A bomb, so can he do it on B? No.
As Mzinho just marches out the window.
I think trying to do a little bit too much there, he was trying to kind of win the game on their exit, right?
Double kill as they're jumping out, now you've kind of left centre-short, high and dry, good pick from 9-10,
AWP in position, and at least the Mongols come out of this half of overtime with one round to play with.
At least they're able to scrape that together right at the end.
At least you can say to yourself, we can still win in this overtime.
And we're foot able to mentally reset for this T-Side now that it's been, what,
21 rounds of play essentially since they've had, or I don't know why I said,
why am I doing math?
They've had a lot of rounds.
It's been a while since they played.
It's been a while since they played the T-Side.
They had the mental reset because their T-Side was not successful in any way.
They had some really strong, fast, aggressive hits towards the A-Pom site.
But every time they went towards B, it looked scattered, it looked disorganized,
it was dysfunctional.
They were never able to get mid control on their T side.
Mongols played very aggressive to the top of mid,
and they constantly shut down everything
Foot wanted to do in that part of the map.
Timeout coming to a close for Foot.
They were able to hold off on theirs until this half began.
Probably a little conversation about we
were just discussing the weak T side and the regulation
for them, and Kerbeni just having some final thoughts
of, all right, this is what I think we were struggling
with in the first half.
We've all come alive in a different way.
So let's make sure these mistakes are shaped up.
Let's make sure they're cleaned up around the edges.
But if you're Mongols right now in your head,
you gotta be thinking, stop the A-hit.
Be prepared for an A-hit.
of
death
of
death
of
and no fights, no blood drawn yet.
Very quiet opening, cemetery still even all the way
just looking for a push in the B holes,
just making sure no one's doing anything crazy.
Ninen 15 seconds on the clock.
So, foot showed mid control with utility,
took to its top boxes,
they're gonna leave Krebbeni there on his own.
A ramp is smoked now,
but foot is realigning in this direction,
so is the Mongols.
to nobody's surprise.
Four defenders are gonna be here.
Two of them over towards jungle and top con,
but plenty of bodies to handle the problem.
All right.
And if you can't win this round with four players here,
you probably not go into the grand finals.
The brawl is coming towards this A site.
Cobra, good first kill, Jutes is taking away one,
but Cobra again stepping up when the Mongols meet him,
but he gets traded out.
And now there's two extra A players
behind smoke. So you get to move into the side of your foot. You have a small
window of opportunity to get that bomb planted while smokes are up. But the bomb
only making its way over to the site now and it will be planted down on default.
Cemetery's taking spawn control. Yeah, well they're buying them all so they might even
take it a little bit deeper. Good nade. Good nade. Chucks down Techno. Long's
gonna tuck himself back into the corner. There's no utility for the CT side.
And only one kid on Techno. Yeah, we have fighting for series points again.
They go aggressive and they die at the hand of Blitz. So it must be
and he can't do anything he falls down on default.
The Mongols come back in on the retake.
That double swing could have needed to be a lot better.
Someone needed to go way wide over two
before stopping for that fight.
The idea you line up for Blitz in that kind of a scenario
and just another mistake of inexperience.
Yeah, I mean, we bring it back
and I think it's important to talk about those
because when we talk about foot,
I mean the story of the first half of this season
was the fact that they were getting to
the final games of the group stages.
They were about to make this next step
into the playoffs in Krakow,
they lost against full USPs against G2
and never really recovered from that.
There's a number of rounds where that happened
at other tournaments as well.
I think back to Kluz.
And they finally make that next step.
They make it into the playoffs.
They get a playoff win in Stockholm at Pro League.
Now this is the next progression,
getting into a grand final.
And are those mistakes going to cost them
their golden opportunity here?
Well, they're gonna try another hit
towards the A bomb site.
Again, just really leaning on it.
Really leaning on this side of the map.
Mazenia ready and waiting.
They're gonna get hard cleared.
Never peach never had a flash from a teammate and once again the A bomb site is just gone for free
Yeah, just persistence at least for I think you go on the last round
But just changed up this have a little bit of a different look as we attack into the bomb site instead of a slow
Telegraph execution. Let's just run at them and get in before they're ready for us and blitz is a good reposition up here
But Krobeni reacts faster and now we're down to three players for the modules make it to as the push some logs
continues Cobra's watch with 9-10 and it's all 9-10 it stares on low HP, hiked it down,
finished off and Furt want to finish this semi-final.
