VP 2-1 Astralis to make the finals

The first semi-final of DreamHack Masters Las Vegas turned out to be a rematch of the ELEAGUE Major grand final, with Astralis and Virtus.pro vetoing down to the same three maps: Nuke, Overpass and Train. 

Virtus.pro started off hot on their map pick, Nuke, as in the pistol Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski found his way through a smoke and eliminated three Astralis players who were trying to take over the A site. The Poles went into the first buy round with the modern mixture of M4's and UMP's, but Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas was still able to pick up a hat-trick of kills wielding the SMG on the A site.

The Danish team made it 4-1 thanks to Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye who got four kills as the Terrorists swarmed yard with pistols, but Astralis couldn't keep the pressure up as they lost the following round to a smart play from Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski, who hid on ramp and get three kills on unsuspecting Terrorists.

TaZ was key in two clutches that put Virtus.pro 10-1 up, and from that point onwards the Polish team cruised to a victory on Nuke, with the Terrorist pistol round win practically sealing the deal.

TaZ made Nuke easy for Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro picked up their third pistol round of the series as they held off the B rush, but a delayed version of the same tactic combined with Tec-9's ended up being successful for Astralis. That force-buy round win started a five-round win streak for the Danish team.

pashaBiceps and Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski stepped up for the Polish side in the following rounds, with the latter clutching an important 1v2 on the retake of the B site. The score was 5-4 when Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz took out Snax with the Deagle and opened up the space for his team to overwhelm the A site and win the round on a low buy.

That round proved to be the breaking point in the first half as Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander's team ran away with the lead after it, making the score 10-5 before the halftime switch. Kjaerbye picked up four kills with the USP-S in the pistol, continuing his strong form in the map, but the A site defense from Astralis was caught off guard on the following anti-eco, allowing Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński and co. build some momentum on their Terrorist side.

Virtus.pro narrowed the deficit to only two rounds (11-9), but an AK-47 combined with four pistols turned out to be enough for the Danes to defend the B site and get another low-buy win over NEO's team. After an eco from the Poles, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen got a quick double-kill holding down monster and closed out the round with another kill on short, making it 14-9 in favor of his team. The second map was closed out shortly after, with Astralis taking it 16-9.

Dupreeh's whole team went missing on Train

Virtus.pro's got to start on the CT side for the third time in the series, securing the CT side pistol and the following two rounds without too much trouble. device opened up the first buy round with the AWP, picking off Snax on A, but the B site fake from Astralis didn't fool the Poles and byali and NEO shut down the A site push, combining for all five kills. byali was on point on the decider map, resting on a +12 K-D after only 8 rounds played.

Astralis managed to catch TaZ off guard for two rounds in the row to make it 10-2, but the switch to a fast pace A attack backfired for "⁠⁠"  and co. they were shut down by Snax who picked up two kills on the fast flank through popdog.

The first half finished 12-3 for Virtus.pro and the Poles added another pistol round win to get inches from eliminating the current Major champions. Virtus.pro handled the following eco rounds well and closed out the map shortly after with a 16-4 scoreline and a 2-1 in the series.

Key Moment: The 4v5 situation in the first buy round on Train looked good for Astralis, but NEO and byali defended the larger bombsite by themselves, picking up all five kills and setting the tone for the strong CT side that followed.

PotM: Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński was a force to be reckoned with on both maps Virtus.pro won and finished the series with a 1.31 rating and 111.0 ADR, earning himself the PotM award.

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.