This Sunday we saw the concluding match of IEM Sydney 2018 and thus the event came to a close. However, once again the professional scene has been turned upside down following the results.

Coming into Sydney we expected to see a rematch of the DreamHack Masters Marseille finals. Unfortunately for team ‘s1mple’, Na’Vi couldn’t guarantee visas for Australia in time and they had to forfeit their spot alongside Space Soldiers.

This would make things supposedly even easier for the favorites, Astralis. The Danes shown a dominating performance in Marseille and once their biggest rivals, Na’Vi weren’t in Sydney, their run to the trophy should have been a piece of cake.

Of course, this didn’t happen. Astralis was beaten by FaZe Clan who had a streak of disappointing results previously. Not only were Astralis surprised but it followed a handful of results we didn’t expect. So, let’s take a look at what happened in Sydney this week.

China Number #1

In the shadows for a long time, TyLoo finally made it to the playoffs in Sydney.

TyLoo closed their run amongst the top 4 teams in IEM Sydney after losing in the semifinals to FaZe Clan. To reach the top four, TyLoo made a clean sweep in the group stage, beating SK Gaming, Cloud9 and Renegades.

Their most impressive match was how they managed to win against Cloud9 and Renegades. Coming in a darkhorse, TyLoo beat both teams with a 2 – 0 map score. This means that their opponents couldn’t get a single map out of the Chinese powerhouse.

Results coming after role swaps

This impressive run in Sydney was a results of some role changes within the team. ‘BnTeT’, TyLoo’s star player assumed the role of in-game leader and relieved ‘xccurate’ from the leading duties.

Xccurate unfortunately didn’t impress with his AWP skills. The role swap, otherwise, did impress.

TyLoo never looked so good. ‘somebody’ was able to play to his full potential and BnTeT performance wasn’t affected by the change as much as we would have anticipated.

Now BnTeT squad will have a break from LAN tournaments and will have to focus in the StarSeries i-League Qualifiers. We certainly will be looking to TyLoo with other perspective from now on.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

There were on-going concerns surrounding the Oceania scene. So far, we had the now de-functional VOX Gaming and the current Renegades squad representing the down-under stage but Sydney saw a new possible underdog coming from Oceania.

Lead by ‘DICKSTACY’, Grayhounds came as one of the favorites to face early eliminations in the tournament. They beat SK Gaming and put a fight against FaZe Clan who would end up winning the tournament.

We all saw the rise of Dickstacy in their best of three against SK. There, ‘dexter’ and ‘Gratisfaction’ gave FalleN and co a run for their money and eliminated the Brazilians with a 2–1 scoreline.

Renegades is looking hot

We all had some expectations from the team on home soil but they managed to bring in even better results.

Beating FaZe in a Bo3 in the group stage and putting up a serious fight against Mousesports in the quarterfinals, Renegades has put themselves in the spotlight once again.

Much of their success at Sydney was thanks to ‘Nifty’, in-game leader and awper for the team. ‘AZR’ also brought in a performance that his fans were missing for a long time and closed the event with a 1.09 rating.

We will be seeing Renegades again in two weeks in Dallas. There, the team will start by facing off Space Soldiers in a packed group with the likes of Astralis, Liquid, OpTic and NiP all looking to book their spots at the playoffs.

However Renegades haven’t quite perfected the team roster yet. USTILO must level up his game or Renegades can start looking for replacements. In 9 maps at IEM Sydney 2018 he only had 3 which he ended with a positive rating.

G2 makes up for a good replacement for Space Soldiers

A few days before IEM Sydney 2018 kicked off, an announcement was made that Natus Vincere and Space Soldiers would be forfeiting their spots. With VISA issues, those teams were replaced by G2 and Legacy.

Legacy was one of the first teams eliminated. G2 however brought in better results than they did on home soil at DH Masters Marseille.

The Frenchmen had an early exit but they only lost to FNATIC and Mousesports. Both teams who are heavily contending for the worlds ‘third best team’ title right now.

Compared to Marseille, G2 won all important games. They managed to beat MVP PK, NRG and put up a fight against FNATIC in a match that could have gone both ways.

