With only one day of DreamHack’s inaugural Leipzig event left, tomorrow’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive grand final is shaping up to be a big one.
This weekend saw eight of the best CS:GO teams in the world face off for their share of $100,000. Now only Brazilian team Luminosity Gaming and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) squad Natus Vincere (Na`Vi) are left.
Today Na`Vi took a 2-0 victory off Danish squad Team Dignitas in the semifinal. While Luminosity beat Astralis (previously known as Team SoloMid) in the other semifinal—much like they did at DreamHack Winter just two months ago (although they were more dominant this time).
Both Na`Vi and Luminosity were in the tournament’s group A prior to making it to the bracket stage. Na`Vi dominated the group, taking best-of-one victories over SK Gaming and FaZe Clan, the recently-acquired former G2 Esports squad. Na`Vi’s first match against SK Gaming was on Mirage, where they won 16 to 3. Their second match against FaZe Clan was much closer, but the CIS squad managed to pull out the win in a 16 to 9 victory.
The loss to Na`Vi bumped FaZe into the decider match of the group—a rematch with Luminosity whom they beat the day before. This time Luminosity won 2-0 in the best-of-three, pitting themselves against Astralis today—who they also beat.
While it’s no surprise that Na`Vi will be in the final—as they’ve consistently been one of the top three Counter-Strike teams in the world for the past six months—Luminosity’s improvement over the last three months speak volumes for the team’s performance.
The team moved from Brazil to North America shortly after being signed by Luminosity in July—the organization is based in Canada. Shortly after the move, the team has improved, gradually putting up higher results than any of their peers from North America—such as Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, and Team Liquid.
With their improvement, Luminosity could be strong enough to take down Natus Vincere tomorrow. The match begins tomorrow at 7am ET on DreamHack’s Counter-Strike Twitch channel.
Photo by Adela Sznajder via DreamHack/Flickr (All rights reserved, used with permission)
