ESL Cologne is one of the most storied and celebrated CS:GO events of the year. It has built itself a legacy and story in a way almost no other event has. This year however, the story is quite simple. Astralis are the giants of the CS:GO world. They have put a gap between them and all of their competitors. At this event everything leads to one question, “Can anyone defeat Astralis?”

Astralis have the best resume and most consistent victory conditions of any team in the world today. They have won DreamHack Marseille, ESL Proleague 7 Finals, and ECS Season 5 Finals. They have lost one finals to FaZe at IEM Sydney and their worst showing is their first outing at IEM World Championship where they got top four. As a team they have the best map pool in the world. In terms of form, all of their players seem to be peaking at the same time. In terms of strategy and tactics, they are bounding ahead of their competitors in terms of nade usage and rotations. Finally they are harmonious as a team and have no internal struggles that we are aware of.

So the question is how do you beat this team, is it possible, and if so, who can do it? As a team there are currently no obvious points of weaknesses to exploit individually. Their greatest strength seem to be Ct-sides full gun rounds so forcing the team down an economic tug of war on their Ct-side is a decent foundation of what a team needs to do to upset them. In terms of their map pool, a team needs to get them to play on their relatively weaker maps like Train and Mirage.

Beyond that the only exploitable patterns is their map rotations when they are on a pistol vs. rifle round where they try to manipulate the enemy team into running into the stack. So in order to manipulate that, a team has to be able to read the intentions of what Astralis wants them to do and the counteract it. Additionally a team needs enough raw firepower to get over the fact that in terms of team play and structure, Astralis is far above the rest of the field.

So given those conditions, there are only four teams I think have a legitimate chance at upsetting Astralis at this event: FaZe, Liquid, Na`Vi and Mouz.

FaZe

In terms of raw firepower, they have what it takes to beat Astralis. It is an all star team and with the likes of Havard “rain” Nygaard, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac, and Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs, they have all the firepower that is needed to topple the team. The problem is that all three would need to be in peak form in order for that to happen and while they are incredible players, it is rare to have every player in peak performance. Finn “karrigan” Andersen does bring a bit of an x-factor to the matchup as he has the best read of any in-game leader in the world when it comes to Astralis and it was FaZe that upset them at IEM Sydney 3-0, albeit the closest 3-0 ever that could have easily gone 3-0 in the other direction. In addition to that the fifth player of the squad at the time was Richard “Xizt” Landstrom. Currently their fifth is Jorgen “cromen” Robertsen.

In terms of the conditions I’ve laid out, FaZe is a team that does incredibly well in economic wars so if things get dirty at the beginning of the Astralis Ct-sides it is possible. On maps like Nuke and Overpass they’d be outmatched, but if they can get onto maps like Dust 2, Inferno, Mirage, or Cache they have decent chances. While I’ve noted Train as a potential weakness, I think the lack of a long standing fifth hurts FaZe in that regard as while cromen has been standing in for them, they haven’t built an entire playbook with the idea of him as their permanent fifth. So despite having the firepower to take on Astralis, it’s hard to see a world where they can upset Astralis in a bo3.

Liquid

Among all of the teams here, Liquid have played consistently the closest against Astralis. FaZe were able to upset Astralis once, but beyond that haven’t given them much of a challenge. Liquid on the other hand took have met Astralis on four different occasions with Liquid able to put up a strong fight in both finals of ESL Proleague 7 and ECS season 5 Finals. Among all of the teams in the world, I think Liquid have the closest map pool to match Astralis blow for blow, but they don’t have the consistency or the championship mindset that the other team has yet.

There is still some barrier that needs to be crossed before Liquid can become Championship contenders, but they certainly have the potential to do it. I pointed to the “it” factor, others have pointed to the lack of a dominant superstar player, someone that will consistently step up in crunch time. Despite these flaws, I consider Liquid to have the best chance to upset Astralis.

Na`Vi

Na`Vi have slowly grown stronger as team has passed on. They also have the great fortune of having Oleksander “s1mple” Kostyliev who will be the best player in the server regardless of who they play against. At the same time Denis “electronic” Sharipov is coming along nicely as a secondary star and Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev has shown some glimpses of life. Overall however, the team still feels incredibly unstable as they play close against all manner of team. Still the map pool has slowly expanded as they’ve started to we’re starting to see them play well on Mirage, Inferno, Nuke, and Train. They still need to build up Overpass, but they at least have a chance so long as s1mple continues to go ultra supernova.

Mouz

Among the four teams I’ve listed, I believe Mouz have the smallest chance. While they have enough firepower, it is the other factors that come into play for them. They don’t have a leader that specifically understands the Astralis minds better than any other and they don’t have an ascendant godlike player like s1mple. They have strong teamplay and tactics, but not at the level of a team like Liquid. On top of that, their map pool seems to be too small to deal with Astralis head-to-head. Astralis is able to win all of mouz’s best maps and smash them on all of their own best maps. Finally, they have just changed rosters and brought on Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski in for Martin “STYKO” Styk. They still have a puncher’s chance, but it will come down to pure individual form on the day.

Astralis have gained the acclaim of being the undisputed best team in the world. Now at ESL Cologne the other teams in the world will honor them the best way they know how. By doing anything to take their place. At ESL Cologne, the story and narrative is easy. Who in the world can slay Astralis? Or will Astralis continue to be the unreachable stars in the sky. The sun of the CS:GO universe, the team in which the entire scene revolves around. Another victory here will continue to establish their era as the Kings of this cosmos.

It seems unlikely that any could challenge and tear down the stars, but all great teams must fall. It is the wheel of destiny, what goes up, must come down. So now we will see at ESL Cologne if any team is ready to hunt down the stars of CS:GO and start a rebellion across the CS:GO landscape.

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