With another dominant tournament win, Astralis continue to cement themselves as the best CS:GO team of 2018. Astralis became the IEM Chicago 2018 winners after a clean 3-0 victory against Team Liquid in the grand finals.
They've done it! @astralisgg win #IEM Chicago! pic.twitter.com/Wrx6vfEn0X
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) November 11, 2018
Astralis Become IEM Chicago 2018 Winners
As usual, it was a fairly clean cut tournament run for Astralis. They beat MVP in the first round before beating North 2-0 in a Bo3 victory.
As the group stages progressed, Astralis lost 0-2 in a Bo3 against FaZe but rebounded with a 2-0 quarter-final victory against mousesports.
How did he even know he was through the smoke? 😳 @dev1ce is a god with the AWP 🙌 #IEM https://t.co/JCaCtOvQYi pic.twitter.com/wKb9t6zfpr
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) November 10, 2018
It then came down to a semi-finals match against fnatic- the best series of the tournament. Both teams fought hard, with Astralis barely taking Dust 2 16-14 and fnatic taking Mirage 16-12. After a back and forth affair on the third and final map, Astralis edged it out 19-17 to progress to the grand finals.
When it matters @astralisgg pull out a beautiful B site take! #IEM https://t.co/JCaCtOvQYi pic.twitter.com/JvHrMgkBwQ
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) November 10, 2018
Despite facing some trouble in a couple of earlier matches, the grand finals against Liquid were no problem for the #1 team. After a shaky 16-14 victory on Mirage, they dominated both Nuke and Inferno to close out the series 3-0.
Team Liquid had a strong performance throughout the tournament right up until the grand finals. Their streak of getting 2nd in big tournaments continues, while Astralis continue to look practically unbeatable.
IEM Chicago 2018 MVP – dev1ce
Every player of the Danish team played well, and MVP could have gone to anyone. But despite great clutches by Xyp3x, strong fragging power by Magisk, and great leadership from gla1ve, it was dev1ce who took home the MVP.
The race for HLTV x betway MVP of #IEM Chicago 2018 was an extremely close one this time, and in the end the medal will go to @dev1ce for his consistent impact through every stage of the tournament! pic.twitter.com/2LIVSyYnkd
— HLTV.org (@HLTVorg) November 11, 2018
It was a well-deserved award, with the Astralis AWPer once again showing his skill and stability.
Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz has now won 5 HLTV MVP medals in 2018, only one behind s1mple. If he manages to win one more, he’ll join s1mple to set the record for most MVP medals in one year.
The next big event to look out for is the ECS Season 6 Finals on November 22nd. With no NaVi in the mix, it could be yet another win for Astralis. Although, teams like Liquid, North, and MiBR will also be there to compete.