Astralis dominate IEM Global Challenge 2020: Final placements & recap

IEM’s Global Challenge has come and gone, with Astralis emerging as victors and claiming the lion’s share of $500,000. Here’s how the event unfolded.

• Astralis cruise to a 3-0 Grand Final win over Team Liquid — Inferno (16-11), Overpass (16-11), Dust 2 (16-10)
• Device dominated for The Danes with a 1.26 rating across 13 maps
• Twistzz confirms Liquid departure after Grand Final loss

IEM Global Challenge 2020: Final placements

Astralis walked away with $200,000 and 3,000 BLAST Points — overtaking Team Vitality (9,300) at the top of the BLAST Circuit with 9,363 points.

IEM Global Challenge 2020: Results & recap

Results & recaps

Day 1 — Tuesday, December 15

BIG upset Vitality, Astralis & Na’Vi cruise through

Better late than never! Plenty wrote off BIG heading into IEM Global Challenge, seeing them as nothing more than Chaos’ replacement, but the Germans came to play. Despite Vitality’s convincing win on their map pick of Inferno (16-7), a 19-17 win on Vertigo and 16-13 win on Nuke was enough to edge past the world number ones.

It was business as usual for Astralis and Na’Vi, who swept their way past Complexity and Na’Vi to put them one step closer to the Playoffs.

Day 2 — Wednesday, December 16

BIG clinch Playoff berth, Vitality & Liquid win big

The day started off with cool, calm, and collected performance from Team Liquid, who wrestled a 2-0 victory vs Heroic — 16-11 on Inferno and 16-14 on Nuke. Vitality made up for their shock day one loss with a dismantling of Complexity, taking Nuke 16-9 before dominating Dust2 16-3.

The tournament’s first Playoff clincher match went the way of BIG, who etched out a key overtime victory on Vertigo (22-19), before making a comeback on Dust 2 to take the map 16-10.

Day 3 — Thursday, December 17

FURIA finish strong against Heroic; s1mple shines vs Liquid 

The Brazilian’s weathered the storm against Heroic. While the Danish side managed to keep the first two games highly competitive (sending Nuke into triple overtime), FURIA took the Group B decider match with an emphatic performance on Vertigo 16-4 — sending Heroic packing in 7th-8th place.

Navi advanced to the Playoffs with a swift 2-0 win over Team Liquid. After the matchup, s1mple said it felt good to beat the Americans, since they had their number in 2019. While it was teammate Perfecto who clutched up time and again on map one, s1mple closed out the series with his dominant AWP performance on Nuke.

Day 4 — Friday, December 18

Liquid & Astralis secure Playoff spot

Astralis took down the top dogs of Team Vitality to secure their Playoff spot. Even though Misutaaa was strong out of the gate, The Danes shrugged off the one map loss, taking the series 2-1.

FURIA went in against Team Liquid as hot favorites. Competing for the fourth and final Playoff spot, Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski and the rest of Liquid stepped up to secure semi-final matchup against an on-form BIG lineup.

Day 5 — Saturday, December 19

Astralis & Liquid shrug off Europe’s finest

Semi-final Saturday got off to a rocking start with Na’Vi taking on Astralis. Even though s1mple and co. put up a fight, taking Nuke (16-9), it wasn’t enough to overcome the Danish powerhouse, who punched their ticket to the Final with a win on Inferno (16-13) and Train (16-11).

Team Liquid brushed aside BIG in two. Despite Jake ‘Stewie2k’ Yip’s mid-series mouse issues, Liquid looked unstoppable as EliGE clocked off with a 113.6 ADR and 61 frags.

Day 6 — Sunday, December 20

Astralis end 2020 on a high, with a Twistzz

Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken stepped up after a rocky road to the Grand Final. But despite the Canadian’s best efforts, Astralis proved too strong. 16-11 wins on Inferno and Overpass led to a Dust 2 brawl.

Liquid just weren’t able to keep up with Astralis’ dynamic duo in Device & Dupreeh, bowing out in 2nd place after losing 16-10.

IEM Global Challenge 2020: Teams & players

Teams were divided into two groups. The top two from each group qualified to Saturday’s semi-finals. Notably, Complexity played with Otto ‘ottoNd’ Sihvo as a stand-in, following Valentin ‘poizon’ Vasilev’s absence.