Astralis

[e][h]Astralis

Team Information

Location:

Denmark

Region:

Europe

Team Captain:

Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander

Coaches:

Danny "zonic" Sørensen

Sponsor:

Unibet
Turtle Beach
JACK & JONES
NOCCO
eSports.com
OMEN by HP

Total Winnings:

$6,449,134

Games:

Global Offensive

Links

History

Created:

2016-01-18

Astralis is a Danish organization owned by players of the former Danish Team SoloMid/Questionmark lineup, with the help of their manager, Frederik "realition" Byskov. The rights to the Astralis name were obtained from the original founders of the Finnish Counter-Strike team. ^[1]

As of May 19th and as a result of cajunb and Kjaerbye swapping teams with eachother, Astralis later announced in a Q&A on their website that these roster changes do not automatically revoke him of his ownership with the organization, nor automatically grant Kjaerbye ownership with the organization, as the other staff may later decide what takes effect later on. ^[2] While Bo "wantz" Vestergaard was still in the team as a backup, he was never declared an owner nor granted any form of ownership either.

History[edit]

January 2016 - May 2016 (device, dupreeh, Xyp9x, cajunb, karrigan)[edit]

Astralis’ first event was DreamHack Leipzig 2016 in January 2016. The team topped their group after defeating their Danish brethren Dignitas and the European-mix team mousesports in best-of-ones, however they exited the event in the semi-final losing 0-2 to Luminosity Gaming. Their next LAN was Global eSports Cup where they topped their group once again, this time with best-of-three wins over Method and G2 Esports. They would go on to lose the semi-final vs their rivals from the previous year, Team EnVyUs 1-2 and then defeat CLG in the third-place decider, only losing seven rounds over two maps. ESL Expo Barcelona was up next which featured an unusual format where each team had three lives and a map loss would mean a life lost. Astralis won five maps against G2 Esports, x6tence, Team EnVyUs and Dignitas. Astralis narrowly lost a life to G2 and played two close games vs Fnatic in the faux-final as the only two teams left.

IEM Katowice was next and Astralis would once again top their group and go straight to the semi-final with best-of-one wins over Team EnVyUs, Virtus.Pro, E-Frag, FaZe Clan and Tempo Storm. Astralis were set to play the last match of the day vs Fnatic, but due to delays, this didn’t start until midnight and finally finished at 3am with Astralis losing 1-2.

Astralis were expected to go far in MLG Columbus, the eighth CS:GO Major following their 2nd place finish to Natus Vincere at Counter Pit League Season 2. The event started well as Astralis beat Gambit and CLG to top their group but were rewarded by being drawn against Fnatic in the Quarterfinals, the favourites to win the whole event after winning their previous six events in a row. Things did not go well for the Swedes though, as Astralis won in two maps, 16-10 on Overpass and 16-5 on Fnatic’s map pick, Cache due to a standout performance from Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen. Astralis went on to face Navi in the semi-final where they narrowly lost Inferno 14-16 and were outclassed on Dust II thanks to stellar performances from Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev and Egor “flamie” Vasilyev.

Over the next few events Astralis did not live up to their reputation of cleaning up in groups and advancing comfortably to playoffs. Their first group stage exit in six months occurred at DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016, where they won the opener vs Lounge Gaming but were upset by their Danish counterparts, Dignitas 9-16 on their home map Overpass. Astralis drew the hometown heroes, Ninjas in Pyjamas in the decider match and lost 1-2 with poor performances from dupreeh and IGL Finn “karrigan Andersen. NiP would go on to win the event in front of a roaring Swedish crowd. A month later, the team attended ESL Pro League S3 Finals in England. This time they lost to the North American mix of OpTic Gaming in a best-of-one 7-16 and came up against the Columbus Major champions, Luminosity. They fought a tough best-of-three, winning the first map and narrowly lost the remaining two despite Nicolai “device” Reedtz having a K-D of 81-50. Luminosity went on to win this event in a gruelling best-of-five vs G2. Following this defeat Astralis decided to swap René “cajunb” Borg for Dignitas’ Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjaerbye who was headhunted by Astralis’ coach, Danny “zonic” Sørensen whom he knew from his time coaching him during 2015.

