bolofoo
2017-01-13 07:05:12
In every sport there exist a multitude of teams which possess all the required characteristics required in order to win at the highest level of the game, yet for some inexplicable reason those teams fail to find themselves emerging as champions. For Counter Strike that team historically has been Astralis, a team that undoubtedly possesses the roster and the tactics necessary to win a major, yet one that has failed to win one until this point. At one point Richard Lewis famously said that Astralis was “the best team in Global Offensive not to win a major”.
However with their latest roster change, switching up the leadership of the team by bringing in Glaive, Astralis have seemingly managed to bring about a change of fortunes and reclaim the form of old which found themselves being touted as favorites for the past majors. Now Astralis find themselves presented with their best opportunity to win a major since Dreamhack Cluj back in 2015. Going into the Eleague major, Astralis are coming off of a tier one LAN win at ECS finals, and are seemingly firing on all cylinders. Possessing one of the deepest map pools in the game, coupled with some of the most skilled players, it seems the time has finally arrived for Astralis to officially stamp themselves into Counter Strike history.
One of the most fearsome aspects of the current Astralis roster is undoubtedly the formidable map pool that they boast. The most impressive part has been their strength on their two home maps, Train and Overpass. Ever since Glaive has joined the gang, Astralis have only lost once on each of their home maps. At one point they lost on Train in extremely close fashion, 16-14, versus SK but that tends to happen when one faces off versus the most dominant team map combination in history. Furthermore, they even managed to get their revenge at Eleague finals when they put an end to SK’s winning streak on Train. Similarly, the only loss on Overpass for Astralis came versus OpTic, at a time when Naf-fly was having the series and map of his life. Despite these two blemishes on their otherwise stellar record it still would be safe to say that this current iteration of Astralis is the world’s best on these two maps in this current era.
While having strong home maps is a key to a strong map pool, it would not be a sufficient condition if the rest of the map pool was weak, as was the case for the Brazilians in SK over the past few months. Worry not however, for Astralis do not suffer from that morbid condition that plagued said Brazilians over these past few months. In terms of the rest of their map pool, Astralis seem impressive so far, albeit with a limited sample size. Currently, they sit with a 1-0 record on Cache, a 3-0 record on Dust 2, a 1-1 record on Mirage, a 1-1 record on Nuke, and a 0-2 record on Cobblestone. While these records do not initially stand out, when one takes a deeper look it becomes clear as day as to why these records are impressive. The fact of the matter is that all of those losses have come versus teams who could be argued to be at home on the map in question, and even then in some cases the home map advantage hasn’t been enough to overcome Astralis. Barring Cobblestone,which can function as their perma ban as it did under Karrigan, it seems that Astralis are strong enough in pretty much every map in the pool to tilt the statistics in their favor in a best of three matchup, regardless of the team they end up facing.
One of the greatest factors that Astralis currently have going for them is a player that they have built a majority of their system around, Device. This Danish superstar has been flying under the radar for most of 2016, especially when compared to the buzz that players like Coldzera and Simple have generated, yet he has consistently put up top notch performances for most of the year. Going into the major consistently high level play from Device will be absolutely necessary if Astralis wants to make it deep, and luckily for Astralis Device is renowned for his consistency.
In terms of what Device actually brings to the server for Astralis the sufficient answer would be to say that he brings it all. He has the pistols of a god, the rifling ability of a phenom, and the AWPing capabilities of a star. Device is so capable with the AWP that Astralis have hedged their bets by building the tactical foundations of their system around him. There are not many players in the world who have the ability to respond to those types of expectations, but Device is undoubtedly one of them.
Game after game, Device can be seen winning rounds by opening up with a pick onto an enemy. Yet his versatility does not stop there as Device also possesses the ability to close out rounds with the type of poise so few players in the world have. At the Eleague major Device will once again get an opportunity to claim that trophy that has eluded him for so long, and with the way he has been playing recently I feel sorry for any team that crosses his path en route to his goal.
Device is not the only star player on the Astralis roster, the other Danish superstar goes by the name of Kjaerbye. The role that Kjaerbye fills on the Astralis roster is akin to the role that the Fer filled in the championship winning SK roster.
Where Device can be seen playing the star role from a more passive position, Kjaerbye can be found on the opposite end of the spectrum putting a more aggressive twist spin on the star role. Kjaerbye is undoubtedly the playmaker on the Astralis roster. In mid round situations where Astralis founds themselves in need of an aggressive play in order to turn around a seemingly unredeemable situation it tends to be Kjaerbye rising to the task. If the situation calls for an aggressive flank, or even a push through a smoke then Kjaerbye is completely willing to fulfill the task, and at quite a high level at that. Kjaerbye is not the most cerebral player, nor is he the type of player you want to close out rounds. However, in the current Astralis roster Kjaerbye has managed to find his place and is currently flourishing within it.
Eleague will be Kjaerbye’s first time going into the major as contenders, and even favorites, to win it all. Many a strong willed player has gone into a similar situation in the past and failed. Be that as it may if Astralis truly wants to make it far into the Eleague major then the same can not occur for Kjaerbye, as he has high expectations to fulfill as part of the star duo in Astralis.
While Device and Kjaerbye are impressive as a star duo alone they are not enough to take Astralis over the top. The reason that Astralis is so highly regarded in the public domain in terms of their depth of skill is due to their prodigious role players in the form of Dupreeh and Xyp9x. While in previous iterations of the Astralis roster Xyp9x existed as a role player this was not true in the case of Dupreeh.
In past rosters, Dupreeh was seen as one of the key factors that needed to succeed in order to elevate Astralis to the top, and at times he did and at times he didn’t. Now however, thanks to Kjaerbye stellar performances in the star role that he has been thrust into, Dupreeh does not have to have exceptional performances game in and out in order for the team to succeed. As such he has taken a step back in the current roster, compared to the integral part he was in the past.
Make no mistake however, these two role players are not weaklings by any stretch of the imagination. The reason they are so renowned within the scene is due to the fact that as individual players they possess the capability to hold their own versus anybody in the scene today. That is exactly the reason that Astralis has rocketed up the rankings in recent times: Xyp9x and Dupreeh have once again managed to manifest their skill onto the server and provided Astralis with a stable backbone to rely on. If a team were to possess monsters like Xyp9x and Dupreeh as the backbone of their team well then it should come as no surprise that said team would go into the major as favorites to win it all.
While Astralis has all these previous listed factors going for it one distinction has to be made. All these players have been under the Astralis banner for quite a bit of time, even when they were failing miserably internationally. The key change that catalyzed all of this recent success has been the inclusion of the new In Game Leader for the Astralis roster, Gla1ve.
By adding in Gla1ve the Danish squad introduced a completely new tactical system, one that seemingly fits the personnel of their roster to a tee. Gla1ve brought in a new set of strategies that helped revitalize the players and help bring them back to full potential output. Furthermore, Gla1ve also helped integrate Kjaerbye into the roster and ensured that he finally felt comfortable enough to play close to his peak level, something that did not occur under Karrigan’s leadership. At the end of the day the man to thank for Astralis’ new fortunes is their new in game leader. Thanks to the astute mind of Gla1ve not only do Astralis look to be going into the major in top form, but also as favorites to win the entire event.
