Astralis have booked their spot in the semi-final stage of the ECS Season 4 Finals after defeating FaZe 16-13 on Overpass.
The final match of the day in Cancun, featuring two teams in the top three in the world ranking, saw FaZe get out to a quick 3-0 lead after winning the pistol round and the subsequent anti-ecos. The European mixture was then caught off-guard by Astralis' aggression in the first full gun round, with Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye getting two kills on a retake to give his team the round.
Astralis followed that up with two more rounds, restoring parity at 3-3, but they could not take the lead as Nikola "NiKo" Kovač opened up the B site with two great entry frags. The Danes would reply immediately, however, courtesy of a quad-kill from Ruben "RUBINO" Villarroel, and they kept their defense very tight, not letting their opponents build up their bank.
RUBINO was Astralis' top performer against FaZe in a messy game
Down 5-7, FaZe found their way back into the game on an extremely shoddy buy, eventually tying up the game 7-7 before Astralis secured the final round of the half.
Finn "karrigan" Andersen came up huge in the second pistol round, pulling off a 1v2 clutch with the bomb planted to equalise the score. FaZe took the next round, but they could do nothing against the Terrorists' third-round buy.
The game then entered a scrappy period of play as rounds went back and forth, with neither side able to find a breakthrough. But then Astralis' offence came out firing on all cylinders as the Danes won five out of six rounds to seal a surprising victory
ECS Season 4 FinalsBest of 1 AstralisMatchpage 16 13 15th December 2017 FaZe 16Overpass 13