Gambit Gaming are through to the semi-finals of DreamHack Masters Malmö after defeating Astralis on two maps.

Cache, the first map of the series, began with Gambit winning the pistol round as Terrorists following a fast B push. They were, however, unable to hold on to that lead after being caught off-guard by Astralis' B stack, with Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye picking up three kills with a Desert Eagle.

Astralis went on to win the next two rounds, but once Gambit had money to work with, the game swung back in their favour, thanks to a series of entry frags from Bektiyar "⁠fitch⁠" Bahytov. After losing five rounds in a row, Astralis called a tactical pause in order to discuss their strategy. They came close to winning the next round after getting two early kills, but Gambit somehow overturned a 3v5 situation.

With Astralis down 3-8, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen stepped up with the AWP and helped his team to win two much-needed rounds, with Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth following that up with a quad kill. However, the final round of the half still went to Gambit thanks to a triple kill from Rustem "⁠mou⁠" Telepov.

Astralis won the pistol round as Terrorists with a textbook A push and followed that up with the subsequent anti-ecos to restore parity at 9-9. What followed was a messy period of the game as rounds went back and forth and the teams were continuously denied the chance to create any sort of economic development.

Down 11-12, Gambit put their foot down to hold back the Danish lineup and quickly reached map point. dupreeh and Kjaerbye then came up huge in a desperate force-buy round, overturning a 2v5 situation, but mou replied in the next round with a quad kill inside B to secure the 16th round for his team.

fitch was on fire throughout the series

The first half of Mirage was a complete blowout. The map had been picked by Astralis, but anyone watching the game would think otherwise as Gambit jumped out to a commanding 7-0 lead on the Counter-Terrorist side.

Astralis then finally got a round on the board with a B push, but Gambit responded immediately, resetting their opponents' economy. The Kazakh team would remain in the driving seat until the end of the half, with Astralis getting just one more round, courtesy of a fantastic individual play from Xyp9x, who picked up four kills and outplayed Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov in a 1v1.

There was more misery for Astralis, who lost the pistol round as CT to a 1v2 clutch from mou. It looked like the game was all but over, but the Danes kept their hopes alive by winning the next round on a shoddy buy.

Astralis strung a few rounds together to bring the deficit to 6-14, but then Gambit hit match point with an A execution following yet another stunning entry frag from fitch and two two kills from Dosia towards CT spawn. That round loss dented the economy of the Danish players, who were left with no tools to prevent Gambit from taking the next round.