The No . 1 team in the world, Astralis met a friend as an unlikely foe in the semifinals of Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2017. No . 21 Heroic battled its way to the number one seed going into the playoffs, earning a bye into the semifinals. Astralis took down No . 4 Natus Vincere 2-0 to make its way into the match against its Danish brothers and the former home of Astralis' in-game leader Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander.
Astralis' only loss coming out of the group stage was against No . 13 Immortals in a surprising upset on Cache. Heroic's group stage ended 3-2 with losses coming to Number 3 and 9 SK Gaming and Cloud9.
Train would be map one as well as Astralis' pick, a map it has shown strength on since its resurgence in late 2016. It would be Heroic who got off to a strong lead, creating a gap at 7-2 before Astralis would manage to claw its way back into the game, to only face the 7-8 deficit at the half. Once again Astralis showed its poise on the counter-terrorist side, beautiful defensive setups paired with strong individual performances would see Astralis take the half 9-4 for the map win at 16-12. As in the other semifinal, the second map might see a reversal of roles. On Heroic's pick of Nuke, the No . one team in the WWG CSGO Team Rankings would take a strong lead 5-0 before Heroic would grab two. Three more would swing the way of Astralis until Brave got its third and final chart of the half to go down 3-12. A pistol round victory would help Daring close the gap, Heroic would bring it within two at 14-12 before Astralis would grab the two it needed. The 16-12 victory on Nuke would see the No . 1 group Buy CSGO Skins take the 2-0.