Yeah really nice from Kerbeni as well. That bombsite take is so clean, they get the kill
on Mazinio without any resistance whatsoever that there's so many resources, so many players
inside the site he can turn his attention elsewhere. Ready for that flank before Blitz even arrived.
15-14 they had one chance in regulation, it was up against Tech 9's. That's what they lost
They lost two to fours over time.
Now they've got one more chance here, against the AWP on Cobra, the AWP on 9-10.
Taking the AWP, set fours spin.
Let's see if Morgul is going to force more rounds of counter-strike here in Mirage.
But still this whole game, Foots' only success on the T side is the A-bomb site.
Well, Morgul's going to be aware of that, so maybe this utility.
them thinking there's an Ape coming in. But it says there's one player faking out that utility in
Juergs and the rest are making their way up through middle. So attacking the same location
just from a different position. Yeah and we're cramming up through short. It's a strong spot
to get if you can get into the ladder room. Long steps out, Xenia up to fall away, 9-10,
dropping back. It's all crumbling here for the long balls and Foot doing it,
in dominating fashion in the last round of overtime there.
They will make their way into the grand final.
That match up with a strong as it turns out, it is destiny.
And we'll see how this one goes down.
Foot or grand finalists.
You know, in Cruz, they were a stand-in
and we spoke about them on the first day.
A team that was standing in,
they had kind of luck on their side to get in
and they went all the way almost to playoffs.
And we've just seen this team rise and rise since then.
I had concerns in that game as we watched it.
I sat there with you both and I said,
I'm, they're inexperienced.
They're struggling to close it out.
And then they had those two final rounds
and they were like, shut up, Sam.
You know not.
How are you so calm and composed?
That was a fucking banger.
What do you mean?
That was such a great game, dude.
Like, I know our job is to analyze
and entertain on the desk,
but that's one of those games where
we just sit back and we're fans, bro.
At the end of the day,
you're cracking open a call and you're laying back
and you're just watching two people duke it out.
There was a game of two very stout defenses
individual playmaking that was all about who could just get those critical T-Rounds, those commodity
rounds that were so hard to come by and man it went the distance but Flip finally got it done.
I just want to say what a finisher to bring out in the last round by over time. We haven't seen this
this round from close the entire game so like in the first half they've never brought it
brought it out. They take the eighth they take you know with one guy throwing a couple smokes
then they push into connector where there's smoke in front of them you know because they
They had just picked the the a control smokes. They walked through them and they don't have no idea
This is happening behind them the whole time the entire round falls apart
What around to call you got respect the conditioning on that for sure
You know this because they had dealt with that a threat so many times and yeah
They fit it off a lot of them, but a couple of them did go foot's way
It felt like the only times that they didn't was like one foot would kind of split up the post plant like you know
Even in that overtime where they double push puts and she's falling by right?
the dial that up in a critical moment that takes some composure for sure I did
love that this game showed us and specifically this map was there is an
experience here but there's a tenacity to this team and that last round I mean
again I kind of wish that's what he said they're asking fans it's so true
because I kind of wish you could hear the conversation we were having where I'm
going he just can't tie two rounds together I don't know if they've got
this guys you think that they've got this and then they pull something out
like that and I go you know what you deserve that spot in the grand finals
Now and how like if you're doing this now, what can we expect from you in six months?
I suddenly got very excited about this team. Yeah, it's what I was talking about in the pregame the experience
I felt like didn't matter that much because mongos make the same mistakes all the time and we saw it. It's all throughout this game
Geco's going back and forth. Nobody could fucking beat pistols like there was no way that that was gonna happen
So no matter who at the Eagles they somehow won every round that was possible
There was the one we've dreamed from techno just to start it off
That's like round one that they just goes crazy and ever since then we just had so many weird rounds going back and forth very brawly
It's kind of what you expect for a matchup like this or neither of them, you know play the most
percentage kind of CS you know that we see from other teams like the vitality
You know like some of these top-ten top teams miles is another one that the plays very very structured
They they put together. No, this is not the kind of CS that we were watching today
but it was but injected straight into my veins I want more right now like you
know it's one of those that just again it's just a style of CS you can really
get behind as a fan I think that's why foot's kind of captivated you know
many audiences now it's not only that they're you know the young up and
coming under double because they play a fancy flashy style of CS and when it all
comes together in fact they have so many skilled players it really can
just bulldoze their way through and shout to demon one time he was our
standout player that game and I think he's a guy that a lot of people
were super high on including myself because of how strong he looked when they were still
on the academy team at Navi and even when they first became foot and they're at that
CAC where they upset FaZe and they were he looked like one of the main stars of this team.
