By the time IEM Sydney finals started, it looked to be a done deal. Astralis had defeated every potential challenger in the world and had proven dominant. No one looked like they could even touch them at DreamHack Marseille. Throughout the tournament, Astralis continued to look in that exact same form. Their opponents on the other hand had struggled. FaZe looked messy going into the finals and so it looked like it was going to be a clean sweep for Astralis. There were just too many victory conditions for Astralis: good individual form, tactics, teamwork, map pool. They were in the honeymoon phase of their new roster and it looked certain that they were set to win the event. Instead FaZe pulled the upset and with it their first victory of the year.

To set this up properly we have to go look at the tournament before this, DreamHack Marseille. In that tournament Astralis dominated in such a way that hadn’t been seen since FaZe’s ESL New York run. At the same time FaZe completely underwhelmed. It was understandable as they lost a key player in Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer. Olofmeister had taken time off to deal with personal issues and so FaZe settled on Richard “Xizt” Landstrom as a stand-in. It was a clear downgrade and it showed in that tournament as FaZe didn’t beat anyone of note and were taken out by Astralis in a ro8.

As for Astralis, they had dominated the scene. Between DreamHack Marseille and IEM Sydney, they destroyed everyone that was thought to be a potential challenge, teams like: Mouz, Fnatic, and Na`Vi. FaZe on the other hand looked to be in the decline. Nikola “NiKo” Kovac in an HLTV interview before IEM Sydney said, “I think we will show our real face at this event.”

In the first days of the event, that line looked to become a legendary meme. FaZe were taken out by Renegades in the upper bracket of their group. In the lower bracket, they met Greyhound and lost Mirage before rallying back to win the series 2-1. Things got better for FaZe as they were then able to clear past Cloud 9, Fnatic, and TyLoo to make it to the finals. Despite making the finals however, their T-sides didn’t look strong enough to challenge Astralis going into the finals and some analysts were expecting this to be a 3-0 or 3-1 victory for Astralis.

Even when we look outside of the immediate circumstances, the historical circumstances point to that being a reasonable prediction. FaZe have spent all of 2018 losing in the close high pressure matches. They lost to Cloud 9 at the Major, Na`Vi at Starladder, Fnatic at IEM World Championship, Virtus.Pro at V4. That was a better version of FaZe, with a weaker replacement for olofmeister, how could FaZe win?

Perhaps that was the point though. In every other one of those high pressure matches, FaZe were the favorites and everyone knew it. While many of those losses had an element of the opposing team playing above their level to beat them, there was also cases where FaZe crumbled under the pressure. All of the players except Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs were inconsistent, and even GuardiaN disappeared against the series against Na`Vi. Finn “Karrigan” Andersen’s calling on the T-side looked lost at points. Havard “rain” Nygaard had similar issues. There was no consistent factor that could be pointed out. That was why it was so hard for the team to figure out, so when Xizt took olofmeister’s place, maybe the burden lessened somewhat.

After all, the pressure of being an all-star team and living to those expectations is immense. However in this finals, they were the underdogs and so they didn’t have any ego to lose if they lost, because that was what was “supposed” to happen. At the same time, it could have forced NiKo, GuardiaN, and Rain to focus even harder as they all had one less all-star player they could rely on to bail them out of overaggressive situations.

Another factor that could have come into play was Karrigan. As a leader, he has always been hyper focused specifically playing against Astralis. He was once part of their team and so he has a special sort of rivalry with them. As Rain put it in an interview with Teamliquid,

“But for karrigan, it’s a totally different picture. He really wants to win and his energy level and everything, is maxed out when he plays against Astralis. He never wants to lose against them. Everytime we lose, like when we lost in Katowice, he’s watching everything and he’s trying to figure out new stuff to counter them. He has this extra will to beat them because they basically kicked him. So in his case there’s a rivalry indeed.”

Even with that factor going, it was hard to see how Karrigan was going to do it as he was gaining edges in things like map veto and skill. When these two teams met in the IEM Sydney finals, Astralis had the superior map pool and comparable skill in terms of form of the players. If FaZe were going to win, it was going to be an incredibly close series where all three stars: GuardiaN, NiKo, and rain popped off.

That was how it seemed to play out. All three of them came to play. Rain was making incredible entry kills on the T-side. GuardiaN shut down dev1ce hard in the AWP vs. AWP battle and was the best player in the tournament. NiKo was ascendant in a way that reminds you why he is put in the same category as players like Marcelo “coldzera” David and Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. Karrigan himself did exactly what Rain said he does in that interview. He came in with new looks for the Ct and T-side for the team. He was calling explosive tactics when he knew Astralis had no utility to stop the fast hits. In Overpass there was a round where he called out Astralis leaving the A-site open and took it. Even when FaZe were getting nothing done on the T-side, he was able to figure out moves that could get them back into the game. As a player, he ended Astralis’ hopes of coming back in the first map with a 1v2 clutch.

It was an incredibly tense and close series even though FaZe won the finals 3-0. Two of the three maps going to overtime and the third went to the final round. For FaZe, this was an incredible victory and one they have longed for all year. They have lost at all of the big matches and big events, but they were able to stop Astralis.

It’s funny in a way. There is a saying that goes that history doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes. Around this same time last year, we had a very similar situation play out. Astralis were on the verge of establishing an era of CS:GO, but FaZe got NiKo. That was the firepower boost they needed to defeat Astralis at Starladder i-league StarSeries Season 3 finals and IEM Sydney 2017 in the semifinals. Once again, it is FaZe, led by Astralis’ ex-teammate Karrigan that puts a halt to their momentum. An era for Astralis can still be established, but FaZe’s victory here shows that there is at least one team that will stand in their way. For FaZe themselves, this is a long sought victory after having so many close heartbreak finals in the past five months and they finally win a trophy in the tournament that they were the least likely to win.

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