Not only did Astralis win their 13th event this year, but they also managed to win Intel Grand Slam! In their ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals victory, the team took home $250,000 of the $750,000 prize pool. They also won an extra $1,000,000 in the Intel Grand Slam for winning 4 out of 10 ESL events!
Astralis Win Intel Grand Slam $1,000,000 Prize
The Intel Grand Slam is a competition hosted by Intel and ESL covering events under the ESL, DreamHack, IEM, and EPL banners. Starting in 2018, teams who manage to win 4 of these events in a ten-event run get an extra $1,000,000 Grand Slam Prize.
Other teams came close. It looked like FaZe could win the Intel Grand Slam at IEM Stockholm 2018, but they fell short. Now, Astralis have pulled off the impressive feat.
Astralis won the Intel Grand Slam by winning DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 (April), ESL Pro League Season 7 (May), IEM Chicago 2018 (November), and now the ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals.
For their incredible string of victories, they become the first ever Intel Grand Slam winners and take the $1,000,000 Grand Slam prize.
First CS:GO Millionaires
After their ECS Season 6 Finals win last month, Astralis set CS:GO records by becoming the first CS:GO millionaires. However, only dev1ce, dupreeh, and Xyp9x passed the 1 million dollar mark in prize money won.
Now, gla1ve joins them as the winnings continue to accumulate. These four players are the highest-paid CS:GO players of all time, with over a million dollars in prize money won.
Magisk is close behind with earnings of $879,481.97. But if Astralis’ reign of dominance continues, chances are he’ll soon catch up.
Astralis Become EPL S8 Champion!
Astralis winning a CS:GO event is all too predictable at this point. The ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals saw them rise above 15 other teams to complete another victory.
The Grand Final came down to Astralis vs Team Liquid- a matchup that’s all too familiar in 2018. Despite losing the first map of the Best of 5, Astralis rallied back to win the series 3-1.
Astralis establish themselves as the most dominant CS:GO lineup of all time, and dev1ce even managed to set another record for most CS:GO MVP medals of all time.