FaZe wins ELEAGUE Premier 2017
Today we bid farewell to the final leg of the ELEAGUE Premier 2017 shooting event for the video game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
FaZe Clan have won ELEAGUE Premier 2017 after a decisive win over Astralis in the grand final (Cache 16-14, Overpass 16-7)
The much anticipated map veto delivered on its interest, because of the similarities in map pools between FaZe and Astralis, as FaZe floated their Cobblestone ban, forcing the Danes to ban it, while Finn “karrigan” Andersen’s side picked Cache, leading to a series consisting of Cache, Overpass, and Inferno.
Cache kicked off with a big quadruple kill by Håvard “rain”Nygaard with a P250, securing the first round for the FaZe side. Nicolai “device” Reedtz and Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye both pitching in double kills allowed Astralis to secure an eco round win in the third round. They then took the following round to secure their economy and force FaZe onto an eco, leading to Astralis taking the lead early on.
Many of the rounds in the first half were highly contested, coming down to clutch situations, particularly in the ninth round, in which Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács got down to a 1v1 after some precise Deagle kills. However, Astralis ran away with the half in the end, holding FaZe to just three round wins.
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač began the second half with three absurd USP-S kills on the A site, helping his team to secure their second pistol round of the game. Unlike the previous half, FaZe won the following two rounds, even against Astralis’s third-round buy, laying the pathway for a comeback.
However, FaZe were cut short as Astralis won the force-buy in the next round off of some heroics from Peter “dupreeh”Rasmussen with the CZ-75 and AWP. The Danes were instantly reset, putting their money into the bin, as rain took down three Astralis players ending up on 1 HP. Each player on FaZepitched in at different times, leading them slowly but surely back into the game.
Astralis were completely unable to find success on their T side, and every FaZe player contributed with multi-kill rounds, with the pan-European team finally taking the lead in the 27th round. FaZe then completed the comeback, winning their own map pick 16-14.
Astralis’s pick of Overpass began with a very close pistol round, with rain being the key player, but the Danes pulled out the win in the end. In classic FaZe fashion, NiKo and co. picked apart Astralis with Deagles and CZ’s, winning the second round and setting themselves up for a strong lead. NiKo won the third round for his team with 1HP after winning the 1v1 vs Kjaerbye, putting FaZe into a very advantageous economic position.
The international squad powered their way to a three-round lead, and after a close 3v3 in the sixth, Astralis were left in the dust. As if the first map never ended, FaZe continued their CT side dominance, completely shutting down Astralis at every turn, including miracle plays from rain and Olof “olofmeister”Kajbjer.
device finally decided that he would turn things around, and after two key picks with the AWP, his team managed to win a gun round. FaZe continued to show no mercy, though, and shut down any chances of Astralis building up an economy or stringing rounds together. rain continued his extreme aggression, racking up kill after kill, crippling Astralis and preventing them from gaining any traction at all. In a reverse of Cache, Astralis managed to win three rounds total to make a half-time score of 3-12.
Reminiscent to the previous map yet again, the team down won the pistol round, and unlike the first half of Overpass, Astraliswon the following round. The first gun round easily went the way of FaZe, really putting the pressure onto the Astralis side. Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander called for an eco at 6-13, putting the ultimate trust into his team’s CT side, but the FaZe plow was far too strong, and the karrigan-led team hit 15 rounds.
Astralis managed to hold on by a thread, winning the desperation force-buy off of some nice teamplay in connector, but the momentum was still in the favor of FaZe, and olofmeister put the final nail into the Danes’ coffin, winning Overpass 16-7 and the series 2-0.