June 2016 - October 2016 (device, dupreeh, Xyp9x, karrigan, Kjaerbye)[edit]

With a month of practice Astralis attended DreamHack Summer 2016, and this time things were looking up as they topped their group, comfortably defeating the Finnish ENCE eSports and Danish SK Gaming. An all too familiar story occurred in playoffs where they faced NiP in the semi-finals and once again fought a strong best-of-three but ultimately lost 1-2, nearly winning on Cobblestone, Astralis’ perma-ban map. Astralis played their ELEAGUE Season 1 group in June, topping their group winning 5 out of 6 maps vs NRG, CLG and SK Gaming with the help of zonic standing in for IGL karrigan who arrived late to the event. They then won best-of-threes vs NRG and CLG. At ECS Season 1 Finals Astralis once again uncharacteristically lost to a North American team, this time being Team SoloMid led by Kory “SEMPHIS” Friesen. They went on to face Cloud9 in the decider match and were beaten 0-2.

Astralis went into ESL One Cologne 2016, the second CS:GO Major of the year with a stand-in for Kjaerbye in the form of Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander. This was because Kjaerbye played and won the European Minor with Dignitas and Valve rules dictated he had to sit the event out. In Germany, Astralis defeated their Danish rivals Dignitas in the event opener but were destroyed by the CIS Gambit Gaming team in the winner’s best-of-one 6-16. Tragedy struck after this loss with Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen getting appendicitis and resulted in him watching the remainder of the event from hospital. Coach zonic rose to the challenge having not played the game since ELEAGUE a month prior and Astralis scraped through to the playoffs besting Dignitas 2-1. Astralis were drawn vs the Polish legends Virtus.pro in the quarterfinals, however they were unable to best them despite a strong performance from device going 68-43 in K-D and taking the Poles to overtime on both maps.

After the Major Astralis returned to Atlanta to attend the ELEAGUE playoffs but lost to mousesports 0-2 in the quarterfinals. Shortly after they attended Power-LAN, a small Danish event. They advanced to the semi-finals as expected but lost to Heroic 1-2, led by their Major stand-in gla1ve. Less than two weeks later Heroic bested Astralis again, this time in the opener at StarLadder StarSeries Season 2 16-13 on Train. Astralis were pitted vs Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev’s Navi in the elimination match and won in overtime 19-17. Astralis won vs the Chinese TyLoo 2-1 to advance to the quarterfinals but once again lost to NiP 1-2.

In October Astralis attended ESL New York 2016 featuring an 8 team Swiss format in which they grinded past G2 Esports 16-13 but didn’t win another map against opponents SK Gaming (former Luminosity), Fnatic and OpTic Gaming. A week later they bombed out in the round of 12 at WESG 2016 European Finals losing 1-2 to GODSENT with the two maps they lost being 14-16. A breakdown in the team occurred and Astralis decided it was time for karrigan to go, opting for gla1ve instead. karrigan had led the core players since December 2014 to five tournament wins in 2015 but none since forming Astralis.

November 2016 - December 2016 (device, dupreeh, Xyp9x, Kjaerbye, gla1ve)[edit]

Astralis returned to what was expected from them after poor placings throughout the majority of 2016 by topping their group at ELEAGUE Season 2 with best-of-one victories against ALTERNATE aTTaX and SK Gaming. A week later they topped their six-team group at IEM Oakland 2016 with wins vs Team Liquid, Natus Vincere, Immortals and TyLoo with the only loss vs G2 Esports. This netted them a semi-final spot and they lost 0-2 to SK Gaming 14-16 and 12-16 where Nicolai “device” Reedtz had an uncharacteristically poor showing. The team returned to Atlanta for the ELEAGUE playoffs and reached the final, triumphing over Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 with Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjaerbye posting a 1.56 HLTV rating, beating SK 2-0 with a stellar performance by Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth. Astralis were expected to win the final vs OpTic Gaming after defeating the Brazilian favourites in the semi-final and OpTic causing upsets on the other side of the bracket. The Danes looked like they were on their way to do this with a 16-9 win on Train but lost the next two maps 6-16 and 11-16 with Keith “NAF” Markovic putting up an incredible 78-45 K-D.

