ECS Season 8 grand final preview – Astralis vs Team Liquid

It’s Groundhog Day in the CS:GO world as Astralis and Liquid go up against one another in yet another grand final. Can they keep up their great record against NAF and co. at Arlington in the rematch? We’ll know the answer to that in just a few hours.

Astralis against Liquid: it's that time of the year again

Of course, the Danes dominated this encounter in 2018, and Liquid’s win this January for the iBUYPOWER Masters IV title seemed like a potential changing of the guard. Since then, their undeniably strong showing of winning six out of seven big LAN events made them the undisputed best team in the world, at least on form, while Astralis went dormant amid the BLAST controversies. However, gla1ve and co. seem to be the stronger side since the player break, as evidenced by their two wins against the North Americans, the first at the Major with a Vertigo curveball, the second in a high-octane brawl at ESL One New York. They’ve now dispatched their biggest challenger in the form of EG, and a win over Liquid would mean that they’ve beaten all three direct rivals for the HLTV #1 spot in Arlington.

Can they do it though? The bookies certainly have them as heavy favorites, and we’re inclined to agree with them based on what we’ve seen in the semi-finals.

Bet on Astralis @ 1.40

Read more

Check out the schedule and our predictions for day 1 of the ECS Season 8 Finals here

Why Valve needs to do more on conflicts of interest in CS:GO

Ranking every Shattered Web Agent by fashion sense

Photo credit: HLTV