GamePub are ?????through to the Upper final of the SLTV StarSeries VIII finals following an impressive 2-0 victory over Astana Dragons.
The opening match of the SLTV StarSeries finals, taking place in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, brought us a one-sided match, but shockingly in favour of GamePub as the highly-favoured Astana Dragons team gave a pale account of themselves in front of their crowd.
GamePub, who won the knife round on de_nuke and, as expected, picked the CT side, came out very strongly and won the pistol round thanks to a very, very slow strategy from Astana Dragons, which allowed the Serbians to pick off their opponents one by one, until the whole team was lying on the floor.
The Serbians then made it 3-0 in their favour by winning the two anti-eco rounds and continued on a roll: in the first buy round, AD managed to get the entry frag out in the yard, but then waited for GP's players to rotate before deciding where to go, this way losing the edge they had, which ultimately cost them the round.
Passive strategies were, in fact, AD's biggest problem during this match: even if the Ukraine-based side managed to get the entry kills, they would take too long to make their move, and, when they faced the rest of GamePub's players, they were practically almost outplayed, which is why the Serbian side were leading the score 13-2 at half time.
In the pistol round as Terrorists, GamePub went for a straight rush onto the Lower site, once again outplaying their opponents, who were left bewildered at the quality of the Serbians.
Astana Dragons then found a lifeline as they took two rounds in a row, with Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov carrying the team, but GamePub did not take long to react and won the last two rounds they needed as they picked up a 16-6 victory.
NiKolinho's side assure themselves of top three finish
On de_mirage, the former iNation team once again claimed bragging rights first, retaking the B site in the pistol round after Astana Dragons had planted the bomb. The Ukraine-based team went for a partial buy in the second round as two of their players bought AK, but one of them, Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov, was killed early in the round, which completely ruined AD's strategy and further ruined their economy.
It was only when the score was 5-0 in favour of GamePub that AD were able to score their first round of the map, but it did little in changing the course of the match: the Serbians were doing almost everything right, rotating really well and adapting to whatever their opponents were doing. Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov pulled off an ace in the final to push his team, but still the home side were down 12-3 at half time.
In the second half, Astana Dragons looked impressive in the pistol round, shutting down the path to the B site, but just when everyone thought that a comeback was in the making, Anel "NENO" Ceković picked up an ace of his own, on eco, to keep his team's momentum going.
When GamePub were just one round away from the victory, AD still managed to spur a reaction and strung a few rounds together, but was too little too late as the Serbians ran out 16-11 winners in this contest with a surprising outcome.
SLTV StarSeries VIII FinalsBest of 2 
Astana Dragons
Matchpage 0 2 20th December 2013 
GamePub 6Nuke 16 11Mirage 16
?GamePubK - D +/- ADR Rating 1.0 
Anel 'NENO' Cekovi?NENO 37 - 25 +12 - 1.31 Luka 'emi' Vukovi?emi 41 - 31 +10 - 1.28 
Nikola 'NiKo' Kova?NiKo 43 - 32 +11 - 1.25 Nemanja 'k1Ng0r' Bo?kovi?k1Ng0r 36 - 30 +6 - 1.08 Nestor 'LETN1' Tani?LETN1 26 - 28 -2 - 0.84 ?Astana DragonsK - D +/- ADR Rating 1.0 
Mihail 'Dosia' StolyarovDosia 35 - 38 -3 - 1.08 
Kirill 'ANGE1' KarasiowANGE1 30 - 36 -6 - 0.86 Yegor 'markeloff' Markelovmarkeloff 29 - 37 -8 - 0.82 
Dauren 'AdreN' KystaubayevAdreN 27 - 37 -10 - 0.78 Emil 'kUcheR' AkhundovkUcheR 25 - 35 -10 - 0.74