'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Astralis clinched their first ever IEM title in China, after capping of a brilliant tournament run by sweeping the 100 Thieves 3-0 in the grand finals. Astralis will take home $125,000, a direct invite to IEM Katowice and will enter the race to win the Intel Grand Slam, being the fourth team after Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses and Fnatic.
The day started of with a showmatch on Breach and built up the tension for the grand finals. With both Astralis and 100 Thieves banning the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive maps of Mirage and Overpass respectively, the first map to be played was Vertigo, with the 100 Thieves picking it to catch Astralis off guard due to the recent changes to the map. While this tactic did initially work, Astralis slowly but surely clawed their way back into the match on the back of some amazing individual plays by their IGL Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander to take the map 16-14.
The second map, Nuke, was initially at 3-3 but soon Astralis started dominating and ended the half at 11-4. The second half saw no change as Astralis closed the map 16-5 quickly to move onto the next map, Train.
While the third map did see the 100 Thieves win the pistol round, they were given no room to rest as Astralis bought scouts in round 2 to immediately hit back and deny any advantage. While 100 Thieves did have some moments of individual brilliance and some interesting plays which they executed, they never were able to combat the well oiled teamwork of Astralis, who ran away with the game 16-3, to finish of a dominating run in Beijing which saw the Danish Giants not drop a single map throughout the tournament and losing only 52 rounds across all nine maps played.
The tournament also saw Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander picking up his first ever MVP award of his career after averaging a 1.48 rating. While the Danish In Game Leader has been complimented usually for him game calling, this tournament saw him leading in categories like ADR (95.2), opening kill per round (0.18) and multiple kill rounds (56.6%) .
