IEM Katowice 2019 Grand Final winners – Astralis

The last weekend was a plethora of excitement for CS:GO fans. The Grand Final of the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice saw a wave of supporting fans for the two competing teams. The Danish Astralis and the Finnish ENCE.

The total number of viewers of the event is nothing ground or record-breaking, but it numbered a total of 51 million viewers over the course of 136 hours. The prize pool was a whopping $1 million. The event lasted several days with amazing highlights and overcrowded venues, but the culmination of the whole ordeal was the final battle between Astralis and ENCE.

Astralis managed to defeat ENCE in the Grand final with a 2-0 victory. Taking their time on the first map and completely dominating on Inferno. It must be noted that this is the 3rd major win for Astralis. Their achievements include the first place on ELEAGUE 2017 Major as well as FACEIT Major: London 2018.

It was even considered that the Astralis team would either postpone or tap-out of the event, because of their team member “dupreeh” (Peter Rothmann). Peter’s father passed away right before the event, so everybody was expecting him to return home to his family, but the player contained his emotions and with a heavy heart still showed up to the major event. Needless to say, he was met with compassionate fans and a storm of applause.

The Fans watching and the fans hoping

The fans that were watching the finals play out right in front of their eyes had different motives. Some were for the sole reason of entertainment, some had personal connections to the players, and some were actually hoping to make money off of the tournament. According to a report by norskecasino.casino website, a little over 5% of the total viewers had placed bets on the game, hoping to profit from every outcome. However, they had to employ offshore operators as most Nordic countries don’t condone gambling.

 

As a matter of fact, some disgruntled viewers were accusing both teams of sabotaging the game in order to profit off of massive bets, something that is quite prevalent in the eSports industry. However, this was on a very small scale in this case, so it was easily dismissed. These types of smear campaigns are quite common, so the players and organizers didn’t even bother with it.

The future of Astralis

The future of the champions is very hard to talk about as there are no major changes planned for the team. Their strategies and training sessions and also this victory, have proven effective, which is confirmed by their 3 years back-to-back victories on the tournaments. So for any fans expecting a team-change or an adjustment, you can rest easy as the team will continue the way they have always been.

 

Source:

https://norskecasino.casino/nyheter/iem-katowice-2019-grand-final-vinnere-astralis/

Tags:

IEM ,Katowice 2019, Grand Final winners, Astralis,IEM Katowice 2019 Grand Final winners – Astralis

Mohsen Daemi
Latest posts by Mohsen Daemi (see all)