Astralis: Poised to win trophies - Hugo's Spring Final predictions

Looking back, it’s still difficult to get over just how sub-par the first quarter of the year was for Astralis.

Qualification for Spring Final was a success, but this was followed up by coming in dead last at IEM Katowice and failure to qualify for the PGL Major Copenhagen.

Since those failures, blameF has been transferred, br0 was added, and device has taken up the captaincy.

Decisions that may go down as the best activity in the transfer market in 2024, Astralis now look poised to win trophies, and Hugo now has the Danes pinned as the third-best team coming into Spring Final.

Is it Astralis’ time to claim their first S-tier trophy since 2019?

Photo: Stephanie Lindgren

A question of roles

Given the similarity in stavn and blameF’s playstyle, it’s hard to see how the two could ever have co-existed. Both players thrive from being able to bait and trade a teammate in front of them, and neither could perform at their best without that.

For stavn, it was TeSeS who had helped facilitate his rise to becoming one of the best players. TeSeS might have been the sacrificial lamb, and the two had become one of the deadliest duos in Counter-Strike as a result.

Looking at the Astralis roster when blameF was still a part of it, it was hard to see who would be willing to sacrifice themselves in the same way, and combined with blameF’s more individuals-based IGLing, the team looked out of sorts with its components.

Enter br0, the former member of Astralis’ academy team who had since gone on to be a valuable part of a Monte team that maintained their levels after a deep run at the BLAST.tv Paris Major.

Photo: Michal Konkol

br0 was far from an exciting signing. Many would have preferred to see stavn and TeSeS reunited in the tip of the Astralis spear, but that doesn’t mean he was the wrong signing.

Like TeSeS, br0 has served to be the type of aggressive support player that stavn requires to succeed, and that’s a big reason as to why Astralis now have multiple playoff appearances under their belt in 2024.

The bigger change was device becoming the IGL of the team. It was a change that wasn't received well by all fans and experts alike, but those naysayers have all been proven wrong, given the drastic upturn in Astralis’ form.

device has taken to IGLing like a fish to water, and also holding the role of the team’s primary AWPer has allowed him to further activate stavn and jabbi by implementing a system much like that of the old HEROIC team.

It’s the system they may always be the most comfortable in, and it’s showing in both their ratings and their results.

Astralis may now be a far cry from the supposed superteam they were when blameF was around, but their current form only serves to prove that dupreeh was correct when he told us “I strongly believe role clashes are one of the worst things that can happen for a team.”

Photo: Stephanie Lindgren

The right place at the right time

When it comes to winning events, it can often come down to being in the right place at the right time, especially in an era as competitive as 2024 is turning out to be.

So far, five teams have won S-tier events in 2024.

All of these teams have won events due to their members hitting their respective peaks at the right time, had they not, then it’s likely we would only have two or three winners now due to the form of FaZe.

Photo: Astralis

With device at the helm and stavn and jabbi once again reaching the levels they did in their HEROIC stint, there’s everything to suggest that Astralis could be the next in line to win an event if their players were to also hit their peak, and Spring Final might just be that time.

This is especially true when you consider the absence of MOUZ at Spring Final, as well as the fact that other teams seem to be faltering towards the end of the season.

Other teams faltering being a win condition isn’t a slight against Astralis, in fact, it’s a win condition for most teams in the current era of CS.

The fact that Astralis are one of the teams who are able to facilitate these dips into tournament wins only serves as a positive reflection of just how good this team is.

Spring Final may or may not be Astralis’ time to lift a trophy, but it’s only a matter of time until they do.