Astralis would get revenge against the North American side a week later at ECS Season 2 Finals in Anaheim winning their first match of the group 16-7, followed by a 16-3 trouncing over FaZe Clan with Xyp9x going 25-5 against the European team. In the semi-final Astralis bested SK Gaming 2-0 with device achieving a 46-19 K-D over 45 rounds. OpTic met them in the final but this time the Danish side were too hot for them to handle and Astralis obtained their first trophy since they formed twelve months prior.

February 2018 - Present (device, dupreeh, Xyp9x, gla1ve, Magisk)[edit]

In February, Kjaerbye unexpectedly left Astralis to join North. Astralis were left scrambling for a fifth player but fortunately, they were able to sign Emil "Magisk" Reif a few days later. This would mark the beginning of an astronomical rise to the top and domination over the Counter-Strike scene. After a quarter-final finish at StarSeries S4 and a semi-final loss to FaZe Clan at IEM Katowice 2018, they reached the summit after a spectacular performance at DreamHack Marseille 2018, convincingly beating FaZe Clan, Fnatic, and Natus Vincere on their way to the title. This victory was Astralis' first step on the ladder to winning the Intel Grand Slam in which a team needs to win four out of 10 applicable events in a rolling period. Although they lost to FaZe Clan in the grand final after a narrow 3-0 best of five series at IEM Sydney 2018, they bounced back at ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, swiftly defeating FaZe Clan and beating Team Liquid 3-1 to grab the trophy. With this win they were halfway to claiming the acclaimed, and as Dupreeh would say, "impossible" Intel Grand Slam. They continued their dominance over the Summer with trophies at ECS Season 5 Finals and ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018, with a semi-final loss to Natus Vincere at ESL One Cologne 2018 in-between.

After the month-long player break Astralis attended DreamHack Stockholm 2018 in September.They came 2nd in the group, losing the best-of-three Winner's match to their Danish rivals, North. The side still made the final with 2-0 wins over MIBR and NiP, however they lost in the final 1-2 to North. This didn't faze them though as Astralis then crowned their era with their second Major title at FACEIT Major: London 2018, quickly defeating FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, and Natus Vincere without dropping a single map in the playoffs. A mere 6 days later, they bested MIBR 2-1 in the grand-final at BLAST Pro Series: Istanbul 2018 after having an undefeated 5-0 group stage to continue their dominance over the scene. Astralis would attend BLAST Pro Series: Copenhagen 2018 a month later, however they failed to reach the final, having lost maps to NiP and Na'Vi. Once again the Danes bounced back at IEM Chicago 2018, this time with best-of-three wins over North, mousesports and Fnatic. Astralis almost bowed out in the semi-final match vs Fnatic as they were down 9-15 on Inferno, but with a stellar execute onto the B bombsite they clawed back and won the map 19-17. They then went on to defeat Team Liquid in the final 3:0. This also nabbed them their third trophy towards the Intel Grand Slam with two events left to complete four out of 10 victories to claim $1,000,000.

