Cover Image Courtesy: Astralis
The final day of the ESL Pro League Season 8 has been the perfect end to an absolutely fantastic year for Astralis. They have reached an amazing milestone, winning the $1,000,000 USD Intel Grand Slam Prize by defending their ESL Pro League title in the 8th Season.
Astralis had a really smooth run throughout the Group Stage as they defeated ViCi Gaming, HellRaisers and Team Liquid to qualify directly into the Semifinals of the Playoffs.
In the Playoffs they faced off against Mousesports, defeating them in consecutive matches to qualify on to the Grand Finals where they locked horns against Team Liquid yet again.
Grand Finale
Astralis had a shaky start going into the Finals as they lost the first match to Liquid on Train by a score of ‘16-8’. Things took a quick turn for Astralis in the second match on Mirage where all the players stepped up and took responsibility of the situation, winning by a score of ‘16-11’.
It was the third match on Inferno where things got heated up between the two teams. Liquid was off to a great start but Astralis diffused the tension bit-by-bit as they tactically handled the situation and took another win by a score of ‘16-11’.
The fourth match also went in favour of Astralis who made a comeback on Dust 2 winning it by a score of ‘16-10’ as they took the series ‘3-1’ becoming the champions of ESL Pro League Season 8 and successfully defended their title.
This is the fourth time in 2018 that Liquid has lost against Astralis in the Grand finals of a tournament.
Image Credit: Liquipedia
ESL had announced a special prize of $1 Million to the first team that could win four out of their next ten $200,000+ tournaments which should be hosted by either DreamHack or ESL.
In addition, a $100,000 prize would be given to any team that would be able to put a stop to the team that was about to win the Intel Grand Slam, provided that they themselves are not a contender for the same.
This standalone Intel Grand Slam competition started with the ESL One Cologne 2017 and came to the end of its first season today with Astralis winning their four IGS recognized tournaments with one whole tournament to spare, IEM Katowice 2019.
Along with winning the 1 Million USD, each player of Astralis including their coach received a gold bar each with their names on it along with the name of the four events that they won during the season.
Astralis started their journey towards the Intel Grand Slam with a win in DreamHack Masters Marseille followed by the ESL Pro League Season 7, IEM Chicago and finally the ESL Pro League Season 8.
The only other team that has come close to grabbing the Intel Grand Slam was FaZe, who lost on the opportunity not once but twice by missing out on their final victory at ESL One Cologne 2018 and DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018.
This is the list of all the tournaments and their winners since the IGS started back in June 2017:
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ESL One Cologne 2017 – SK Gaming (MIBR)
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DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 – G2 Esports
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ESL One New York 2017 – FaZe
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IEM Oakland 2017 – NiP
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ESL Pro League Season 6 – SK Gaming (MIBR)
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IEM Katowice 2018 – Fnatic
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DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 – Astralis
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IEM Sydney 2018 – FaZe
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ESL Pro League Season 7 – Astralis
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ESL One Belo Horizonte – FaZE
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ESL One Cologne 2018 – Na’Vi
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DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018 – North
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ESL One New York 2018 – Mousesports
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IEM Chicago – Astralis
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ESL Pro League Season 8 – Astralis