Astralis stays on top with victory over Team Liquid at IEM Chicago 2018

IEM Chicago 2018 brought top-tier esports to the midwest, and gave top-ranked Astralis another big win in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Astralis took down Team Liquid at the Intel Extreme Masters grand finals in Chicago on Sunday. Team Liquid and Astralis were just two of the 16 professional teams that were invited to Chicago for this Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament, which consisted of four days of group play and two final days to decide the winner.

Astralis clutched their way into the grand finals after a surprisingly close semifinal match against 12th-ranked Fnatic. Fnatic jumped out to an early lead in the best-of-three series, but Astralis staged one of the most incredible comebacks in recent memory, crawling their way back from a hefty deficit to win in overtime.

Team Liquid’s journey to the finals was not as difficult, veritably crushing FaZe Clan in their semifinal to take their place as Astralis’ opponent. Liquid had also made it to the grand finals in New York City in September at ESL One, making it their second consecutive appearance in a grand final, but lost to mouseports in New York.

Liquid was explosive early at IEM Chicago, earning a quick lead in the first map of the series to the delight of the crowd, who very much placed the responsibility of North America representation on the shoulders of Liquid. But Astralis refused to be put to bed and crawled their way back to take the first map, then the second in a dominating manner.

Team Liquid’s final stand came on Inferno. Their unraveling came steadily, with Astralis constantly nabbing multiple eliminations to every one of Team Liquid’s. Liquid went from winning 14 rounds in the first map to seven in the second and just four in the third. Meanwhile, Astralis cemented their place as best in the world for CS:GO and ended the weekend at their strongest.

IEM Chicago marks the first time the Intel Grand Slam series has touched down in the Windy City, and it won’t be the last. ESL and Intel have struck a three-year partnership with both the Wintrust Arena and United Center to bring IEM to the city.

“We want to create this event as a destination to Chicago, for people to come to year after year,” Mark Chang, the Global Head of Gaming and eSports Marketing Strategy at Intel, said. “There’s a lot of untapped potential in Chicago.” Indeed, Chicago’s professional gaming presence pales in comparison to elsewhere in the country, and only recently gained some attention as the place from where Ninja hails. But the community around esports is strong at the grassroots level, and IEM Chicago’s nearly sold out crowd points to the fact that esports is as big in the midwest as anywhere else.

Cheng was excited about what establishing IEM in Chicago would bring to the fans and to the city, and has a goal of building an entire experience around the event. He pointed to the massive infrastructure that has developed around IEM’s prominent presence in Katowice, Poland as an example of what Intel hopes to create in the cities where they stage their premiere events.

In addition to future events in Chicago, Intel fully intends to embrace the ballooning trend of battle royale games in esports. Having done PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tournaments before, Cheng responded positively to the prospect of featuring games like Fortnite. He also spoke about bringing female tournaments to the main stage in future events.

For CS:GO pros, the next stop on the Intel Grand Slam will be the ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals in December in Denmark. Next year’s IEM Chicago will be held at United Center, a venue cemented in the heart of traditional sports as the home of the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks.