BIG are making good on their number one position in the world ranking, which they have now held for six weeks, winning their second DreamHack Open Summer group stage match against Heroic after their opening victory over Endpoint, securing the top seed on their side of the playoff bracket.
BIG took the lead on the defending side of Inferno, Heroic’s map pick. The Danes then won two rounds to keep it within one, but failed to tie it up, opening the door for the German squad to stay ahead. BIG played solid, thoughtful CS on the CT side, hitting the necessary shots to keep Heroic at bay early on, but Casper “cadiaN” Møller and company kept it as close as can be, making it a 7-8 half after taking the last four rounds before switching sides.
BIG won the second pistol round to hold on to their lead as the second half kicked off, but a clean pistol buy in the third round by Heroic kept things close as they tied it up 10-10. The two teams then stayed shoulder-and-shoulder all the way to the last round of the map. BIG played a very late attack on the B site with only Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz and Florian “syrsoN” Rische alive, which the latter clutched in a 1vs1 situation to secure the first map of the series.
BIG move on to the playoffs with a 2-0 record in the group stage
Heroic won their first pistol round on the attacking side of Dust2, but were quickly put on the back foot as BIG won the forcebuy and followed it up to take the lead. It wasn’t until seven rounds later that Heroic were able to tally their second after a successful A take and afterplant defense. BIG then went back to dominating, giving up just one more round before claiming the half 12-3.
cadiaN and Johannes “b0RUP” Borup cleaned house after Nils “k1to” Gruhne downed two in a 4vs4 afterplant situation to secure the second pistol round, and the Danes started to mount a comeback winning five rounds in a row before b0RUP kept the streak alive with a 1vs1 afterplant clutch win against syrsoN outside of the B site. BIG were finally able to get on the board with doubles by tabseN and syrsoN, making it 13-9, and k1to then won a 1vs1 afterplant defense on A, clearing the way for his side to close the map and series out, 16-10, and secure their presence in the DreamHack Open Summer playoffs.
