After beating OG Esports 2-1 in a close fashion earlier in the day, the team found themselves in the Grand Final, facing Eternal Fire. Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and co. claimed the trophy by winning 2-1 in an exciting match.
The two teams met in April during the RMR, where Eternal Fire won the best-of-one match on Vertigo 7-16. Despite Engin "MAJ3R" Küpeli having his best game in the last three months in that match, he couldn't replicate that because of technical difficulties, which meant they had Ömer "imoRR" Karataş to stand in on the first map. The scoreline went back and forth between the two teams, and most noticeably, the clutches as well. Eight clutches were registered on Vertigo, where Astralis won half of them, mostly thanks to our captain, gla1ve.
After being down 13-14, the guys showed great mental fortitude and crossed the finish line by winning 16-14 on the opponent's map pick.
The match was now headed to Astralis' map pick, Overpass. A map where Astralis has a 90% win rate during the last three months and where three of the five players have shown their best performances. That wasn't the case at all yesterday, as Eternal Fire dominated the map and won 6-16.
Going into the decider, Inferno, the win rates were relatively even, with Astralis sitting at 43% and Eternal Fire at 40%. The Turkish squad got an early 1-3 lead on the CT side, but the match was tied up 4-4 shortly after. The Danes then showed no mercy in the following sequence: they won six consecutive rounds and ultimately the first half 10-5.
It felt like Alexander "Altekz" Givskov and Benjamin "blameF" Bremer had built a wall on Banana, as they kept Eternal Fire from entering the B-site round after round. The team stepped up all around the map in the second half, which meant that Eternal Fire only gained two rounds more. blameF closed the Grand Final with an ACE on Banana to secure a 2-1 victory.
The team is travelling to Dallas as they will face Team Liquid on Monday, May 29th, in their opening match of IEM Dallas 2023.
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