Astralis are the first team to advance to the DreamHack ZOWIE Open Summer playoffs after defeating SK 16-12 on Overpass in the Group A winners' match.

The Group A winners' match of DreamHack ZOWIE Open Summer was a Danish showdown between Astralis, recently returned from winning Group C of ELEAGUE, and SK, who were using two stand-ins in lieu of Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche having signed to Liquid and Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif having exams.

With Overpass the map of action, it was one of the SK stand-ins, Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså, who kicked things off with a double TEC-9 entry kill to give SK access to the bombsite and the first pistolround. Following the anti-ecos, smart picks from Michael "⁠Friis⁠" Jørgensen and Andreas "⁠MODDII⁠" Fridh have SK the first gunround as well and an early lead in the game.

This early momentum actually allowed SK to push forward to a 7-0 lead on their T-side but Astralis finally woke up on the eighth round and completely shut down SK without dropping a player. From here on out, the first half got a lot more constricted as Astralis started to deflate SK, with Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen in particular displaying superb defending; the half finished 9-6 for SK.

Astralis secure the playoffs after a battle with regional rivals SK

The second pistolround saw dupreeh yet again chip in to his team's coffers with an early double kill and then shutting down a postplant flank and picking up a final kill for a total of four kills to give Astralis the round.

The game entered a strange tit-for-tat phase, as first SK force bought with Five-Sevens and won the round, then Astralis force bought TEC-9s and won the round (with Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth picking up four), and then a round went SK's way as Friis won a one-versus-three, including a last second defuse.

11-9 was nearly as far as SK would get however as Astralis regrouped and went on a spree of T-side executes, with the deadly duo of Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and dupreeh taking off, as well as thanks to a strong performance from Xyp9x. Despite one more round for SK, it was Astralis who closed out the map 16-12.

DreamHack ZOWIE Open Summer 2016Best of 1 AstralisMatchpage 16 12 18th June 2016 SK 16Overpass 12

Astralis	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussendupreeh	27 - 15	+12	106.0	1.60
Nicolai 'device' Reedtzdevice	25 - 16	+9	101.5	1.49
Andreas 'Xyp9x' HøjslethXyp9x	23 - 19	+4	83.9	1.18
Finn 'karrigan' Andersenkarrigan	18 - 17	+1	59.3	0.90
Markus 'Kjaerbye' KjærbyeKjaerbye	14 - 22	-8	63.4	0.89

SK	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Michael 'Friis' JørgensenFriis	18 - 20	-2	63.1	1.08
Andreas 'MODDII' FridhMODDII	18 - 21	-3	85.0	0.98
Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangsåvalde	21 - 23	-2	81.8	0.98
Asger 'AcilioN' LarsenAcilioN	15 - 19	-4	67.6	0.92
Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossandergla1ve	16 - 24	-8	66.2	0.68

The second winners' match is also taking place today, an all-Swedish battle between Ninjas in Pyjamas and GODSENT.

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