ENCE hoisted the trophy of the BLAST Pro Series Madrid after beating Astralis hands-down in a 2-map final.
It was a tough match for the currently #1 team in the world. Astralis found themselves out-strategied and out-maneuvered by the Finnish side that was inactive for weeks just to dethrone the reigning dynasty. The final kicked off on Nuke, where Allu and Co. brought in the table a great show of performance to break the seemingly unstoppable Nuke streak - which was at the time, 31 consecutive wins on LAN. The 2nd map Train was much more close, but ENCE managed to come back from a 0-5 scoreline down to emerge victorious with a great CT side.
Astralis have recently come out of events trophy-less, and though it may be a bit too early to worry about, the #1 place the Danes are holding seems to get challenged soon as the currently No.2 Liquid are having two LAN events ahead for the taking - cs_summit 4 and DreamHack Masters Dallas - before the Danes get back in action for the ECS Season 7 Finals.
ENCE started the game on Nuke on CT-side, which is the better-favored side on this map. They started off with a good start, looking really solid with 6 rounds in a row. Astralis responded with a shoddy buy and followed up with another point, but any of their attempt to bring the first half back was pointless as the Finnish did a massive job to close the first 15 rounds with the scoreline of 11-4.
After switching sides, Astralis took the pistol round in an intense 2v2 situation. After some forced buy decisions from ENCE, the T side brought about chaos in the 19th round, with Jere "sergej" Salo stepping up in a 1v2 clutch situation, giving his team control of the game and crushed Astralis' economy.
ENCE dropped no advantages, using their favored economy to break through the defense of CT side to bring the game to a 15-7. Astralis struggled to fight back, but after a couple of back and forth rounds, the Finnish team finally closed out the game, break the unbreakable Nuke streak for Astralis ever since the ECS Season 4 Finals, in December 2017.
Having lost their most comfortable map pick Nuke, Astralis sought out for vengeance and started with a 5-0 lead on Train. Even with Nicolai "device" Reedtz 's amazing 1v3 clutch and ENCE's timeout to break through Astralis' tight defense, the first half progressed shaky for Astralis as the Finnish side got 7 rounds in the bag for the first half.
Astralis began their T-side with a flawless pistol round. However, the game shifted to the Finnish side once they got decent buy round as they set up a great defense and lost just one more round before reaching the decisive point at 15-11. No more room for mistakes, Astralis struggled to bring the match to overtime, but the better performing ENCE sealed the deal at 16-13, waving their championship trophy of the event.
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