The IBuyPower Masters IV came to an end with Team Liquid winning the Grand finals over Astralis. It is a big surprise as Astralis were the overwhelming favourites to win the entire event. Astralis had a great start in the finals, but Team Liquid managed to mount an excellent comeback on Maps 2 and 3. Astralis lose a Grand finals of a LAN event after a very long time and it sparks hopes of more competition at the top.

The championship round 🏆 pic.twitter.com/gUHMjBRQts — Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) January 21, 2019

The Group stage saw Astralis and Team Liquid top their respective groups with ease. It was a result that was not out of the ordinary as these are two of the best teams in CSGO right now. They are the best teams in Europe [Astralis] and North America [Team liquid]. Over the past few months, they have met multiple times in key elimination matches at LAN events. It has almost always been Astralis which emerged as the superior team amongst the two. This time, it was Team Liquid with Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip and Eric “adreN” Hoag asserting their dominance. They win $100,000 with their victory over Astralis in the Grand finals.

Team Liquid starts 2019 with a win over Astralis in the Finals.

Team Liquid has faced off against Astralis multiple times in 2018. Often, these matches would be deep in the Playoffs and Astralis would almost always emerge as the winner. However, come 2019, Team Liquid has made some changes to their roster. Their recent additions include Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip and Eric “adreN” Hoag as the coach for the team.

The North American squad started off extremely weak on the first map of Inferno. Astralis was able to dominate Inferno with aggressive pushes across the map. They were constantly alternating between pushes through Banana and other regions on the map. The ability of the Danish team to call out their positions and move together as a team on the CT side was simply impressive. Ofcourse, they were also winning most of their aim-duels which helped them in cementing their advantage. The first map was a walkover for Astralis and it looked as if the tournament would be an easy victory for them.

Team Liquid found their footing in the final two maps

The next two maps saw Team Liquid find its footing against Astralis. It took them time, but they moved toe to toe with Astralis’ score on Dust 2. Towards the latter part of the first half, Team Liquid managed to score consecutive rounds on their T side. They took the advantage on the first half with a score of 9-6. The North American squad had a fantastic start to their CT side. They were able to string together the first six rounds and reach round 15. Astralis managed a small comeback but it was always going to be a nearly impossible task for them to take the map to Overtime.

CHAMPIONS!!! WE DID IT FINALLY 😭😭 — Jonathan Jablonowski (@EliGE) January 21, 2019

I’m so fucking happy right now. CHAMPS OF IBUYPOWER! 😁❤️ — Nick Cannella (@nitr0) January 21, 2019

Overpass seemed to be a repeat of Inferno with Astralis having a 7-0 lead at one point in time. Things looked extremely dire for Team Liquid although they were slowly able to mount a very small comeback. Eventually with the help of the vocal crowd and the players hitting their individual shots, Team Liquid was able to win over Astralis. It was a fantastic performance by Team liquid as they finally managed to defeat Team Astralis in the Grand finals of an event nonetheless. Team Liquid is the IBuyPower Masters IV Champions after a phenomenal performance for them.

The final score of the three maps:

Inferno ( Astralis win 16-4)

Dust 2 ( Team Liquid win 16-11)

Overpass ( Team Liquid win 16-11)

You can check the full statistics and coverage of the tournament at HLTV.org.

Astralis in 2019: Not looking as strong

We have not had many matches in 2019. In fact, Astralis has only played in the IBuyPower Masters IV tournament and it is not enough data to judge their performance. They had a very dominant performance throughout the event. The Grand finals also looked like it should have been an easy win for the Danish roster. However, Team Liquid with Stewie2k and AdreN on their team seems to have found the combination against Astralis. They took their time and finally managed to defeat Astralis on Overpass. It was a very strong showing by the North American squad as they were up against the World Number 1 team.

We will get to see the Astralis roster in full effect at the upcoming CSGO Major. This tournament did not have all the best teams in attendance. With the absence of Mousesports and Na’Vi; IBP Masters IV was a semi Tier one event at best. So watching Astralis in this event does not provide us with a full analysis of their performance and their peak.

We hope to see more competition near the top of the CSGO Scene as it adds a lot of excitement and enthusiasm to the Counter-Strike scene. With Team Liquid emerging as a strong roster ahead of the IEM Katowice 2019 Major, North America still has hope at the CSGO Major.

IBuyPower Masters IV: A tournament riddled with problemsThe IBuyPower Masters IV had a prize pool of $100,000. It has some of the best teams in CounterStrike attending the event. For such a top tier event, we expected much better in terms of the overall organisation and running of the event. However right from day 1, there were various technical issues at the event. Day 1 started after a delay of several hours and the entire event was off-schedule.

The tournament had a very tight format with ten Best of Ones scheduled for Day 1. With the delayed start, there was little for the organisers to do. Many matches were played off-stream and a few even took place the next day.

For a tournament with top tier teams in attendance, this was a very poor showing. IBuyPower reportedly outsourced the organising of the event to another company. However, this definitely spoils their name as an event organiser in the North American region. We can be sure that CS: GO teams will think twice before attending another IBP event in the near future.

CS: GO action continues with the start of the Americas and Asia Minor for IEM Katowice 2019. The matches will start from January 22nd and continue for a period of five days ending on the 26th of January. You catch all the action live on Twitch here. If you want to check out the IBuyPower Masters IV videos, you can do so here.