Astralis win ESL Pro League and with it the $1 million Intel Grand Slam

Astralis are unstoppable and they have proven so by taking home the $1 million Intel Grand Slam.

Over the weekend at season eight of the ESL Pro League, Astralis showed once again why they are the best Counter-Strike team in the world. After beating Team Liquid 3-1 in the Best of 5 Grand Final they take home the $250,000 winnings. On top of that, as it is the 4th of the qualifying tournament wins, they also take home the $1 million Intel Grand Slam prize. In front of their home country of Denmark, these boys certainly deserve it.

Intel Grand Slam

In order to win the coveted prize money, teams had to win 4 out of the 10 tournaments in the year. The qualifying tournaments were any of the premier tournaments from ESL, IEM or Dreamhack. This did not include the FACEIT London Major earlier this year which they also happened to win. The only team that was close behind was FaZe Clan who were on two tournaments wins, one of which was at IEM Sydney back in May.

Astralis are the first team to win the Intel Grand Slam which was created last year. It looked like SK, who became mibr, were strong contenders from the beginning but unfortunately, their performance dropped off. They failed to make the finals of any of the Intel tournaments this year. More firsts for Astralis come from dev1ce who received his 12th MVP. It is also his 7th in this year alone which has never been done before.

Our Aussie Renegades also had a great Pro League this season, coming equal 5th-6th in the playoffs alongside NaVi. Unfortunately, they lost their last match to mousesports 2-1 but it was a close match and shows a huge improvement for our Aussies. After some roster changes that welcomed Gratisfaction and liazz, their gameplay seems to be much smoother. AZR has also taken up the in-game leader role from departing Nifty and they have all been playing extremely well.

We will be able to see Renegades compete against these top teams again next year back in Australia for IEM Sydney 2019. As the first confirmed team to attend, can they do better than this year and maybe see our first Aussie champs? Or is not possible for anyone to beat Astralis?