Who Is The Best CSGO Team In 2018?

September 14, 2018 11:56 am By: Antonio Kaurinovic

There are so many great CS:GO teams but who is the best team on the scene right now? Esport fans would never agree on that mater. Some say FaZe is the best, for others it is NaVi or even team Fnatic but let’s consider the facts. The best team in CS:GO right not is without any doubt Astralis team. They are currently first ranked on HLTV list running 300 points from the second-placed Na’Vi.

This is the longest dominant era of one team in CS:GO. In 2015, the first place was alternating between Fnatic and EnVyUs during the year, in 2016 Astralis and SK shared that place while in 2017 Faze and SK did the same thing. Things are different in 2018, Astalis is just sitting on the throne for 50 weeks in total with no real competition.

Road To The First Place

The road to the first place has not been easy. They had to face with many psychical and physical problems, even illness. Their unique and attractive playstyle brought them to the first place. Many teams call that playstyle boring but yet, they stole some of the Astralises strategies and use that same strategy in other matches. There is even a famous B spot hold on Inferno, called “Astralis hold”.

Astralises Curse

Astralis always played well but they had this curse of getting to the semi-finals and then never being able to move forward. Like famous CS:GO analytic YNk once said, they are their own worst enemy. They tend to choke, they tend to break under pressure, they lose the big advantage and fall out in the top four, never seem to make it in the finals of the major event, even though all of the ingredients are there.

They were third placed at MLG Columbus in 2016 and fourth placed at ESL One Cologne 2016, without getting to the Grand-Finals of the Major tournament in 2016. If they wanted to compete on this level they had to change something. Everything was perfect but the results were not there. The strong mentality is something a team needs to be able to compete and stay in the game when things are going sideways. In order to get that mentality, they had to hire a new psychologist and try to work on their mental problems, what they eventually did.

New Psychologist

Astralis hired a sports psychologist from Finland, Mia Stellberg. She helped them with the team spirit and work individually with each player to see what is the problem. The team changed their lifestyle completely, they became real athletes, started running, jogging, going to the gym and even diet. They were not kids who play Counter-Strike anymore, they felt like real athletes and that changed their mindset and placed the winning mentality there. Somehow it worked, they finally did it in 2017. They went to the Grand-Finals of Eleague Major, broke the curse, and even won that Major after defeating Virtus.pro in a best of 3 series in the Grand-Finals.

Device sick

Things started to go sideways for this team once again. Their key player dev1ce got sick and he had to step down from the team for some time. He was diagnosed with IBS that kept him out for almost 2 months. Pimp, dennis, and RUBINO stepped in as a temporary solution, each player on a different tournament and they all failed. No matter how hard they tried, no one could replace dev1ce in this team.

He was a primary AWP player, entry fragger, lurker, riffler and even team leader in some situations, pretty much everything. There is no real cure for an issue like IBS but he did not give up. He changed his lifestyle completely, started a diet and things got better. Finally, dev1ce came back from a medical leave but a new problem popped up, Kjaerbye left to North and they were one player short again.

Roster

Although this team did not make a single roster change in 2017, they had to bring someone new as a fifth player to fill the empty spot because Kjaerbye left. Magisk came in as a replacement, he was so motivated, hungry to win and happy to come back to Denmark team once again. Before that change, this team consisted of 5 players who played together ever since the very establishment. They were afraid that this roster change could affect team chemistry but it did not. It became even better and they are getting along pretty well. One other interesting team about this roster is that they are all from Denmark, and communication is not the problem because they are no language barriers. Their so-called sixth player, the coach is also from Denmark, legendary zonic.

Coach

Their main coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen, former coach of Team Dignitas, joined the team on the very beginning and he has been there from the day 1. This 32 years old coach was a professional player once, in the period from 2005. to 2010. he won many titles and he was one of the best Counter-Strike players from Denmark in that time. After five years of retirement, zonic decided to come back to esports world, not as a player but as a coach this time. This coach is not like every other coach, he can’t sit still, he always tries to contribute to the team in any way possible. He yells at them and supports them in the same time and the most important thing, he always believes that they can come back and win.

What Makes The Astralis Team So Good?

Ever since establishment in 2016. Astralis has been in the top 4 placed teams and it is the first team owned by its players. Those players have no salary and all prize money won goes directly to players which is a great confidence booster. They are not like any other team and they are their own bosses.

Playstyle

Some teams say that Astralis is playing boring Counter-Strike with no interesting clutches. After they take map control, things become boring. This team never enters in unnecessary duels, if they have a man advantage they would probably win that round. On T side, they tend to make an entry on one spot and then just trade kills until they win the round. Trades are just always there and that is the most annoying thing for the opposite team.

On a CT side, they go with a safe approach, every angle is covered perfectly and if they lose a fight, they just fall back to the site. Opponents need to win at least 2 fights to get to the site. From the economy aspect, this team has one of the best economy managements on the competitive scene. If they lose a site, rest of the players just save their weapons. They also save when there is reset potential or anti-eco round. Those saves on anti-eco rounds prevent opponent team to boost their economy so opponents desperately try to hunt them and lose weapons in the process.

Communication

We all know that communication is everything in CS:GO. As mentioned before, this team consist of 5 players from Denmark and language is not a barrier. Their communication is always on a great level and it is almost impossible to catch these players off gourd. This improves their reaction time and brings them the rounds. If they bring only one foreign player to the team, they would have to communicate in English and that would slow down a reaction time. Some places on the map are just easier to explain in your primary language without thinking how to say it in English.

Players

Astralis is a team that does not rely on one player and in every match, someone else is top fragger. This is the main reason why are they so good. They are one of the most organized teams consisted of 5 individuals where everyone has a specific role on the team.

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