Astralis are back in the semifinals for the third consecutive major Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament in 2017 after sweeping Natus Vincere in the quarter-finals on Friday at the Intel Extreme Masters Season XI World Championship in Katowice, Poland.

The winners of the inaugural ELEAGUE Major in January and finalists at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas at the end of February will play Group B winners Heroic on Saturday. The matchup pits Astralis star Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander against his former club.

Immortals edged out a 2-1 series win over North in the other quarter-finals and will face Group A winners FaZe Clan in the final four. 

It was a tale of streaks to open the series between Astralis and Na'Vi. The Ukrainian side fell early on their map choice of Mirage, losing three of the first four rounds on the counter-terrorist side, before bouncing back with three straight rounds to take a 4-3 lead. Astralis wiped out their opponents in the next four maps to regain control of the first half and need just one win in the next four to secure and 8-7 halftime lead. 

Astralis pounced all over Na'Vi in the second half on the CT side, winning seven of the first eight rounds to bring the game to match point. Na'Vi scratched and clawed to take three straight rounds but ran out of momentum and fell 16-11.

The Danish powerhouse left little doubt on their map choice of Nuke. The round started with nine straight rounds for Astralis before Na'Vi got on the board, followed by another five straight straight to take a 14-1 halftime lead from the CT side. They won their sixth straight round to open the second half and gave up one more round before clinching the map 16-2 and the series 2-0.

Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth lead the way in Game 1 with team-leading 25 kills and gla1ve took over in Game 2 with 19 kills. With the lowest kill total (12) for Astralis in Game 2, Xyp9x still managed to out frag four of the five Na' Vi players.

The story of the semis will be the reuniting of gla1ve and his former team Heroic. The 21-year-old transferred to Astralis in October after nearly two years with the roster and four names - unu.AiN (twice), Copenhagen Wolves, Team X and Heroic.

The breakup was not a messy one and gla1ve remains close friends with Heroic's Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer. In an interview with theScore eSports at the beginning of March, Snappi said that not only do he and gla1ve talk CS:GO on a regular basis, but that he wishes Astralis well in competition. He did confirm though that the good feelings will go out the window if they meet up in a high-stakes matchup, like the IEM Katowice semifinals, for example.

I don't root for Danish teams in general, but the difference in Astralis' case is that me and gla1ve were good friends and teammates for over a year, so I'm really glad he succeeded. We are, after the transfer, still good friends and often discuss both in-game and out of game related stuff, making it impossible not to root for him," Snappi said.

"The fact that we've gotten a closer relationship to Astralis has changed my mindset a little. We share offices and can, in the future, use each other as practice partners on a different level than what you are used to playing different teams online. With that said they are still our rivals, and we would throw them to the wolves if that would put us in a better position."

Snappi will have his chance to one-up his friend when Heroic and Astralis meet in the semis at the Spodek Arena on Saturday.