#Astralis have advanced to the ESL Pro League Season 17 Group D fourth-place playoff after defeating Spirit in the group's initial round. The Danish squad required all three maps to win, giving up their choice of Nuke (12-16) before responding with hard-fought wins on Mirage (16-14) and Ancient (16-14). (16-12).

Astralis brought Spirit to Nuke to begin their series, a probable choice given the Russians' two victories in their previous ten appearances on the map. To begin the series, the Danes won a back-and-forth battle for control, using their superior weaponry to take a 5-2 lead on the T-side. Pavel #s1ren Ogloblin gunned down three in a stalwart hold of the A bombsite to get Spirit back in the game, only surrendering one more round for the rest of the half to leave Spirit with a safe three-round lead at the side switch.

Andreas #Xyp9x Hjsleth reversed the script with a round-winning grenade kill early in the second half, and the Danes pounced at the chance to reclaim the lead after a spell of CT-side dominance, 12-10. Spirit, on the other hand, has resumed their winning ways, thanks to a momentum-shifting triple kill from Leonid #chopper Vishnyakov and his AK-47 in the 23rd round. The Russian-majority team finished the map with a flawless six-round chain, defeating the Danes 16-12 and forcing a trip to Mirage.

On Mirage, Astralis got off to a fast start, with Nicolai #device Reedtz and Benjamin #blameF Bremer combining for 17 frags to give the Danish squad a 5-1 advantage on defense. Regardless, gla1ve and co.'s early burst of success was fragile, enabling Spirit to cut into the gap once the Russian side's economy stabilized. Finally, Igor #w0nderful Zhdanov and s1ren combined forces, allowing Spirit to trail by only one round at the interval — the Ukrainian sharpshooter and Russian rifler made their influence felt with constant round-on-round effect and team-high fragging outputs.

It was at this point that Christian #Buzz Andersen, who is making his Big Event debut in Malta, stepped up a notch; the Danish youngster won a 1vs2 clutch to put his team back in front, before going on to win a laborious 16-14 victory for his team and force an Ancient decider.

Once the decisive map started, Ancient soon became an Astralis playground, with device adding eight kills to his total and only dying once in round seven to give his team a 5-1 lead on the CT-side. However, repeated hits on the B bombsite proved to be Astralis' undoing. Despite the poor start, the Russians effectively detonated the C4 four rounds in a row, building up their economy and pushing the Danes into either disadvantageous retakes or continuous saves end route to a more recoverable 6-9 half.

The Danish team didn't turn back after that, cracking the code and sweeping away their opponents on their way to a 16-12 win, effectively eliminating the Russians.