Astralis kicked out of Europe RMR by Forze

forZe hammered the last nail in Astralis' coffin at IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR A by securing a 2-0 victory in the 1-2 pool. The Danish team will hence not attend its first-ever Major, dating all the way back to its first at MLG Columbus 2016. The Russian team triumphed over two astonishingly close maps, Mirage and Nuke, both covering the entire distance and ending up at 16-14 in favor of Andrey "⁠Jerry⁠" Mekhryakov and his people.

20-year-old Alexandr "⁠shalfey⁠" Marenov shone brightly for his squad, exceeding 50 frags in the two-map series with 52 kills while averaging a 1.37 rating and 86.2 ADR. From there onwards, forZe turned the game completely, defeating three consecutively to lead 14-12 before back-and-forth rounds made Aleksandr "⁠zorte⁠" Zagodyrenko and company claimed the series survival.