7th Chamber: Shadow Boxing Virtus.Pro vs Astralis — IEM Cologne Quarterfinals
“Allow me to demonstrate
That’s right, you corny-ass
The skill of Shaolin, rap motherfuckers
The special technique, better go back and check
Of shadowboxing, your fucking stacks” — GZA
The IEM Cologne group stages have ended. Only six teams survived and the quarterfinals are set: Virtus.Pro vs Astralis and FaZe vs Gambit. G2 and Na`Vi await the winners in the semifinals. All teams will have five days to prepare themselves for the battle whether: individually, mentally, or strategically. With this much time, we can shadow box how the match could play out and like the GZA says, break it down to the bone gristle.
Individual Skill:
The first thing to look at is the individual form of the players headed into the match. I’ve listed the HLTV player ratings at Cologne.
Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis 1.16
Dzhami “Jame” Ali 1.11
Timur “buster” Tulepov 1.01
Alexey “qikert” Golubev 1.11
Sanjar “SANJI” Kuliev .78
Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen 1.06
Andreas “Xyp9x” Hojsleth 1.06
Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander .97
Emil “Magisk” Reif 1.04
Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen .95
Virtus.Pro is ahead in overall individual skill. YEKINDAR is playing close to his ceiling and this is giving Jame the room he needs to be a top fragger. VP also has Qikert playing as a third star. Outside of those three, buster and SANJI are about where I expected them to be headed into the tournament. Buster is inconsistent, but does his role. SANJI is a pure sacrificial pawn, who must die on the altar of Jame.
Astralis doesn’t reach the same heights, but their range of variance is lower as well. Dupreeh, Xyp9x, Magisk, and gla1ve are all having good tournaments. None of them are having a star performance, but all four of them are having star moments. This correlates with what I’ve seen from Astralis at Cologne. They are winning with their tactics, teamplay, and experience. If one of those four players gets into a tough position, they can pull out a hero play because they’ve been in that situation a million times before. As for bubzkji, he’s been largely disappointing compared to where he was on MAD Lions and relative to some of the roles he plays.
Overall, Virtus.Pro’s firepower outclasses Astralis. Astralis can even it out if they can force the game into a high pressure round where their experience will outshine Virtus.Pro’s.
Map Veto:
The map veto is a strategic diagnosis of the overarching match as each team needs to analyze what their map pool and how a potential game would play out. It takes into account assumed individual form, comfort, win conditions, strategy, and tactics. In the case of Virtus.Pro and Astralis, the opening stages of the map veto are predictable. Both teams have a permanent ban: Astralis will ban mirage and Virtus.Pro will ban nuke.
After that, it gets trickier. Virtus.Pro and Astralis share the remaining five maps. Virtus.Pro and Astralis are both good in Inferno and Dust2. Vertigo and Overpass are tossups as neither team likes to play them and will ban them in the second rotation. Ancient is a wildcard pick for both teams. Both teams are willing to leave it in the map pool. Astralis is a bit more strategic with it. They used it as a wildcard pick against Na`Vi, but decided to 2nd ban it against FaZe.
With these considerations in mind, here is how I think the map veto plays out:
AST ban Mirage
VP ban Nuke
AST pick Vertigo
VP pick Inferno
AST ban Ancient
VP ban Overpass
Final map Dust2
Astralis has always been willing to risk more in the map veto. They know that if they leave Inferno and Dust2, Virtus.Pro will likely first pick one of them, so Astralis get a free pick here. This let’s them pull out a wildcard of Vertigo, Ancient, or Overpass. Among the three choices, I think Vertigo is their best bet. Ancient is too new and Virtus.Pro too idiosyncratic. It’s too hard to predict what kind of setups they’ll use for that particular map and it will require too much conscious thought in the game itself. That will take the Astralis players out of their comfort zone and could lead to a bigger differential in individual skill.
