Astralis does it again and wins IEM Katowice CS: GO event

Favorite Danish squad fortified their position yesterday as the absolute best Counter-Strike team in the world right now, after a well-deserved win over their competitors FaZe Clan at IEM Katowice Grand Finals.

The Danes faced a great challenge in the form of FaZe, the team that beat many big names including Virtus.Pro and Cloud9. The start of the match was a bit worrisome for Astralis with a FaZe advantage on Cache with five out of six starting rounds, followed by a further wider gap reaching 10-3 rounds. Despite Astralis efforts to make a comeback winning two rounds, a clutch by FaZe’s leader “karrigan” gave momentum to the team to continue and win the map with 16-9 rounds.

Match up moved to Overpass, Astralis’ pick, and the teams were evenly matched throughout. Despite this, FaZe’s inability to win a pistol round meant they were always just a step behind their opponents. A late eco win for Astralis gave them momentum at the perfect time, giving the Danes a 16-12 win to level the series. On Nuke it looked like Astralis may have broken their opponents’ spirit, running up a 7-1 lead before being 10-5 up at the half. FaZe managed to rally on their CT side and the game was well balanced, but once again Astralis broke the FaZe economy at the perfect time and there was nothing FaZe could do to stop another 16-12 win.

With the fourth map in this Best of Five final, FaZe were taken onto Inferno by Astralis map pick. The NA team did win the first pistol this time, but Astralis cleaned up the next five rounds in much the same way FaZe did on Cache. A 9-6 halfway lead looked comfortable for the Danes, but the renewed FaZe side were not going down without a fight. In the closest fought map of the match so far they battled back to 13-13—only for Astralis to call a crucial timeout. The pause worked wonders for the Major champions, allowing them to regroup and claim the three rounds needed to win.

Astralis took home $104,000 for first place and the title of IEM Katowice champions, proving their worthy on the global stage having won two out of the three big CS: GO tournaments this year, while reaching the finals in all of them. Congrats Astralis!

Watch the match’s highlights below: