New NA champion arises as Astralis is defeated at ESL One New York

Astralis’s return to the top of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive did not last long, and now they have a new contender to worry about after failing to win the ESL One title against their opponent Evil Geniuses, who won the first trophy of their newly written history

We can’t stress enough how important Evil Geniuses win was last night. The ESL One New York tournament was the first test of the NA squad with the organization that bought it from NRG, and Tarik “Tarik” Celik and his colleagues sent a clear message to all CS: GO teams in the world. “We are coming for you.”

EG delivered on all fronts, having a clean sheet all the way through the entire tournament without losing any map right until the final, beating the likes of FaZe Clan, G2 Esports and even Astralis in the group stage before meeting them again in the final, all thanks to a great performance from the players.

Astralis’ trip to the final hadn’t been so smooth, as they struggled against OpTic and Evil Geniuses in the group stage, qualifying as second for their group to meet Team Liquid in the semi-finals in the scenario we have seen repeated the past few months between the two teams. With Liquid losing the last Major final, the New York semifinals came as a perfect opportunity for revenge, but despite winning one of three maps, Astralis returned to shatter the hopes of the North American team, reaching the final against Evil Geniuses in the hope of achieving their own revenge against the team that defeated them at the group stage.

Thanks to the efforts of “stainslaw”, “CeRq”, “Brehze”, “Ethan” and “Tarik”, EG once again dethroned Astralis kings and thwarted their revenge plan in the best-of-five final, which almost ended in a clean three maps for the NA players, but Astralis’ woke up at the last minute one round away of their loss on Train. “dev1ce” and his teammates returned to the competition again and proved to be kings of comeback, achieving 15-15 tie making us sit for an extra Overtime period.

And what an Overtime it was, where the two teams continued to trade punches back and forth bringing the map to a Double Overtime, meaning that the game had to reach 22 rounds to determine the winner. Although EG came close to winning, the solid will of the Danes gave them that map to return to the table once again for a fourth map.

In the city that never sleeps the night will continue!

Train goes our way ????

Nuke up next…#ToTheStars pic.twitter.com/xKM1EAnaf2

— Astralis (@astralisgg) September 29, 2019

Unfortunately, Nuke was not forgiving for the European team unlike in the past several occasions, as Evil Geniuses’ widened the gap on the fourth and final map ending with a 16-8 thanks to a fabulous CT side of EG and a sweeping attack on T, proving “CeRq”. “Tarik” and “stainslaw” are among the best players in the world.

That does it! It took one extra map, but we take home first place at #ESLOne New York! GGs to @astralisgg.

The support we have received this weekend is overwhelming, and this is only the beginning! #USA #BleedBlue pic.twitter.com/wXifWw1bXg

— Evil Geniuses (@EvilGeniuses) September 29, 2019

Thanks to this victory for the American team, it’s becoming clear that we need to stop mocking the North American CS: GO scene. Along with Liquid, EG marks the anticipated return of the region to highest competitive level. Although ESL One New York did not have a huge prize money ($ 100,000 for the winner), the moral victory is inevitably the most important, as well as the chance to compete for Intel Grand Slam and the $ 1 million prize if the team can win three other championships supported by ESL or Dreamhack.

Congratulations to Evil Geniuses and hard luck Astralis!