​ Astralis’s performance and overall win at Dreamhack Masters Marseille was nothing short of spectacular and marvelous. Only dropping one map throughout the entire tournament, Astralis beat every opponent they were up against with ease and beautiful Counter Strike. They beat big contenders such as Team Liquid, FaZe Clan, Fnatic and finally Navi in the final. This was their first trophy since winning IEM Katowice 2017 and the Eleague Atlanta major previous to that in 2017. Despite all of that, this was by far the best Astralis has looked as a team and is the scariest they have been on the server.

Astralis beat Na`Vi to win DreamHack Masters Marseille - https://t.co/My8FUGGhOx — HLTV.org (@HLTVorg) April 22, 2018





With as dangerous Astralis has looked online and at this tournament, the other main contenders who had been overshadowing the Danish team are now in conflict. The current pro scene is in a point of disarray and Astralis is suddenly the only big name team without any sort of problems.





FaZe, HLTV’s current #1 ranked team, has just lost one of their key players in Olofmeister and replaced him with ex-NIP player Xizt. Although this does not really affect FaZe too much as Olof was not a main fragger and played more of a support role which Xizt can handle, it still changes the team dynamic and calls for adjusting. Their performances have been nothing special for a team of this caliber and the quarter final placing at Marseille where Astralis beat them pretty handily shows that if they face Astralis, it will not be good for them.





Mousesports is a team that coming into Marseille had very good run of form in offline competitions with winning Starladder in February. But their performance here shows that they are not ready to make the jump to a superstar team that can consistently win tournaments. The budget FaZe roster who relies so heavily on the performance of their stars Sunny, Ropz and Oskar didn’t really have that firepower that they needed this tournament. Along with that, the strategies that coach Imbt used were not spectacular and with other tournaments that do not allow communication between the coach and players in between rounds, it will make it much tougher for them.





The S1mple led Navi were able to perform on a really high level at this tournament as well and made their 2nd grand final appearance in a row. S1mple played on a level that has really never been seen before and at this tournament, Electronic and Flamie were able to help out with the fragging as well. This makes the team very dangerous and this was seen as they had a very similar path to the grand final as Astralis, only losing one map along the way. Although S1mple’s consistency is there at the moment, Electronic and Flamie’s is not and they were very much absent when going up against Astralis. The team has massive potential but without all three stars showing up, it is a really big ask for them to beat the Astralis that we saw last weekend.

GgWp @astralisgg , sad but Astralis is better atm, congratz ! — Sasha (@s1mpleO) April 22, 2018





Team Liquid was another team favoured to do well according to previous places in Starladder and IEM Katowice as well as some good online domestic results. Many, including me, saw the replacement of Steel for Taco was only an improvement and should not have hindered their performances. However, not making it out of groups in this tournament is concerning and with the absence of a true IGL, it is hard to see them beating the best teams in the world and winning high caliber events.





Fnatic previous to this tournament had won IEM Katowice and WESG and were looking in decent form and a threat for the title in Marseille. The spectacular play of Krimz was their big factor and he performed to the the top of his abilities in Marseille throughout the group stage and in their quarterfinal matchup with NIP. But when Krimz failed to light up the scoreboard against the Dane’s, Fnatic just really couldn't hang with them. Relying on the key performance of one player is really not reliable enough to perform consistently well at the top level and Fnatic will need other players to step up to find success more often.





Finally, we have SK, G2 and Cloud 9 who are struggling immensely and not at the previous form that we have seen in the past. The French superteam now has to adjust to the addition of Mixwell and NBK’s new IGL role which has served to be unsuccessful in the past. SK are in their biggest slump since they became a powerhouse over two years ago and the addition of Stewie2k puts on another layer of problems when it comes to communicating in English for the first time. Cloud 9 are missing the power that Stewie had and the addition of FNS as the IGL will also take adjusting and time to work out the kinks of the squad. These three teams are in no shape to be performing at a high level to win tournaments in the next couple months.





Smart CS from astralis, they are very good when they reach this level and their decision making has been flawless. WP — Gabriel Toledo (@FalleNCS) April 22, 2018

With all of this said, it leaves Astralis in the driving seat for the #1 team in the world and the upcoming events in May and June. IEM Sydney, ESL Pro League Season 7, Starseries, ECS Season 5, ESL One Belo Horizonte and Blast Pro Series are all coming up and Astralis now has the potential to take multiple of these titles. The team that has had its core of Dupreeh, Device and Xyp9x together since 2014 now have their best chance to dominate the pro scene. Being in the shadow of Fnatic, SK Gaming and numerous other teams now can stop and the dominance of the Danish team can finally live one. This is the teams best chance to live up to their name and finally set themselves among the greatest stars of Counter Strike history.







