Astralis were crowned champions of the Blast Pro Series: Global Finals held in Bahrain beating Team Liquid 2:0 (yea them again) in the finals. Astralis took Inferno 16:11 and then completed the series winning on Nuke 16:122.
The series victory paints a sorry picture for Liquid fans as this was the seventh loss in the year for them against the Danish giants. This loss makes the scoreline 7:1 in favour for Astralis and highlights the struggle Liquid have against them.
After a blimp in mid 2019, Astralis are back to their astronomical heights dismantling every single opposition in their way. It is hard to remember a competition in which Astralis participated and didn’t qualify for the semis or the finals. The last tournament they didn’t acquire this feat was at Blast Pro Series: Copenhagen. The stat speaks volumes of consistency the team has shown under the leadership of “gla1ve”.
As for Liquid it was a successful year for them as they won the IEM Grand Slam in a record time and benefiting the most from Astralis’s blip. But the end of 2019 hasn’t been a time to remember for them with highly inconsistent performances plaguing the team.
Coming to the series and vetoes, Liquid banned Train while Astralis banned Mirage. Inferno and Nuke were selected while Dust was left as the decider.
Map 1:- Inferno
Starting on the T side of Inferno, Liquid were off the pace from the start and lost the first 8 rounds straight. There was a minor recovery in the end with Liquid stringing 3 rounds at the backend to make the scoreline 11:4. The nade damage on ‘Banana’ Astralis managed to do on Liquid players was a telling effect on the late rounds and retakes.
Liquid won the second pistol and the 2 subsequent rounds after that before Astralis brought the rifles out. Once again it was the utility damage that dented Liquid’s hope of making a comeback. Liquid even in a man advantage situation could not sucessfully retake sites whenever they needed to and eventually lost 11:16. With a total of 26 frags to his name “dupreeh” was the MVP of the match and also the tournament as well.
Map 2:- Nuke
With the first map lost and the second map selected as Nuke there was close to zero hope for Liquid to make a comeback and win the series. This was mostly due to 2 reasons:- 1) Nuke is considered by many as Astralis’s home map. 2) Astralis have always managed to beat Liquid on it.
With odds stacked against them Liquid started off the map on CT side with a point to prove. They won the pistol and the round after to gain some momentum. The rest of the half was a back and forth affair with both teams stringing rounds together and keep the economy going. Liquid edged out the half 8:7. They also managed to pick the second pistol but Astralis this time forced buy to win a round. Astralis aggression in starting rounds and the player abilities to rack up multi kills destroyed Liquid and killed their hopes of a comeback. There were multiple 2v2 situations in the map with most of them going in Astralis favour. It was “dev1ce” who top fragged with 23 kills in the map. He was also the top fragger across both maps with a total of 44 kills.
