The first day of DreamHack ASTRO Open Leipzig 2017 is behind us, with the favorites Heroic and FlipSid3 taking the first places in their respective groups and advancing to the playoffs.

The action in Leipzig kicked off with Heroic taking on the Swedes of qwerty. In their LAN debut, the newly formed Swedish team built around Mikail "⁠Maikelele⁠" Bill and Faruk "⁠pita⁠" Pita wasn't able to put up a fight against the Danes, falling 16-8 on Cobblestone.



Heroic were the first ones to clinch a playoff spot

It was a similar story in the other opening match of group A, as the ESEA Global Challenge finalists LDLC dispatched of an Aleksandar "⁠jayzaR⁠" Zarkovic-less fnatic Academy with ease.

The two victorious teams moved on to the winners match on Cobblestone, which turned out to be quite a thriller. Both teams were in the lead at some point, but it was Heroic that managed to steal it back one last time, getting eight rounds in the row to win 16-13.

Heroic K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangsåvalde 24 - 19 +5 92.9 1.38 Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferSnappi 23 - 18 +5 75.8 1.19 Michael 'Friis' JørgensenFriis 18 - 15 +3 62.3 1.07 Andreas 'MODDII' FridhMODDII 18 - 19 -1 66.7 1.05 Nikolaj 'niko' Kristensenniko 16 - 18 -2 61.0 0.99 LDLC K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Kévin 'Ex6TenZ' DroolansEx6TenZ 27 - 19 +8 92.8 1.35 Alexandre 'xms' Fortéxms 20 - 17 +3 79.3 1.18 Alex 'ALEX' McMeekinALEX 16 - 21 -5 73.4 0.91 Valentin 'mistou' Balbastromistou 14 - 21 -7 51.7 0.68 Antoine 'to1nou' Pirardto1nou 12 - 21 -9 44.7 0.66

Going into day 2, group A looks as follows:

In group B, we saw another team have a LAN debut - BIG. The team with notable German players such as Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz and Kevin "⁠keev⁠" Bartholomäus put up a decent showing against FlipSid3, but the Russian star Denis "⁠electronic⁠" Sharipov was too hot for them to handle - 97.8 ADR and 1.51 rating in the CIS's side 16-11 victory.

The surprise of the Major Qualifier Vega Squadron was up next, taking on the Danish-Bulgarian mixture Rogue. With Sergey "⁠keshandr⁠" Nikishin and Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov on point and Dmitriy "⁠jR⁠" Chervak getting 11 AWP kills, Vega Squadron managed to upset Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller and co. - picking up a 16-14 victory on Overpass.

Two CIS sides were matched up to decide the first place in Group B and the veto ended up on Nuke. After a bad start to their CT side, FlipSid3 were able to consolidate their defences and started shutting down Vega Squadron, with Georgi "⁠WorldEdit⁠" Yaskin and Jan "⁠wayLander⁠" Rahkonen standing out for FlipSid3.

It was still close after the switch, but Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy's team was able to get the last four rounds of the game to edge it out 16-14.

FlipSid3 K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Georgi 'WorldEdit' YaskinWorldEdit 31 - 19 +12 100.0 1.48 Jan 'wayLander' RahkonenwayLander 27 - 21 +6 88.8 1.21 Yegor 'markeloff' Markelovmarkeloff 21 - 23 -2 71.8 0.98 Andrey 'B1ad3' GorodenskiyB1ad3 16 - 22 -6 64.1 0.93 Denis 'electronic' Sharipovelectronic 13 - 19 -6 59.2 0.87 Vega Squadron K - D +/- ADR Rating 2.0 Leonid 'chopper' Vishnyakovchopper 26 - 22 +4 87.9 1.11 Nikolay 'mir' Bityukovmir 23 - 23 0 76.5 1.06 Pavel 'hutji' Lashkovhutji 22 - 18 +4 70.7 1.06 Sergey 'keshandr' Nikishinkeshandr 17 - 24 -7 67.5 0.89 Dmitriy 'jR' ChervakjR 15 - 21 -6 67.1 0.85

The action in group B will continue tomorrow with BO3 matches being played in the classic GSL system:

Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.