Cloud9 leaves sooner than expected

North American’s Cloud9 under-delivered. The team had to fight in the lower bracket after losing to TyLoo and there they couldn’t hold off FaZe.

Against FaZe, we saw ‘Skadoodle’ performing extremely bad. The inconsistent awper who was often a topic of discussion when it came to roster replacements in Cloud9 closed IEM Sydney 2018 with a HLTV Rating of 0.9.

Only lower than Skadoodle was ‘FNS’, Cloud9’s in-game leader. Known for his tactical advantage skills, we didn’t see any interesting strategy coming from him.

In the coming weeks, Cloud9 will go back to home soil for the EPL Season 7 Finals in Dallas. We hope to see a completely different team having the opportunity to iron out the problems they experienced at Marseille and Sydney.

FaZe and Astralis rivalry lives on

Coming to the grand finals, the favorites were clear – Astralis. The Danish team had once again a dominating performance. Team chemistry, strategies and in-game communication all seemed to remain at a all-time high.

Winning Sydney for Astralis would mean that the team had everything to finally start their era of dominance. With FaZe and SK in weak form and Mousesports, Na’Vi and FNATIC already being dominated, Astralis would sit on the throne for a long time.

So what happen? The grand finals first map was Cache. FaZe started leading the game but Astralis managed to come back and bring it to overtime.

FaZe managed to win it with a 19 – 16 scoreline. Astralis seemed to have lost their confidence in the last couple of rounds and Device and Magisk had quiet performances in overtime, while Rain and Guardian from FaZe hit everything they had to.

Everything was alright back then. Cache was FaZe’s map pick and Astralis map pick were coming next.

The Danes start to crumble

Overpass which has been Astralis’ favorite map was set to be their comeback map. However they had to recover from FaZe’s lead and fight for overtime, which they managed to do.

Astralis failed to secure a win on Overpass. After two very disputed overtimes, ‘Xizt’ who is standing in for ‘olofmeister’ in FaZe brought hell to his opponents and secure another map for his team.

Train was the third and last map. Astralis had a great lead with a 10 – 0 scoreline and the Danish comeback seemed possible.

Closing the halfway point with a 10 – 5 score, the situation remained uncertain for Astralis once again but hopeful. However, in the second half FaZe was playing on CT-side and every player in that team came alive to make the come back a reality.

GuardiaN especially closed the bombsite B with his impeccable awping, barely missing anything and blocking any Astralis tentative of invading his bombsite. On the other side of the map it was Xizt shining.

FaZe crowned winners at IEM Sydney 2018

To reach the finals, FaZe Clan beat FNATIC 2 – 0 and TyLoo 2 – 1. In both games, we saw a version of FaZe that was astounding. Chemistry was to be found once again in the team and ‘Karrygan’ mid-round calls were on point.

Going up against Astralis, FaZe brought in the dormant rivalry between the two teams. Just like the old times, FaZe ended winning over the Danes.

Remarkable and unexpected result.

FaZe disappointed at V4 Sports Festival and at DreamHack Masters Marseille, while Astralis was looking better than any team in the world for a long margin.

Now the team regained their confidence. Xizt seemed to be more comfortable within the team setup and NiKo and Rain duo was looking hot. Looks like FaZe have finally broken their curse.

The spot of the best team in the world keep being up for grabs

As the Astralis awper said himself:

I know we’re ranked first right now by hltv but honestly the top1 spot is open field and I feel like the winner of this tournament will claim that spot. Good luck to all teams 👌 see you on the server!

— Nicolai Reedtz (@dev1ce) April 30, 2018

Now who could have thought that FaZe, who ended Marseille in 5th – 8th position, would win? Or even better, who could have predicted that they could beat Astralis 3–0?

FaZe regained their confidence, Astralis want revenge, Mousesports don’t want to be left behind. We can’t forget the threat coming from the CIS scene too.

Zeus had an extra week after missing Sydney to prepare his team for EPL Season 7 Finals that is starting in two weeks.

The fight for the top 3 placings in the World Rankings has never been so disputed in CS , we can’t wait to see how things will develop in the coming weeks.