Esports

CS:GO BLAST Series Recap

Copenhagen hosted the first ever CS:GO BLAST Series, where six professional teams played for a massive prize pool.

Astralis compete in the Blast Pro Series wearing Elite Pro gaming headsets from Turtle Beach.The first ever CS:GO BLAST Series debuted over the weekend in the heart of Copenhagen. Six of the best teams from around the world descended on Denmark’s capital to compete against one another in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The prize pool? An impressive $250,000!

Attending the event were none other than Astralis along with FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, Ninjas in Pyjamas, North, and SK Gaming. Though there were only six teams competing, they are the best of the best, so the action and plays were off the charts.

The BLAST Series was an intense sequence of matches, were teams faced off against others in a round-robin style setup. Astralis faced off against SK Gaming, and left the pairing 16 to 3. Astralis continued this pattern through the second round of matches against NiP, and ended up tying with North during the third round. Matches four and five were dominated by Astralis again, though FaZe Clan put up a fight.

Outside of their first loss against Astralis, SK Gaming went on to win every single match-up, except during their fourth round where they faced off against FaZe Clan. This landed both SK Gaming and Astralis in the Grand Final; Astralis with five straight victories, and SK Gaming with three.

The Grand Final was a three-round fight taking place across Mirage, Inferno, and Cache. SK Gaming and Astralis brought their A-game to Mirage, with both teams showing their prowess in CS:GO. However, it was Astralis, with the unbelievable skills of dupreeh, who managed to walk away with the victory. Dupreeh pulled off a miraculous 1v4 AWP kill, which certainly left SK Gaming revaluating their strategies.

The second round on Inferno didn’t go as well for Astralis, as they struggled to maintain their impressive lead. SK Gaming had learned from dupreeh’s incredible play and pushed back hard. Even though Astralis claimed the second pistol round, the map went to SK Gaming.

With both teams holding a victory, it came down to the final map, Cache. Despite claiming an early lead, Astralis struggled to make it stick as SK Gaming fought back with a vengeance. From here, the lead flipped back and forth, with the two teams struggling to maintain a healthy advantage – the match even went into overtime. But in the end, SK Gaming pulled ahead with some incredible plays, taking the final map 19-16.

This landed SK Gaming with the two out of three wins they needed to secure a victory at CS:GO BLAST Series! SK Gaming’s first place netted their team a whopping $125,000, while Astralis scored themselves a very respectable $50,000. FaZe Clan came in third with North posting in fourth position, earning $25,000 and $15,000 respectively. Well done to all the teams, we can’t wait to see what the next event holds!