Four of the best teams in Counter-Strike remained on the final day of competition at the Esports Championship Series Season 2 Finals, but only one would walk away victorious. At the end of the day, Astralis claimed its title by avenging its loss at the ELEAGUE grand finals.
OpTic Gaming and Astralis reign supreme to set up grand final rematch
The first semifinal of the day saw OpTic Gaming square off against Team EnVyUs. Seizing control of Game 1 on Overpass from the onset,OpTic dominated from start to finish in a 16-3 stomp. Will "RUSH" Wierzba was on fire with a 23/10 KD (kills/deaths) and a 109.1 ADR (average damage per round) in the win. Game 2 was a closer contest, even if the end result was ultimately the same. EnVyUs got ahead early with a 3-0 lead, but ran headfirst into the Green Wall in the gun rounds. OpTic went on a 15-4 run to reach map point, but EnVyUs would fight back. EnVyUs teased a comeback by taking five straight wins before OpTic closed out a 16-12 win. RUSH topped the charts again with a 25/19 KD and 94.3 ADR, both game-highs.
The second match of the day was a bit surprising, as Astralis came away with a 2-0 sweep over SK Gaming. While SK had been looking down on their luck as of late, no one could have predicted their poor performance in this series. In Game 1 on Cache, SK Gaming looked completely out of sorts as Astralis jumped ahead to a 10-1 lead. They would try to recover with eight consecutive round wins between the end of the first half and the start of the second half, but would eventually fall off again with six straight round losses to give Astralis the 16-9 win. Game 2 was an even more dominant showing from Astralis, this time starting off strong with an 11-1 lead before finishing things up 16-4. Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz was the top man in this series with an out of this world 46/19 KD and 97.6 ADR.
Astralis gets their revenge in the grand finals
The stage was now set for a rematch from last week's ELEAGUE Season 2 grand finals between OpTic Gaming and Astralis. While everyone was hoping for a great series, what we actually got was swift revenge from the Danish juggernauts. Game 1 was on Overpass, and it looked like OpTic were still warming up. Astralis torched the North American squad in the first half by a score of 14-1 before finishing things up in the second half for a 16-6 win. Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye exploded for a 24/10 KD and 107.9 ADR.
(Photo provided by ECS)
Game 2 switched over to Train and was a much closer affair. After 11 rounds, OpTic had a 6-5 lead and it looked like we finally had a series on our hands. Astralis shut that door real quick, though, with nine straight wins to take a 14-6 lead. While OpTic then won five straight to close the gap a bit, Astralis finally wrapped things up with a 16-11 win to claim the ECS Season 2 crown. This time it was Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth who led the charge with a 25/15 KD and 94.7 ADR, giving Astralis their first major title of 2016 in convincing fashion.
Here are highlights from the Season 2 Finals, as edited by ECS:
