Astralis takes the final crown of the year over Liquid!

The Danish-side from Astralis concluded the year with a victory in the bo5 grand final against Liquid to take home the IEM Global Challenge title and a $200.000 first-place prize, marking their 9th grand final victory over the North American squad by clean sweeping them 3-0. 

Inferno: 16-11 – Top player: Magisk – 1.44 rating – 92.9 ADR – 22-13 K/D 
Overpass: 16-11 – Top player: device – 1.70 rating – 115.5 ADR – 32-15 K/D
Dust2: 16-10 - Top player: device - 1.53 rating – 96.0 ADR – 23-15 K/D

Top player of the series: device – 1.49 rating – 99.0 ADR – 77-46 K/D

The final series of the year started with Astralis´ map pick on Inferno, where the Danes got off to the best start with a flawless pistol round on T-side. But a force buy from Liquid in the next round paid off and denied Astralis to execute on B, resetting their economy. Some unexpected and aggressive plays from the NA-side surprised Astralis and provoked them to give away mistakes which Liquid took advantage of to secure some close rounds. A quad-kill from device in the 11th round seemed to be the right confidence boost for the Danish-side as they closed out the first half with fast pace executions, resulting in a 9-6 lead. 

The Danish team deepened their lead even more after switching sides, bringing the scoreline to a 13-6 advantage. Liquid struggled to find their footing and lost close rounds where heroes from the Danish-side stepped up to break their economy. Liquid gradually chipped away at the deficit with NAF and Stewie2K heating up to shut down any chances of Astralis stringing the last rounds together. But by then they were already too far behind with gla1ve coming to the team´s rescue with four kills on match point to put the game away 16-11. 

Overpass started with Astralis in front, powering through to an 8-0 lead on their CT-side by standing offensive in nearly all their positions over the map. The NA-side only managed to get two rounds because of stellar performances from device and dupreeh who completely controlled the mid area, lighting up the scoreboard with 47 kills combined, compared to Liquid’s 30 kills in total. 

Liquid took the second pistol convincingly and won the two rounds afterward, giving them small hopes for a miracle to come back in the game. That good start on the pistol seemed to give EliGe and company the right boost to build their way up to their 11th round on the scoreboard, making the comeback look possible with the score being 14-11 in Astralis’ favor. But a fast and aggressive push to the B-site from Astralis wiped their sweat off as they made it to matchpoint and right after won a nearly impossible 3v4 situation on the B-site, which closed out the second map of the series. 

Going into the third map of the series, Astralis had the opportunity to make it a clean sweep. 

The opening half of Dust2 started with Liquid winning the first two rounds, but the game looked like to follow nearly the same pattern as that of Overpass as Astralis took control right after, hitting early frags through mid-doors and taking advantage of Liquid’s early rotations on CT-side by waiting patiently in good positions. EliGE helped his team to break that pattern and stabilize on their CT-side, bringing the deficit to a solitary round. 

The NA-side didn’t manage to get back on track after the switch as Astralis made things complicated for them by taking the pistol and securing the following four rounds. Nothing much changed as Liquid only managed to collect 3 rounds, before Astralis closed out the map 16-10 to wrap up the series 3-0 and marking their 9th grand final victory over Liquid.