Astralis eliminate paiN; need one more win for Legends Stage

A bittersweet end to the event for paiN who showed promise but failed to capitalize on their opportunities.

Astralis are able to stay alive for at least another day in Sweden with their 2-0 victory over paiN. The Danes will move into the fifth round of the Swiss stage tomorrow where a win would see them recover from a terrible 0-2 start and complete the reverse sweep, advancing to the top 16. However, they will have to overcome a tougher opponent than paiN or GODSENT to pull off that feat, with BIG and Spirit their possible opponents.

The final Brazilian representatives in the Challengers stage paiN had a chance to make the series go all three maps, but failed to close out when it mattered the most — similarly to the games against Virtus.pro and Renegades. The Danes rocked the Brazilian side with a convincing win on Nuke and a comeback-overtime victory on Ancient, despite another quiet match from rookie AWPer Philip "⁠Lucky⁠" Ewald.

Astralis took a commanding lead on their T side of Nuke as things started off well for the favorites. Eventually, paiN did respond and put a total of six rounds on the board before the switch, and paiN won the pistol to narrow the gap. The momentum that started building was stolen back by Astralis on a half buy, who ran away with the map. Despite a commendable effort from Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato, the Danish side pocketed Nuke 16-8.

On Ancient, paiN had Astralis's number as Rafael "⁠saffee⁠" Costa and NEKIZ carried their side to a 10 round T side to lead at the half. Once paiN arrived at 15 rounds Astralis began to claw their way back into the game and push the Brazilians into overtime. Astralis were able to avoid a third map thanks to late game clutch from Lucky and Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth who came alive for Astralis on the map.

With one more game pending, the group standings for round 4 are: