Congratulations go to Astralis for winning the Major Championship, FACEIT CSGO Major 2018. The Danish team beat Natus Vincere in the Grand Finals held at the SSE Wembley Arena with an impressive score of 2-0, taking the FACEIT 2018 title and the first prize of $500k.
Over the past few months, Astralis has become a top esports team that has what it takes to reach the Grand Final. Earlier this year, success started with DreamHack Masters Marseille, where they showed their full potential defeating Natus Vincere with an unbeatable score 2-0.
There was another occasion for Astralis and NaVi to face each other in the Semifinals of ESL One Cologne 2018. However, this time Natus Vincere took the reins of the match winning in Overpass and Inferno but lost Nuke to the Danish star players. Progressing to the finals, the Born to Win team conquered over Berlin International Gaming with an incredible score of 3-1, claiming the first prize.
The third encounter just happened to be at the FACEIT Major 2018 in the Grand Finals. The Danish squad, Astralis did not want to give any chances for Natus Vincere to win a second time. Their strong performance has shown the CS: GO community that no Counter-Strike unit can beat them.
Astralis is considered to be the top CS team across the world for nearly half the year already. Going to the FACEIT Major, they were the favourites to triumph. The Star players accomplished their mission to win a second major event, going down in Counter-Strike history as only the second team to win multiple majors, just behind the leading unit, Fnatic with three Majors.
Natus Vincere’s fighting tactics can never be underestimated especially with star players like Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev, Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko and Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev on the team. Reaching the final match at FACEIT, NaVi hoped to win their first CS: GO Major.
Natus Vincere kicked off the match winning three games on Nuke. The highlights worth noting was when Flamie killed three of his opponents in the first pistol round and Electronic’s 1v3 clutch. There seemed to be hope for the Born to Win team but it was only the beginning. Once Astralis earned enough money to buy ammunition, there was no stopping them taking nine consecutive rounds. From then on it was tough to beat the Danes thanks to Magisk’s double entry frag and Device’s sniper shots killing three of his enemies to secure a winning score of 16-6.
In the second map, Overpass, Navi hoped to gain some advantage since it was the map they picked. Natus Vincere’s Edward saw the great move to flank a double to win the round and another motivational step with a triple kill hold. However, all efforts were in vain as Astralis fought back with all their might with Dupreeh who killed three on defence, Magisk’s triple kill and Xyp9x shot down three to deny their opponents Navi from accomplishing their objective. The Danish CS: GO squad won the Overpass map 16-9, sealing their Final success at FACEIT Major with an incredible score of 2-0.
Nicolai ‘device’ Reedtz that competed for Astralis won the Most Valuable Player award at the FACEIT Major 2018 voted by HLTV.org and Betway. He was quite a tough CSGO player to beat in the tournaments with an average of 0.55 deaths per round, that led his team, with a 1.26 rating through the New Legends matches and New Champions playoffs.
The Star players of Astralis have shown that have what it takes to be the top CSGO team in the world. The success at the FACEIT Major 2018 marks the sixth victorious tournament in 2018, and you will hear more about Astralis in the coming months.
