Dev1ce shines against MOUZ to help Astralis reach BLAST Premier World Final 2024 semifinals

Astralis' win streak at the BLAST Premier World Final 2024 continues as they made quick work out of MOUZ on Oct. 31.

The Danes had already shocked the CS2 community with a convincing victory against NAVI in the opening round and doubled down with another upset, this time against MOUZ. The name of the game was the superstar Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, who had one of his many hard-carry performances.

This result put Astralis directly in the semifinals of the BLAST Premier World Final, which means they'll have an off-day to prepare. MOUZ, on the other hand, will face the winner of Vitality vs. Liquid tomorrow in the quarterfinals.

It's unclear what the future holds for Astralis, but this is undoubtedly their best tournament already under Casper "cadiaN" Møller's leadership. Continue reading for the full recap of Astralis vs. MOUZ at the BLAST Premier World Final and a post-match interview with cadiaN, conducted by esports.gg reporter Nicholas Taifalos.

Esports.gg: Congratulations! What an awesome series and a big result for you guys getting to the semi-final. Talk me through the veto because I guess some people were expecting Vertigo but not at that level. How did the veto play out for you as a whole?

cadiaN: "Don't they remember old Heroic and Vertigo, you know? We're making some moves. Of course it's a bit of an interesting map because there's a lot of criticism surrounding it, a lot of teams don't like to play it. Especially the top 5 and 10 teams; you see a lot of them sharing a permaban on this map. But yeah, I think regardless we've found good solutions of how to play the map and we wanted to kind of solidify that and get some repetition on it. Also, considering that it's not one of MOUZ's best maps, I think it was a good decision because they have a very versatile and strong map pool."

Esports.gg: And then Nuke as well, that is one of their premier maps, so to come in and take them down on that one as well is pretty impressive.

cadiaN: "Indeed, I think that we played good, just like we did yesterday against NAVI on it. We had good rotations, people were highlighting things well. There were some small minor mistakes that we need to look at to improve the CT side, but I think when you play against a team which is so good like MOUZ, you can't expect to play flawless every round. They will force you into mistakes and stuff. They are a team that I've said it many times, I'm thoroughly impressed with them. So yeah, I think of course it makes the win even greater for us."

Esports.gg: I want to elaborate on what you said in the interview with Banks here regarding a lot of people just writing you guys off without even having much practice. Do you feel that this is something that is quite common in CS? I feel like a lot of teams, they see a super team or a new team form, but don't even give them any time to kind of adjust and get used to it.

cadiaN: For me one of the main differences is if you change rosers during the break you will have like 20 days maybe to practice and boot camp. If you then play awful in all three events first up, of course I understand the comments when you make the change in the middle of the tournament. You have four days to practice and you play against teams that's well drilled. I think judgement is too harsh.

Esports.gg: What are the plans for tomorrow?

cadiaN: Yes, we are off tomorrow! I don't care who we play [in the semifinal] to be honest. We'll just have to prepare the same way.

This win is all about Astralis' dominant first half. The Danes had a nearly flawless T-side and won five rounds in a row twice. There was nothing that MOUZ could do as stavn and dev1ce got 14 frags each in just those 12 rounds.

The dominance continued in the second half as Astralis won the pistol and the anti-eco to put MOUZ on the ropes. MOUZ did strike five in a row next, but Astralis found their last round before things got uncomfortable.

Nuke was a much more balanced map in comparison to what we saw earlier on Vertigo, but Astralis were the better team on both halves.

The Danes did just enough on their CT side in the first half as they secured seven rounds, and delivered another great T-side. Although they weren't as dominant as they were on Vertigo, cadiaN's calling was on point and he also won an important one-versus-one clutch despite his elbow injury.

That's all for now. However, stay tuned to esports.gg for more BLAST Premier World Final 2024 content brought to you directly from Singapore.