Danish CS:GO Team Astralis have won the DreamHack Masters Marseilles, beating Natus Vincere 2-0 in the final on Sunday 22nd April 2018. This tournament marking Astralis’ first title since IEM Katowice in February 2017.
The pick and ban phase suggested we, as fans, were on for a 3-map thriller. Astralis and Na’Vi had picked Nuke and Inferno, respectively, almost guaranteeing themselves victory on their own pick. The decider being on Train.
Astralis were expected to win Nuke. Few teams really put time into it and Astralis are probably the best in the world on the unpopular map. What pundits and experts may not have expected was the brutal 16-4 domination. Na’Vi wanted to make the game messy for Astralis and stop them building an economy, unfortunately for them they were unable to do so and were blown off the map.
Before map 2, talk was about Na’Vi resetting and winning their comfort pick; Inferno. It started out well enough with them taking a lead. Astralis however, we able to win some key rounds to get themselves in the game. Once they built up an economy, giving themselves multiple rebuys and starving Na’Vi of funds, they strangled the Ukrainian team out of the map and out of the tournament.
A special mention must go out to my tournament MVP Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev in this match. I can’t imagine someone putting up higher stats and still losing. He was top-fragger in both maps (22, 41) and close to 93 ADR on Inferno. He had some fantastic, shots such as out sniping Device’s AWP with a Deagle, and was trying to carry the rest of his team to victory.
Astralis were able to enforce their will on the game, keeping it a tactical affair and not getting drawn into 1v1 duels. Whenever Simple was beginning to unleash he was cut down and stopped from racking up multiple kills. Na’Vi showed flashes of their fierce firepower but Astralis did well in keeping those rounds to a disconnected minimum to prevent any build-up of momentum.
It’s exciting to see this style of play achieve results. If even Na’Vi cannot find a way to fight through that, could we be on the cusp of the Era of Astralis?
CodexCaster's Contribution 