Two weeks later Astralis flew to Texas to battle at ECS Season 6 Finals. The team narrowly lost to the Brazilian/American mix of MIBR 1-2 with map scores of 16-10, 20-22 and 14-16. They would claim revenge in the final though, but not before beating NiP 2-1with device positing a 68-40 K-D series. The Danes would then claim back-to-back ECS titles after besting MIBR narrowly over two maps. A fortnight later Astralis were on home soil, attempting to claim their first win in front of a friendly crowd and also get fourth trophy to complete the Intel Grand Slam. The Danes swept through the group stage with victories over ViCi Gaming, HellRaisers and Team Liquid to secure a place in the semi-final. There they would face and defeat mousesports 2-0 with another incredible effort by device posting a 1.76 HLTV rating. In the final they met their frequent rivals Team Liquid but once again they were no match for Astralis and the Danes finally won on home soil, defeating the serial second place finishers 3-1 and claimed the Intel Grand Slam along with the team's ninth trophy of the year. The side's last event was BLAST Pro Series: Lisbon 2018 where they claimed first prize once again, this time winning 5-0 in groups and 2-1 over [Na'Vi]]. This year would break records with all five players making it into HLTV.org's HLTV Top 20 Players of the Year, with Xyp9x getting 13th place, gla1ve claiming 8th place, Magisk 7th place, Dupreeh 5th place and device topping the team with 2nd place. Over the year the team went undefeated on Nuke on LAN, notching 27 wins in a row. ^[3] The crusade also netted them ten trophies out of twelve finals where they bested Team Liquid on five occasions, three semi-final finishes and two finishes outside of the top four. The team had truly claimed their era in CS:GO.

2019 started with Astralis attending iBUYPOWER Masters IV and it turned out to be one of the lesser events in recent history, being marred by delays and issues. The Danes easily topped their group and then dispatched of Ghost Gaming in the semi-final 2-0 before finally losing to Team Liquid in the final on their sixth Grand Final meeting. As they displayed in the prior year, Astralis doesn't lose more than one event in a row. Astralis headed into the first Major of the year and started by cruising to the playoffs with wins over compLexity Gaming, Cloud9 (16-0 on Train) and Renegades. Astralis would face Ninjas in Pyjamas in the quarter-final and bested them 2-0 with stand-out performances from Magisk and Xyp9x taking them to the semi-final. Here they met the full-Brazilian lineup of MIBR and dispatched of them 2-0 as well.

Surprisingly it was not Na'Vi or Team Liquid waiting in the final for the Danes, instead it was the Finns of ENCE. They were no match for Astralis though and the Danes defeated them 2-0 on Train and Inferno to take the title and secure back-to-back Major titles. They are the third lineup in CS:GO history to secure two official majors in a row, the previous being Swedes of Fnatic in 2015 and the Brazilians of Luminosity Gaming who became SK Gaming in 2016. As of Katowice 2019, commentators and spectators alike regard this lineup as the most dominant team in Counter Strike history.

Timeline[edit]

Player Roster[edit]

Active[edit]


ID	Name	Join Date
dev1ce	Nicolai Reedtz	2016-01-18 ^[4]^[12]
dupreeh	Peter Rasmussen	2016-01-18 ^[4]
Xyp9x	Andreas Højsleth	2016-01-18 ^[4]
gla1ve	Lukas Rossander	2016-10-24 ^[9]
Magisk	Emil Reif	2018-02-07 ^[14]
zonic (Coach)	Danny Sørensen	2016-01-18 ^[4]

Former[edit]


ID	Name	Join Date	Leave Date	New Team
Kjaerbye	Markus Kjærbye	2016-05-19 ^[7]	2018-02-02 ^[13]	North
karrigan	Finn Andersen	2016-01-18 ^[4]	2016-10-19 ^[8]	FaZe Clan
cajunb	René Borg	2016-01-18 ^[4]	2016-05-19 ^[7]	Team Dignitas
wantz (Backup)	Bo Vestergaard	2016-03-08 ^[5]	2016-05-09 ^[6]	The Imperial


