Tonight the grand finals for the Faceit Major took place at the SSE Arena in London, in which Astralis only needed two maps to topple their opponents NaVi and secure the title for themselves, showing why a lot of people considered them the favourites heading into the event.
Before that though we had a show match between two teams led by captains Owen 'Smooya' Butterfield and Håvard 'Rain' Nygaard, and this was probably the closest match of all the four days at the SSE Arena. This gave fans a chance to see a more light-hearted side to the game, as players and talent joined forces to put on a show and try some more... unconventional styles of play.
After that the serious business began, with Astralis' map Nuke coming first in the best-of-three finals, a map which they're notorious for being deadly on. To start with NaVi took the first few rounds, but that didn't faze Astralis as they bounced back to consistently reclaim points. While NaVi did manage to increase their tally to 6, Astralis kept it there to win the map 16-6 and look the far better side heading into Overpass.
On this map though things were a little bit closer, with NaVi's star player Oleksandr 'S1mple' Kostyliev (who many have said is the best player in the world) getting the chance to shine a little bit more. The team posed much more of a threat against Astralis in these rounds, but again the Danes were allowed to pull away, and after several great performances and thrilling rounds, this map ended 16-9 to give Astralis the title.
This marked Emil 'Magisk' Reif's first Major title as a player, who was even allowed to be the first one to lift the trophy. In-game leader Lukas 'Gla1ve' Rossander also said to us that this meant a whole lot to the team, and you can expect that interview very soon.
Did you expect Astralis to win?