For the first time in their history, TYLOO have won a big tournament in Europe. It wasn’t an S-tier event, but it was an A-tier one that featured strong teams like Astralis, GamerLegion, Virtus.pro, BIG, FURIA, HEROIC, Lynn Vision Gaming, and paiN Gaming.
This victory shows that China is catching up. They’re still light-years behind the likes of Vitality, MOUZ, and Team Spirit, but they can now defeat teams from the top 10, which is quite impressive considering the state of Chinese Counter-Strike just several years ago.
At FISSURE Playground #1, Astralis had a great opportunity to finally win a significant trophy under the leadership of Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen. As predicted by many, they failed, simply because they still need to work on their cohesion.
When a team changes the IGL, there’s a lot of work to be done to leave behind the old way and learn the new one. HooXi is not exactly new to this role, so he has a lot of unique ideas. Their implementation, however, is not always perfect, which can lead to defeats like the one they suffered today.
The Grand Final
TYLOO had already encountered Astralis in the group stage and defeated them without too many problems. They did lose one map but easily won the other two. Because of this, most pundits regarded them with great respect.
Astralis could have still won the match by relying on their vast experience. In a best-of-five played on a big stage, skill alone is rarely enough to guarantee victory.
However, after winning the first map 13 – 10, HooXi’s squad was destroyed on the second map. The score speaks for itself: 4 – 13.
The third map should have put Astralis ahead again, but despite getting to 12 first and having a substantial advantage, the Danes ended up losing in overtime 14 – 16.
The fourth map was close, but the Chinese side played just a bit better, winning 10 – 13.
This was Astralis’ second Grand Final defeat in the last several months. In a way it’s bad, but compared to what Astralis did before signing HooXi, it’s quite amazing.