Astralis

Astralis

Short name	AST
Games	Counter-Strike: Global Offensive FIFA League of Legends Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
Founded	January 18, 2016; 5 years ago (2016-01-18)
Location	Denmark
Colors
Owner	Astralis Group Management ApS
President	Anders Hørsholt
CEO	Nikolaj Nyholm Anders Hørsholt
Head coach	Danny "zonic" Sørensen (CS:GO) Baltat "AoD" Alin-Ciprian (LoL) Kevin "Easilyy" Skokowski (R6 Siege)
Manager	Kasper Hvidt
Partners	Unibet Turtle Beach OMEN by HP Logitech G hummel
Website	www.astralis.gg

Astralis is a Danish esports organization. Best known for their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, they also have teams representing other games, such as FIFA and League of Legends. The parent group of Astralis is the Astralis Group, who previously managed Origen and Future F.C. before the merger of all teams under the Astralis brand.^[1]

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive division[]

History[]

2018[]

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On January 19, Astralis entered into the ELEAGUE Major in the United States with the group stages being played in Atlanta and the playoffs in Boston. Astralis, being the previous ELEAGUE major champions, were eager to claim the title and have a wonderful start for 2018 after a good run at the previous year. However, things didn't go as expected as they started the tournament by losing to Mousesports. The Danes found themselves in a pretty tough situation, but they managed to catch up by winning the second game against their old rivals North in a classic Danish derby. On the third day of the tournament, they got upset by Fnatic as the Swedes left them with no more losses to conceive during the group stage in order to qualify. In the end, Astralis were eliminated after a surprising loss against Cloud9, the team who later went on to win the major after winning a best-of-three grand final against the tournament favourites, FaZe Clan.

In February, Kjaerbye unexpectedly left Astralis to join North. Astralis were left scrambling for a fifth player but fortunately, they were able to sign Emil "Magisk" Reif a few days later. This would mark the beginning of an astronomical rise to the top and domination over the Counter-Strike scene. After a quarter-final finish at StarSeries S4 and a semi-final loss at IEM Katowice 2018, they reached the summit after a spectacular performance at DreamHack Marseille 2018, convincingly beating FaZe Clan, Fnatic, and Natus Vincere on their way to the title. Although they lost to FaZe Clan in the grand final after a narrow 3-0 best of five series at IEM Sydney 2018, they bounced back at ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, swiftly defeating FaZe Clan and beating Team Liquid 3–1 to grab the trophy. They continued their dominance with trophies at ECS Season 5 Finals and ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018, with a semi-final loss to Natus Vincere at ESL One: Cologne 2018 in between.

Astralis then crowned their era with their second Major title at FACEIT Major: London 2018, quickly beating FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, and Natus Vincere without dropping a single map in the playoffs. A mere 6 days later, they defeated MIBR 2–1 in the grand-final at BLAST Pro Series Istanbul 2018 - after having an undefeated 5-0 group stage - to continue their dominance over the scene.

2019[]

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At the IEM Katowice Major 2019, they picked up their third Major title, becoming the second team in CS:GO history (after Fnatic) to take home three Major titles, and the third to win two majors back-to-back. They made it into the New Champions stage after a convincing 3–0 score in the New Legends stage, beating Complexity Gaming, Cloud9 and Renegades. They then went through the New Champions stage without dropping a single map, beating Ninjas in Pyjamas, MIBR, and finally to secure the Major win.

Their dominance dropped off considerably after the IEM Katowice Major 2019, and had their spot taken by Team Liquid who had become the number one CS:GO team in the world.

Later on that August, Astralis attended the StarLadder Major: Berlin 2019. After winning their opening match against DreamEaters and G2 Esports, they lost their next match against NRG Esports, making history as they had the longest match in major history, 59 rounds in total.^[2] After losing to NRG, they defeated CR4ZY and proceeded to the playoffs. Astralis faced off Team Liquid in the Quarterfinals, and after a surprising map pick, they won the series convincingly. They once again faced off against NRG Esports in the semifinals, only to win the series. Finally, Astralis faced off against Avangar in the Grand Finals. Astralis won the series dominantly making them the first CS:GO team ever to win three consecutive majors, and the first team to achieve four major wins total, passing Fnatic's record of three.

