Photo Credit: HLTV
One of the most exciting major finals in history, the match between Astralis and Virtus Pro went the full distance, spanning across all three maps with none being less than 28 rounds. The culmination of the series was an exciting last match, as each team struggled to close out the game.
Map 1: Nuke
The first map, Nuke, was chosen by Virtus Pro. Despite the pistol round victory for Astralis on the Counter Terrorist side, VP took the second round with a force buy and punished Astralis by taking the next four rounds to begin with a 5-1 score. Astralis managed to pull back the score to 6-6 after a streak of rounds, but VP took the rest of the rounds in the half to end up with a strong 9-6 score on the Terrorist side of the notoriously CT sided (not as much after the update, but still CT sided) Nuke. Astralis won the second pistol round and the subsequent anti-ecos to tie up the score at 9-9. It was then that Nuke showed why it was CT sided as VP was able to use the advantages of the map to pull ahead and finally win with a 16-12 score.
Map 2: Overpass
Despite how close the first map was, the second map was actually even closer. It was Astralis that got the early lead this time, and the first half proceeded in an almost identical manner to Nuke’s first half, except in reverse. Astralis kicked off the second half in first gear and roared to a 13-9 score. Just as things were starting to look grim for the Poles, they strung together a 5 round streak to take the lead at 14-13. This forced Astralis to take a tactical timeout, and when they were ready, they showed that they had used the time wisely as they took the next 3 rounds to end the map 16-14.
Map 3: Train
Both halves on Train actually started off extremely poorly for Astralis as they lost both pistol rounds and were reset several times. The score was 13-7 in favor of Virtus Pro on the Counter Terrorist side before a 1 vs 1 clutch round allowed Astralis to run 5 unanswered rounds. However, Astralis dropped the ball a bit by allowing VP to win an eco round with only one rifle to give the Poles two map points at 14-13. Just like Overpass, Astralis showed their mental fortitude and pulled out three straight rounds to close out the map once again at 16-14.
Kjaerbye won the MVP award for Astralis with his great finals performance while also cementing the record as the youngest player to win a CS:GO major. Device from Astralis also had a great tournament despite his poor performance in the finals, and was instrumental in the previous matches.