CS:GO IEM Chicago 2018 – (Almost) Unstoppable Astralis

Another big tournament brought glory for Astralis and their powerful CS:GO style. At Intel Extreme Masters in Chicago, the Danish team lost just once but defeated lots of other elite players in the CS:GO Esports discipline.

This victory continues the era of Astralis, which started with the champions title at Faceit Major: London 2018. Also, this success intensifies the pressure on Astralis and makes the following events with them even more interesting.

Competitors are highly motivated to defeat the best team in the world, and Astralis aren’t really invincible. FaZe Clan got a victory over them, Fnatic were very close, and Team Liquid had a nice chance in the final.

The upcoming IEM Major in Katowice becomes an even more exciting tournament for CS:GO fans.

Results of the Group Stage

As we wrote in our preview for IEM: Chicago 2018, there were 16 teams at the tournament, and they were divided into two groups. Here are the results of this stage in short:

Group A

FaZe Clan won all their games, playing with LDLC, MIBR, and Astralis. They were defeated only once, on Mirage (by MIBR), but then they won the whole match. FaZe ended up in the first place in Group A and proceeded directly to the semifinals.
Astralis started with brilliant victories over MVP PK and North, but then they were defeated by FaZe Clan. So Astralis proceeded to the quarterfinals from the second place in Group A.
Team LDLC became a sensation of this tournament. They won all the matches of the Lower Bracket and proceeded to the quarterfinals.

Group B

Fnatic finished as the best team of Group B with victories over BIG, eUnited, and Team Liquid. The same as FaZe, Fnatic lost only one map – Inferno against Liquid. The Semifinals became the next step at the tournament for them.
Team Liquid were second in Group B. They won over Luminosity and mousesports. After the loss to Fnatic, the American team proceeded to the quarterfinals.
Mouz fell into the Lower Bracket after their loss to Liquid. Then, mousesports demonstrated their power, won two matches here, and proceeded to the quarterfinals.

Results of the Playoffs

The first two Playoff matches at IEM: Chicago 2018 were conducted before the main event on the arena.

Team Liquid defeated LDLC only with great effort. The first map, Overpass was absolutely of LDLC, and even the second, Cache was sensational. Still, Liquid made a comeback and then quite easily won the third map, Mirage. The final score of the game was 2:1 (11:16, 16:14, and 16:4).
Astralis defeated mousesports quite easily on Train (16:5) and then with some struggles on Nuke (16:13). The second map was interesting for the whole of CS:GO Esports – recently no one is able to defeat Astralis here, and it seemed like Mouz had a chance to do this. Still, we need to wait for the next brave contender.

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Semifinals were played in front of fans at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago.

Astralis won against Fnatic in a tough game with lots of back-and-forth. The first map was of Astralis – 16:14 on Dust II. The might of Fnatic became obvious on the second map, Mirage – 12:16. With a brilliant comeback and tense overtime, Astralis won the last map, Inferno – 19:17.
Team Liquid won against FaZe Clan. First, they showed almost no resistance on Inferno (7:16), and then got two powerful victories on Mirage (16:1) and Cache (16:4).

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The Grand Final promised quite a show! The best team in the world (Astralis) played against the third highest ranked (Team Liquid). For bigger intrigue, let’s not forget how Liquid defeated the only team who could stop Astralis – FaZe.

Astralis won 3:0 in the game Bo5. A decent fight was noticeable only on the first map, Mirage (16:14). Then the situation turned entirely in favor of Astralis: Nuke (16:7) and Inferno (16:14).

The prize pool of CS:GO Intel Extreme Masters: Chicago 2018 was $250,000. The biggest slice of this pie went to Astralis ($100,000).

IEM: Chicago 2018 is a part of Intel Grand Slam Season 1. Astralis became the first team with three victories here.

If they win ESL Pro League Season 8: Finals (Odense, Denmark, December 04-09) or IEM Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019 (Poland, February 14 – March 03) they will take $1,000,000! Other teams have fewer victories but more chances in the future (of course, if Astralis allow).

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