Overpass is possible, but riskier. The positive for Astralis is that their T-side could break open Virtus.Pro as their fast plays and set executes should do well against Virtus.Pro’s passive style. There are two problems that Astralis have to consider first before picking overpass. The first is that Astralis don’t have a main AWPer that can hold the A-side of the map. The lack of an AWPER will likely give YEKINDAR even more space to break open the game as a lurk entry player. Without a good A hold, I think it’s too much of a risk to pick it as a wildcard. If Astralis picked Overpass, then I think it will be a T-sided game for both sides.
Vertigo is the best bet. YEKINDAR is still a problem, but Astralis can fight for the ramp with utility, rotations, teamplay, and intelligence so you can minimize his impact to a degree. Dupreeh has pretty good success at breaking open the B-side of the map as an entry or mid-round lurk. Couple that with some fast plays to exploit Virtus.Pro’s passive style and I think there is enough reason for Astralis to pick this into Virtus.Pro
As for Virtus.Pro’s first pick is either Inferno or Dust2. Both maps are good for Virtus.Pro, but given Astralis’ performance against Na`Vi VP will probably err on the side of caution and go Inferno. They did this twice before against BIG and NiP, so I think they’ll do it again here.
Something to look out for is how Astralis will adjust their setups to VP’s T-side. VP likes to take map control and then post up Jame in a two man action where he waits for the CTs to make an information play. Look out for how Astralis decide to deal with it, whether they preempt it with an aggressive move, use their utility to blind counter it (the classic Astralis HE stacks come to mind), or cut utility early on and force Virtus.Pro to run through smoke, mollies, and/or flashes at the end of the round. If Astralis are on point, I could see a future where they win 2–0 in a close set.
As for the second ban rotations, Astralis will likely go for Ancient while Virtus.Pro will go for Overpass. That leaves Dust2 as the decider. Most teams know how Virtus.Pro will play Dust2 now. They’ll have YEKINDAR play entry or create space, play passive, save utility for the end of the round and make sure that Jame can trade and close rounds (or barring that save the AWP). The game plan is fairly simple, on the CT-side Astralis will try to save utility early on, slow down YEKINDAR, and then frustrate any late round hits with their utility. As for the T-side, Astralis’ will probably use a fast pace to break Virtus.Pro’s CT formation. I think having gla1ve as the leader will give Astralis a decisive advantage.
Gla1ve will be able to make the mid round adjustments when VP’s CT-side becomes too static. To see what I mean, we’ll look at a few rounds from Virtus.Pro vs BIG at Cologne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsvTdykSE0A&t=55m12s
In the 23rd, 24th, and 25th rounds, Virtus.Pro was playing a 2–3 setup with mid wide open for exploitation. gla1ve will likely be able to read this hole and exploit it either with a fast take of mid or a slower mid to B split.
Win conditions and Predictions
Throughout this article I’ve focused on Astralis’ potential strategic or tactical adjustments they can make. This is because they are the team willing to make those changes. I’ve watched Virtus.Pro for the past year and while they can improve their tactics and setups, they rarely adjust to their opponents. That is why Virtus.Pro had to really grind their way through compLexity and BIG to get to this point. VP will either execute their game plan or they won’t. In a way, sticking with your guns and avoiding any changes is a superior plan if your players are in top form (which VP’s are).
All three maps should be a grind. Astralis will have a slight advantage on Vertigo, VP have an advantage on Inferno, and Dust2 can go either way. Overall, these are the win conditions for each team.
Virtus.Pro: YEKINDAR and Jame continue to play at a high level and make use of the AWP differential across all three maps. On Inferno and Dust2, they should try to close out the map before the pressure starts mounting in the end rounds. If qikert continues to play at a high level, Virtus.Pro could run over Astralis before their championship spirit becomes a problem.
Astralis: They will need to make strategic and tactical adjustments, leverage the map veto in their favor, and force Inferno and Dust2 into round 25 on and utilize their superior experience.
VP’s win conditions are easier to execute than Astralis. However I don’t bet against greatness when there is a path to victory. Astralis even without Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, you only need to see the Dust2 map against Na`Vi to see it. Or as the GZA says,
“Flying guillotines here they come, bloody bastards
Hard times and killer tactics, spitting words plus”
Astralis 2–1.
