Astralis beat BIG at IEM Cologne 2022 Play-In

The Astralis team turned out to be stronger than BIG with a score of 2:1, thanks to which they made it to the group stage of IEM Cologne 2022. In turn, the German team left the championship, taking the final 17-20th place and earning $4,500.

The meeting started on the Nuke map, which became the choice of the Danish team. At the same time, the starting segment of the map remained in favor of the BIG players, who showed confident defense and gave only four rounds to the nominal "hosts". However, after the change of sides, the Danes began to close the gap, quickly catching up with BIG. Well, in the very end, Astralis managed to put the squeeze on a broken opponent, thus closing its own pick — 16:14.

The teams then moved on to the Dust 2 map, which became BIG's choice. Interestingly, now the first half ended in favor of the Danish team, which managed to take nine rounds for defense. However, in the second half, the Germans quickly leveled the difference in the score, and then confidently took the lead. As a result, it was not difficult for BIG to close the defense without too much trouble, and at the same time equalize the score in the series — 16:13.

Everything was decided on the Overpass map, the first half of which ended with a score of 9:6 in favor of the Danish team. After the side switch, Astralis tried to run far ahead, but BIG did not let go of the opponent and equalized the intermediate score. And yet, the Danish team managed to gather their will into a fist to get the required number of rounds and reach the group stage of IEM Cologne 2022 — 16:11.

It should be noted that the best player of the meeting was k0nfig — the Astralis team player finished the series with an overall rating of 1.25. The best player of the losing team was Krimbo, who finished the match with a rating of 1.14.

IEM Cologne 2022 takes place from 5 to 17 July in Germany at the Hyatt Regency Cologne and LANXESS arena venues. As part of the championship, 24 teams from Europe, the CIS, Oceania, China, North and South America are fighting for a prize pool of $1,000,000, as well as rating points in the BLAST Premier table.

Prize pool distribution at IEM Cologne 2022

• 1st place: $400,000 + 3,200 BLAST Premier points
• 2nd place: $180,000 + 1,600 BLAST Premier points
• 3rd-4th place: $80,000 + 1,000 BLAST Premier points
• 5th-6th place: $40,000 + 300 BLAST Premier points
• 7th-8th place: $24,000 + 300 BLAST Premier points
• 9th-12th place: $16,000
• 13th-16th place: $10,000
• 17th-20th place: Sprout and BIG - $4,500
• 21st-24th place: paiN Gaming, Complexity Gaming, MIBR and ORDER — $2,500