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DH Open Fall: Heroic Join Vitality in Grand Finals

After 10 days of intense CS:GO action, we finally got to know the Grand Finals participants. Yesterday, Heroic managed... Fabio | 25. October 2020

After 10 days of intense CS:GO action, we finally got to know the Grand Finals participants. Yesterday, Heroic managed to beat NiP and even Astralis, closing in on Vitality and the remaining Grand Finals spot. This means that we’ll have a re-match of ESL One Cologne, but do Heroic really have the power to overcome Vitality again?

Their performance in this tournament at least suggests that they have the right tools for this. After all, they have beaten quite a lot of teams, most crucially Astralis.

THE LOWER PLACEMENTS

Following their loss to NiP, OG managed to at least snatch 7th place. Their encounter with Sprout got relatively close, but Valdemar “valde” Bjørn Vangså and Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski held their team in the game. On the side of the ‘sproutlings’, it was actually the German trio that failed to perform up to level. Denis “denis” Howell, Josef “faveN” Baumann and Timo “Spiidi” Richter all got negative ratings, whereas all OG players ended the match on a positive note. On Train, Sprout almost got the win and led on a 14-12 scoreline. Then, mantuu and company got going and surpassed them to achieve a 16-14 comeback win.

On Inferno, OG quickly took the lead and secured an 11-4 half on their T side. They struggled against the German offense and gave away 7 rounds in a row. At one point, it looked as though Sprout could actually mount a comeback of their own. But the international mix-team got their act together and mantuu closed the map with an AWP ace.

Some might think of BIG’s performance at DreamHack Open Fall as underwhelming. But in retrospect, they have actually had a lot of bad luck with their recent match-ups. In the Upper Bracket, they had to face Vitality and lost. They followed this up with a 1-2 versus Heroic, which sent them down to the 5th Place Match. Now that both of their opponents have made it to the Grand Finals, it becomes apparent that BIG have actually put up a solid fight. Finally, this was enough to grant them a swift 2-0 over fnatic, in which Ismailcan “XANTARES” Dörtkardeş got 45 kills and a 1.42 rating for his efforts.

HEROIC’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE LOWER BRACKET

Placing third in Group B, the Danes immediately entered the Lower Bracket. So they already had a much longer pathway to the Grand Finals than Vitality, who quickly met their goal with wins over NiP, BIG, and Astralis. Heroic, however, had to face North, Sprout, BIG, NiP, and Astralis.

The Ninjas opened their match versus Casper “cadiaN” Møller and his men by snatching a surprise victory on Vertigo. A 16-8 scoreline secured them the map advantage and sent Heroic into a deficit – which the Danes quickly managed to even out again. On NiP’s own map pick, Train, they got a 14-1 half. Four rounds later, the Swedes were already down and out, entering the third map on a 3-16 scoreline.

There, Heroic were the decisive victors. While the 16-11 score doesn’t really show this, the scoreboard reveals how much better the Danes performed overall – cadiaN being on top. With a 96.9 ADR and a 1.51 rating, he gave the Ninjas a beating they could not recover from. So Heroic punched them down to 4th place and held all their options open in this tournament. But what were their chances versus Astralis, anyways? As it turns out, quite great.

Going back to the first match between these two sides, they played an even Vertigo game in the Group Stage. Astralis eventually came out on top of a quadruple overtime, winning the entire Best-of-Three afterwards. Still, cadiaN was the best player on the server and even secured a 1.90 rating on the second map. He appears to have found a weakness within his Danish rivals, as he managed to lead his team to victory over Astralis.

But they couldn’t do it without at least one overtime map. On Nuke, the two teams had to head into a second overtime, after which Heroic finally held the 22-20 win. In this instance, Martin “stavn” Lund was the top performer. On Inferno, cadiaN put on the carry pants, but the rest of his team just couldn’t deliver. So they went onto a third map, Vertigo. There, Heroic could finally avoid overtime and were victorious on a 16-11 scoreline.

CAN HEROIC WIN THE GRAND FINALS?

There are actually quite a few good arguments for their side. For one, DreamHack Open Fall doesn’t feature a map advantage for the Upper Bracket team, as ESL Pro League did, for instance. So Vitality have to win three maps as well if they want to obtain the trophy and the RMR points. But more importantly, Heroic have beaten every one of Vitality’s opponents. The Frenchmen had previously won over NiP, BIG, and Astralis, all of whom have fallen prey to Heroic too. But that’s where their arguments end.

In all cases, Vitality have secured much more decisive victories. They didn’t require three maps versus NiP or BIG, and Astralis – with the exception of their 16-4 win on Nuke – didn’t stand as much of a chance as they did versus Heroic. Back then during ESL One Cologne, cadiaN and company still had the support of their coach, Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen. But now, the IGL stands alone. Even though this has worked out well so far, Vitality have proven to play on the highest level. So the Grand Finals will surely be a tense affair, as there is no clear winner in sight.