He kind of faded into the background a little bit but he can still have games like that when
he only had two rounds on the TV set he didn't get a kill like I mean just beautiful stuff
from the team. Demon was fantastic. Longs as well absolutely incredible a grand final here
in Bucharest for the Romanian hero. Pala is with him now. I am indeed down on the floor with
Launce of Fert. Launce, congratulations on making it through to your first tier one grand final.
How's that sound? How's that feel? I mean it feels amazing especially after all the games we've
been through after all these close calls we had especially last time in Pro League.
it feels amazing. It's like a dream especially because it happened to be in Romania. So it makes
it even better for me. I have even more hunger. It doesn't make sense maybe, but for me it does.
Of course it does. You're the Romanian star and hero here and yes, you've made it through
to the ground far. So just to reiterate, the Romania buff is real.
Yeah, for now for sure it's real.
All right, second question. So something we spoke about in our pre-tournament interview was
Is it possible for you guys to keep the consistency that you've been showing? It seems you're doing that?
I mean the consistency is what we work on because we know that we can deliver on the highest games and the highest takes
But it's a thing like how much can we do it and when can we do it right?
Because it's not something you can do it in an instant, you know, especially because we are all extremely young
We have no no one's like Jamie in Paris vision right because him he kind of makes the job easier a bit in terms of calling
maybe some situations of course it's easier but I think we do it very well
I think as I said with every game and tournament we play. What's going on over there?
Is it your teammates? The vibe in the team right now clearly very good. Yeah yeah for sure
I mean it's almost always because even when even when we lose like we're mad of
course in like maybe first 30 minutes but then we kind of realize you know we
have to learn from this and it goes on. Absolutely let's get into talking
about the map, so map one, what were your expectations going into Mongol's map pick of
Nuke and did the map play out how you expected it would?
I mean yeah, to be honest we were very confident, we knew they were going to pick Nuke and
we are confident in our Nuke, we feel very good on it and I mean yeah, we are not scared
at any second, we know we have a very good map pool, so yeah, we just waited for it
to bring it on.
I adjust my earpiece whilst I'm off-camera. Yeah a follow-up on that though
It seemed like Mongol sort of disappeared a bit in that second half
And you guys really came alive on you on that second half is that fair to say why did that happen?
I mean, I don't have an exact answer right? It can be a lot of things especially on their side
I don't know what happened, but I feel
Maybe we took them a bit by surprise
I still think against them because they have such an aggressive play style at least that's how I see it
It's a bit tough to play against us because I feel they never played anyone in Europe who has this kind of play style
I mean we're a bit unique and a bit crazy in the head
So for them being this aggressive and then we were also aggressive in most of the situations
I think yeah most of the times you won the duels and that's why we won the rounds
Talking aggression and perhaps chaos. Let's talk about Mirage. You end up going to an overtime
It was a very back-and-forth affair. Why did Mirage play out like it did? Why did you guys get the W?
I think we prevail because of our mentality and again and again it comes down to how much we want it
and because they wanted a lot for sure to win and still do it but again they are already playing for two years like MZ
he's still young but he already has the experience like this is not his first tournament here for us like his first grand final
so for us it's a bigger hype than they have right so we can actually use that hype and just push the momentum
and keep going and keep going and now we're in the grand finals
So let's see tomorrow where the hype train will take us you are indeed final couple of questions
Let's talk about that grand final. So you'll be playing up against Astralis
Some history there. What are your thoughts on that grand final against Astralis ahead?
I think it will be a blast to be honest because every time we face them like it was never
How should I say it's like a fast game, you know, it was always like back and forth like we through some rounds
They through some rounds then they threw a map we threw our map
So yeah, I'm looking forward to it especially because I'm playing my
estimates there. It's always nice to see him play. I feel great playing against
him and having good vibes together after and before the game. So yeah, I think it
will be a very good game actually. All right, and Lanx, what's the plan going to
be for tonight and during the day tomorrow? Preparation or rest and
relaxation perhaps? Probably for tonight. I think first we need to have the
team talk. We have after every game, even if we win or lose, we have to
take it because it's mandatory. You know, we need it for our good
But then of course I think we'll do some preparation and chill a bit but tomorrow, yeah, from the
morning we'll get go on the preparation and do stuff how we should.
Awesome, great to hear. Anything else you'd like to say to the fans at home before I let you go?
