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SK Gaming wins IEM Sydney Counter-Strike championship

By Brittany Frederick

Jan 28, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Gabriel "Fallen" Toledo of SK GAMING on stage at the ELEAGUE MAJOR Semi Finals at the Fox Theatre. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Freeman/Turner Sports via USA TODAY Sports
Jan 28, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Gabriel "Fallen" Toledo of SK GAMING on stage at the ELEAGUE MAJOR Semi Finals at the Fox Theatre. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Freeman/Turner Sports via USA TODAY Sports /
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SK Gaming defeated FaZe Clan in Sunday’s IEM Sydney Grand Final to claim their second consecutive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament win.

History repeated itself as SK Gaming were named IEM Sydney champions on Sunday, giving the Brazilian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team the first-ever title to be handed out in Australia and their second tournament victory in two months.

SK defeated FaZe Clan in the best-of-five IEM Sydney Grand Final by a score of 3-1, looking like the dominant team through the majority of the match. They won Train (16-12) and crushed on Cache (16-7), only losing on Inferno (11-16) before closing out the game on Overpass (16-11).

The win handed the Brazilians another title following their victory at April’s cs_summit. Before that, their last Major win came at last year’s ESL One Cologne — though in-between they’d been runners up at November’s IEM Oakland and February’s DreamHack Masters Las Vegas.

That means they can empathize with the position of FaZe Clan. Sunday’s loss handed FaZe their second straight defeat in an IEM Grand Final, after they lost to Astralis in the Grand Final at IEM Katowice. While they’ll still go home with a solid finish there has to be disappointment in ther camp that they couldn’t close the deal.

But in the end the Americans just weren’t able to match SK Gaming’s momentum. The Brazilian squad had three instances where a player reached 29 kills — including two great showings from Felps on Train and the deciding map Overpass. In contrast, only once did a FaZe player get more than 25 (Rain on Inferno).

FaZe Clan have definitely grown stronger with the addition of NiKo, but Sunday’s Grand Final proved that they still have some room for improvement before they reach truly great status. It also showed that SK Gaming are busting their own way back to the top of the CSGO scene in short order, after the conversation was dominated by Astralis for much of 2017.

SK leaves Sydney with $100,000 and the championship, while FaZe’s second place finish will net them $40,000 but they’ll continue to search for a follow-up to their victory at Starladder.

Fans who missed any of Sunday morning’s action can watch the complete IEM Sydney Grand Final by using the videos below:

Next: ELEAGUE to return to Counter-Strike in September

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