With one of the biggest non-major events of the calendar out of the way, we finally got a chance to see some of the top teams competing alongside one another in a strong format. The ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals told us more about the lay of the land in CS:GO than anything else since the major – here are the winners and losers of the showdown in Montpellier.

Winner: Team Liquid

This one goes without saying, but spare a thought to the impressive streak of the North Americans so far this year. By IEM Sydney, they’ve already matched Astralis’ non-major results for 2019, and they’ve gone from strength to strength since then. The whole “choking” thing is beginning to look like an outdated meme, and while we were all trying to figure out whether they’re a worthy number one, Liquid have quietly built up a resumé worthy of all-time greats and could very well take down the second season of the Intel Grand Slam in blisteringly quick fashion off the back of it.

Loser: Astralis

There’s no metric left by which you could judge Astralis as the best team in CS:GO currently, though the Danes’ ceiling is inarguably higher than anything we’ve ever seen in the game so far. This is rapidly losing relevance as they’ve failed to impress on their return to the serious Counter-Strike circuit, and the schadenfreude is very much deserved due to the incredible arrogance they’ve displayed amid the controversies. They were undoubtedly the best team we’ve ever seen in 2018 and their peak last year is still beyond any other side, but it remains to be seen whether they can even come close to replicating that form.