ID	Name	Replacing	ID	Name	Tournament(s)
RUBINO	Ruben Villarroel		dev1ce	Nicolai Reedtz	ECS Season 4 Finals ^[11] ESL Pro League Season 6 Finals ^[11]
dennis	Dennis Edman		dev1ce	Nicolai Reedtz	BLAST Pro Series: Copenhagen 2017 ^[10]
Pimp	Jacob Winneche		dev1ce	Nicolai Reedtz	ECS Season 4 Europe (Week 7) ^[10]
zonic	Danny Sørensen		dev1ce	Nicolai Reedtz	IEM Oakland 2017 (vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas) ^[15] ESL Pro League Season 5 (vs. Virtus.pro) ^[16]
NoTaN1dgl	Anton Pedersen		karrigan	Finn Andersen	ESL Pro League Season 4 (Week 9) ^[17]
zonic	Danny Sørensen		dupreeh	Peter Rothmann	ESL One Cologne 2016 (Group Decider & Playoffs) ^[18]
gla1ve	Lukas Rossander		Kjaerbye	Markus Kjærbye	ESL One Cologne 2016 ^[19]
zonic	Danny Sørensen		karrigan	Finn Andersen	ELEAGUE Season 1 (vs. NRG Esports & Counter Logic Gaming) ^[20]

Team Achievements[edit]

Date	Placement	Tier		Results	Prize
2019-03-03	A11st	A1Premier	Intel Extreme Masters XIII - Katowice Major 2019	2 : 0	$500,000
2018-12-09	A11st	A1Premier	ESL Pro League Season 8 - Finals	3 : 1	$250,000
2018-11-25	A11st	A1Premier	Esports Championship Series Season 6 - Finals	2 : 0	$250,000
2018-09-23	A11st	A1Premier	FACEIT Major: London 2018	2 : 0	$500,000
2018-07-29	A11st	A1Premier	ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018	2 : 0	$500,000
2018-06-10	A11st	A1Premier	Esports Championship Series Season 5 - Finals	2 : 0	$250,000
2018-05-20	A11st	A1Premier	ESL Pro League Season 7 - Finals	3 : 1	$250,000
2017-03-05	A11st	A1Premier	Intel Extreme Masters XI - World Championship	3 : 1	$104,000
2017-01-29	A11st	A1Premier	ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017	2 : 1	$500,000
2016-12-11	A11st	A1Premier	Esports Championship Series Season 2 - Finals	2 : 0	$250,000
About achievementsComplete Results in any Tournament

Organization[edit]

Former[edit]


ID	Name	Position	Join Date	Leave Date	New Organization
realition	Frederik Byskov	CEO	2016-01-18 ^[4]	2018-03-12 ^[21]	RFRSH
PHedemark	Phillip Rasmussen	Social Media Manager	2016-01-18 ^[4]	2016-12-31 ^[22]	North
JLK	Jakob Lund Kristensen	Founder	2016-01-18 ^[4]	2016-12-21 ^[23]	RFRSH
biglittle	Matthew Truelove	Creative Director	2016-01-18 ^[4]	2016-07-01 ^[24]
	Moha Bensofia	VP Partnerships	Unknown	Unknown
	Stephan Christensen	Art Director	Unknown	Unknown	RFRSH

Trivia[edit]

Astralis are the second organization to win multiple Majors, winning ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017, FACEIT Major: London 2018 and IEM Katowice 2019.
Named the Esports Team of the Year at the Esports Awards 2018. ^[25]^[26]
Astralis are currently undefeated in LAN matches on Nuke, with the streak having begun in February 2018. (29 matches). ^[27]
Astralis won the Intel Grand Slam Season 1 and $1,000,000 after claiming victory at DH Masters Marseille 2018, ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, IEM Season XIII Chicago and ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals.
device, dupreeh, Xyp9x, gla1ve and Magisk featured in HLTV's Top 20 Players of 2018. This is the first time in the ranking's history that all members of a lineup made the list in the same year.
Astralis winning IEM Katowice Major 2019 made them the third team to win back-to-back Majors (after Fnatic and Luminosity Gaming/SK Gaming) and the second to win three Majors total, after Fnatic.