Astralis knock fnatic out of BLAST Bounty Winter 2026: Closed Qualifier
In a tense match of the BLAST Bounty Winter 2026: Closed Qualifier, Astralis defeated fnatic in a best-of-three series and continued their fight for a spot at the LAN finals. The series followed a contrasting script: a confident start from fnatic, a close battle on the second map, and complete dominance from Astralis on the decider, which ultimately determined the winner.
The map veto for the match was as follows:
- fnatic removed Nuke
- Astralis removed Anubis
- fnatic picked Mirage
- Astralis picked Overpass
- fnatic removed Inferno
- Astralis removed Dust2
- Ancient was left over
Mirage (16:12 fnatic)
fnatic opened their map pick with total domination. In the first half, they fully controlled the map and closed it out 10:2. Coming back from such a deficit is difficult, but Astralis managed to slow the pace, replicate fnatic’s success on the T side, and force overtime. In the first overtime series, however, fnatic did not allow Astralis to complete a comeback from 10:2 and closed Mirage 16:12.
Overpass (13:11 Astralis)
On Overpass, it was hard to name a clear favorite in the first half. Both teams played competitively, trading rounds and ending the half tied 6:6. fnatic started the second half with a four-round streak, but Astralis responded with a run of five rounds of their own. In the end, Astralis managed to secure their map pick with a 13:11 victory.
Ancient (13:4 Astralis)
The decisive Ancient was under Astralis’ control from the very first rounds. They confidently opened the map with a nine-round winning streak on the T side. fnatic were only able to claim the final three rounds of the first half. In the second half, Astralis had no trouble closing out Ancient with a dominant 13:4 win.
Match MVP
Based on the match results, the MVP was newcomer ryu, who finished the series with an ADR of 83.7, a Swing of +1.94%, and a rating of 1.28.
#58
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