Yeah, I mean thank you for the support. I don't want to say anything because tomorrow is the Grand Final
so yeah, just keep watching and thank you for the support. Let's cheer for both teams tomorrow and have a good fight.
Congratulations once again. Everybody foot make it to the grand final here at PGL Bucharest
He's big on like not doing some stuff. I've noticed that in all his interviews
You won't say it what what an incredible story that we have here as we move into this grand final tomorrow with
Stralis up against first. I think it's because of how much it means to him, right?
I mean again, we kind of talked about this earlier that you know outside of Ema
He was the other Romanian that was in clues
I was hoping to get the player from the big crowd over there and
and just missed out, had some good performances
throughout the group stage, which is quite,
wasn't good enough to make it to the quarter finals.
And, you know, he told me even at that event,
I spoke with him kind of after the fact,
and he was saying, you know, like,
I have another chance at Bucharest though to do it,
you know, like to still do something on home soil.
And yeah, the crowd won't be here
and things that nature,
but they have made a grand final.
They have a chance to win a trophy.
They've looked so, so good.
Yeah, there's been a couple things we can nitpick,
but if we're honest, they've been impressive.
And I think that this could be really huge
for the rest of the squad.
Yeah, so look, I like the guy a lot.
Every time he's in interviews,
he's just gone through a crazy game that goes to overtime,
like 16-14, even the New Yorkers was pretty crazy,
back and forth.
Guy is talking like super calm,
like everything's very put together.
Like it just doesn't really fit that his general nature
or the way he plays in the game, not at all.
So I don't know, I just like it.
There we go, we've got our two grand finalists.
Let's take a look at the bracket now.
Of course, you still get to see 3D Max and Mongols.
I mean, Dust, I've got to poke fun at the joke.
Mongols not dodging Prof's allegations of being Asian Mouths,
missing another grand final.
It's a tough one.
Yeah, you know, you think when they get past Paravij in the quarterfinals,
they should be a favorite to win the whole tournament at that point.
But again, I told you, beginning of the day,
if Flute can win this year, they're going to win the whole tournament.
And, you know, Flute have beaten some really good teams.
They've won 10 straight maps in a row.
Their only loss this tournament was the inner circle, the opening map of the event.
Since then, yeah, there's been some, you know, knocks and scratches,
but they've been able to fight their way through it all the way through.
And yeah, they get to play Astros.
I think this will be the first best of five that Flitz ever played.
So that is going to be intestine itself, though, right?
I mean, if we're honest, if we're comparing the runs,
like Astros has been kind of labored, they were on the easier side of the
bracket where the expectation was they should fly through that thing.
And they did not.
Like they almost got knocked out to 0 at one point by eyeballers of all teams.
So it's been a little bit rough over there.
Meanwhile, you know, yeah, again,
Futs had some some battle scars,
but they still charge through without a map loss
against some really good opposition.
Yeah, look, the last four maps have been 13-11,
16-14, 13-10, and then 16-14, you know.
So it's been a tough run for Futs as well,
even though in the first round of the playoffs,
they also played one of the lower tier teams,
you know, in Bates, right?
We didn't really expect to be up to par,
but obviously they're here,
and these situations are actually the ones
that they've struggled with in the past,
in the closed games, where they struggled
with closing them out.
Some of these comebacks that they actually pulled off
instead of that happening against them, right?
That's the difference that I see in this foot squad.
They are coming up against a very, very familiar opponent
and that's always a weird game.
Like it's always very difficult to call.
They lost the last two series against Astralis.
They won the previous two, you know,
I think the overall map score is like six-six.
I don't think we have a better final
that we can look forward to, honestly.
Yeah, it's actually so funny
because I think at the beginning of the event,
I mean, all of us analysts kind of got together
and we were like, it's going to be, you know,
Mongols, pair, vision, foot, a shot.
That's the four favorites.
Foot's already beating two of them.
Now they gotta beat the third to get it all done.
Charles, up against foot tomorrow,
but we run from spawn at 3 p.m. local time
because we've got that third place decided
3D Max up against Mongols.
So make sure you're here to join us.
It's been some crazy counter-strike.
I have no doubt we can expect much the same tomorrow.
I check short.
I don't see.
It's possible.
Great.
I'm on that.
I don't see.
I'm on that.
I'll be on stairs guys.
I'm sneak bench.
I'm not gonna take the phone.
I'll take it baby, take it.
Shark!
Don't shoot me, don't shoot me.
Thank you.
I'll take the shark.
I'm gonna go.
No!
No way!
No!
I