Team Spirit survive Astralis scare to stay alive in BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024

Spirit won a hard-fought brawl against Astralis at the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 today, Sept. 26, and avoided an early elimination from the tournament.

It was looking good for the Danes at various points in the series, but in the end, all the experience Spirit gathered throughout 2024 made the difference, and they knocked Astralis out of the event and booked their spot in the quarterfinals. Astralis' elimination also means that FaZe Clan's IGL Finn "karrigan" Andersen will be the only Dane playing in front of the Royal Arena crowd during playoffs.

Read more about the Spirit vs Astralis match at BLAST Premier Fall Final below, and check some of the best highlights and statistics.

As soon as Vitality trounced Astralis in the opening match yesterday, Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz told stage interviewer James Banks that they had to be strong and show character. There are arguably only a few better ways to do that than dominating Spirit and keeping a star like Danil "donk" Kryshkovets humble the whole match.

Astralis showed some much-needed improvement and finally won T-side rounds at the BLAST Premier Fall Final. In fact, they dominated Spirit and won the first half by 9-3. Astralis didn't slow down and closed the match with four quick rounds on CT-side, delivering their first big performance under Casper "cadiaN" Møller's orders. Donk bottom-fragged for Spirit, which raised everyone's eyebrows.

Spirit fully recovered from the bad performance on Ancient and delivered a dominant win. They knew exactly how to pressure Astralis' defense across the entire map and set donk up for success.

Astralis only got four rounds on the CT-side and were relentlessly shut down as Terrorists in the second half as they kept hitting the A bombsite and challenging donk.

At last, the teams headed to Mirage and it was the only map of the series that wasn't a full blowout. Both Astralis and Spirit had their moments in the first half, especially because the Danish side won some rounds with just pistols. Victor "Staehr" Staehr, in particular, helped to keep Astralis competitive on the CT-side with great plays on the A bombsite.

The constant back-and-forth continued in the second half as both teams won rounds with few resources off the back of individual talent. Just when Spirit had their backs against the wall, they organized their defensive setups and shut down Astralis' playbook. It wasn't the best Counter-Strike ever, but it surely was an entertaining series and Spirit will be glad to avoid another early elimination like the one they had at IEM Cologne.

Spirit return to the server this Friday, Sept. 27 to face G2 in the quarterfinals at 5 p.m. CEST.

That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more BLAST Premier Fall Final content.