The first half of June certainly kept most teams busy with several international LANs. In the past few weeks, we had DreamHack Open Summer 2018, CS:GO Asia Championship and ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018.

These high tier LANs have provided quite a great deal of enjoyment for fans. For the players, some weeks of prep time and rest are incoming as ESL One Cologne 2018 is coming closer.

Although, more importantly, we saw a lot of teams closing the season of international LANs in an unexpected way. Who are they? Or better still – who are the winners and losers of the last week on the professional CSGO scene?

Imperial finishes their slump with a crystal-clear trophy

Coming into DreamHack Open Summer 2018, we were expecting to see North, OpTic, AGO and maybe Gambit on a high note. Instead, we witnessed a bad performing Imperial with disappointing results, who after adding ‘kRYSTAL’ as the new in-game leader, take the trophy.

More impressively, Imperial didn’t drop a single map in the whole tournament. Not enough? They also beat every team we mentioned above. Imperial’s stars have to be EspiranTo and nexa, consistently putting frags on the scoreboard.

Going into the ZOTAC Cup Europe Qualifiers they’re now the favorites, and a threat to every team who didn’t respect them.

FaZe find its pace with cromen

On Brazilian soil, FaZe were in search for new stand-ins as olofmeister was unable to return in time. The International clan decided to stick with the Norwegian cromen who played with them one week before.

Fortunately for the team, cromen didn’t hold back and FaZe claimed the trophy at Belo Horizonte. Cromen impressed everyone as he didn’t have one negative game and ended with the third best rating within FaZe.

Next on the schedule for FaZe Clan is the annual edition of ESL One Cologne that will be featuring every elite team. If olofmeister return in time, then FaZe will be hyped, otherwise they can count on cromen to fit olof’s shoes.

Natus Vincere takes another trophy home, Virtus.Pro shows some signs of life

Going into CS:GO Asia Championship 2018, Na’Vi were labelled the clear favorites and they lived up to expectations. The CIS powerhouse didn’t drop a single game however, the most impressive team on the Asian tournament was Virtus.Pro.

The Poles ended the tournament in 2nd place. In the grand-finals Na’Vi had to go to their best as VP took the second map of the series, Nuke, with a 16 – 4 score. In the end, they lost the decider map with a 16 – 6 score. However, considering the situation that the legendary squad was before this tournament, it’s already some progress.

Virtus.Pro now have to grind out of the ESEA MDL Season 28 Europe as they have matches already this week booked in the league. Na’Vi will enjoying some downtime like FaZe for the remainder of June and we will be seeing ‘s1mple’ team again in Cologne.

OpTic get the best out of the Danish Derby

For fans all worldwide, DreamHack Open Summer was the event where we finally witnessed OpTic vs North. The matchup to see who would take the place of ‘second best-Danish team’ was set to start once North reached the semi-finals.

In the BO3 series between North and OpTic, ‘k0nfig’, who didn’t live up to his promise. In the end however, after a very disputed decider map with two overtimes, OpTic closed the game as the winners.

For North, the whole tournament was a mess. The Danes weren’t able to have a single match where they closed out comfortably and even Red Reserve threatened them.

Next up for North is the ESL One Cologne, where they are one of the worst-rated teams competing. Unless MSL’s squad get another lucky draw, North fans shouldn’t expect nothing out of it.

For OpTic, they should be focusing on the FACEIT Europe Minor Closed Qualifiers for the time being. Of course, they can still receive invites for minor LANs.

Brazilian disappointment on home soil

ESL One Belo Horizonte didn’t end very well for SK Gaming, and it certainly was worst than expect for NTC. The two Brazilian lineups going in the tournament were despondent with NTC heavily disappointing.

SK Gaming closed their run in the playoffs where they lost to Mousesports in a dominant way. Even with a stand-in, Mousesports still demonstrated that SK are a level above ‘FalleN’ squad.

It’s unsurprising as the team’s relationship within their organization is in disarray. Once they go for the new miBR, we should be seeing what this roster is fully capable of.

NTC didn’t even reached the playoffs. The roster featuring kNgV, felps and fnx lost two matches and was eliminated on day one of the tournament. This is really worrying as the team is coming close to the Americas Minor and a let down on home soil will certainly weight in on the players confidence.

SK will be playing ESL One Cologne 2018 in July. More importantly, the roster will be representing another organization from July and beyond.

ESL One Cologne 2018 and FACEIT Minors are approaching

With June coming to an end, it’s FACEIT Minors and ESL One Cologne 2018 that fans should be looking out for. ESL One Cologne 2018 will be featuring every team in the top 10 and we will be seeing if Astralis can take another trophy.

In the Minors, teams like NRG, OpTic and Imperial are going to fight for 2 spots for each region on the New Challengers stage of FACEIT Major London 2018.

July certainly will be a very important month for CS:GO and the Road to London is starting now. Who do you believe will shine at Cologne, and who will be making it through to the Minors, and winning it?