The failures of Astralis’s management of their CS division come back to bite their legacy.
With their victory at IEM Krakow 2026 yesterday, Vitality have care now the team with the most “Big Event” trophies with 20 wins.
They surpassed Astralis’s record of 19, the last of which they obtained at the BLAST Pro Series World Final 2019.
The “Big Event” classification comes from HLTV’s metric, which also includes closed-door studio events like the most recent ESL Pro Leagues or tournaments with almost entirely best-of-ones like BLAST Pro Series. With this filer on, the two organizations are tied 16 to 16 in Big Events. However, Vitality is the favorite to win their next tournament, while Astralis just failed to make the playoffs of IEM Krakow, let alone win it.
A fumbled GOAT lineup
As mentioned before, Astralis’s last notable LAN trophy in an arena came at the the end of 2019, when they managed to win a slew of tournaments after losing their number one spot to Team Liquid.
In an epic turn of events, Astralis snatched it back by taking the Starladder Berlin Major, and intensified a three-way rivalry between them, Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses.
What eventually stopped this lineup from achieving more were the managerial decisions taken during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the pandemic, Astralis had failed to keep hold of their star player Nicolai ‘device’ Reedtz. They refused to give their players breaks when they complained of burnout, according to Dexerto.
Their 4-man core was still solid despite losing device, earning a top four spot at IEM Cologne 2021 playing with up-and-coming rifler Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen instead. However, they fumbled this as well by denying Bubzkji a spot on the roster for the PGL Stockholm Major 2021, and fittingly losing to the French Team Vitality in an elimination match there to come 12th-14th place.
Skip forward 5 years later, and the lineup that no one thought could be surpassed is actively being challenged by an international team that started as a fully French-speaking lineup right at the time Astralis was peaking.
Now, Astralis have taken the same step to go international, after new ownership took over and every Danish lineup they attempted failed to meet expectations.
Vitality’s CS2 division looks on ahead ambitiously at the CS2 tournament calendar in 2026 after an unprecedented 2025. They are the favorites going into PGL Cluj-Napoca, a Big Event starting in less than a week.