In November 2019, following consistent success and multiple championships with the team, Astralis' coach zonic was honored with the "Coach of the Year Award" at the Esports Awards 2019.^[3]

2020[]

On March 22, 2020, Astralis announced the organisation was expanding the roster beyond the main five players, something unprecedented for CSGO teams at the time, signing Patrick "es3tag" Hansen from Heroic.^[4] es3tag would join Astralis following the end of his contract with Heroic on July 1. On May 11, Astralis signed a seventh player, Jakob "JUGi" Hansen, who had been benched on North until then. On May 19, gla1ve, announced he was taking a break from CSGO due to stress-like symptoms, with JUGi to make his debut for Astralis. Nine days later, Xyp9x announced via Twitter that he will also go on an indefinite break to focus on his mental health.^[5][6] Marko "Snappi" Pfeiffer would stand-in for Xyp9x until es3tag joins the team. In July 2020, Astralis replaced JUGi with Lucas "Bubzkji" Andersen, while gla1ve returned to the active roster 4 months later.^[7][8]

In September 2020, Astralis Group announced the merger of all teams under the Astralis brand.^[1]

In October 2020, Astralis would field Es3tag amongst Gla1ve, Dev1ce, Magisk and Dupreeh to claim 6 successive victories in a row during the group stages of ESL Pro League S12; a series streak only tarnished by one loss with Bubzkji in Es3tag's place. Later, at the group stages, Astralis would lose to Danish rivals Heroic only to complete a lower bracket run wherein they later claimed redemption against said rivals and went on to defeat Russian rivals Natus Vincere in the grand finals.^{[citation needed]}

2021[]

In April 2021, after more than five years with the team, Astralis's main AWPer Dev1ce left the organization and was signed by Ninjas in Pyjamas. During his tenure with Astralis, Dev1ce had set the record for most MVP medals in Counter-Strike history with 18.^[9]

In July 2021, gla1ve has signed a new three-year contract through the summer of 2024 with Astralis. Later, Astralis have completed the signing of Philip "⁠Lucky⁠" Ewald. Lucky is an 18-year-old AWPer who previously played for Tricked.^[10][11]

Championships[]

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Bold denotes a CSGO Major

Current roster[]

FIFA division[]

Current roster[]

League of Legends division[]

Current roster[]

Rainbow Six Siege division[]

Current roster[]

Company[]

Astralis Group A/S

Type	Public
Traded as	Nasdaq Copenhagen: ASTGRP
Founded	July 31, 2019; 2 years ago (2019-07-31)
Headquarters	Copenhagen, Denmark
Number of employees	32 (2019)
Subsidiaries	Astralis Group Management ApS (100%)

Astralis was originally founded by Danish startup RFRSH Entertainment ApS. It was split off into a wholly owned subsidiary called RFRESH Teams ApS in November 2018.^[13] Due to concerns about conflict of interest with RFRSH-owned tournament series BLAST Pro Series,^[14] RFRSH demerged Astralis In November 2019.^[13] While RFRESH was renamed into Blast ApS in July 2019,^[15] RFRESH Teams ApS renamed into Astralis Group Management ApS,^[13] which became a wholly owned subsidiary of newly established Astralis Group Holding ApS.^[16] In November 2019, Astralis Group became the first esports organization to conduct an initial public offering,^[17] with Astralis Group Holding ApS reforming as Astralis Group A/S.^[16]

Controversy[]

RFRSH Entertainment[]

In 2019, RFRSH Entertainment experienced criticism from the Counter-Strike community over the potential conflict of interest between Astralis and BLAST Pro Series, a tournament organized by RFRSH. RFRSH formerly represented and operated Astralis's strategic and commercial operations until Summer of that year. Astralis skipped several tournaments to attend BLAST Pro Series events. This, paired with the fact that certain teams had to attend a number of BLAST events every year, caused controversy in the community. In July, RFRSH announced to split from Astralis, though some in the community still criticized RFRSH and BLAST.^[14]

FunPlus Phoenix and the signing of es3tag[]

In March 2020, the Chinese organization of FunPlus Phoenix (FPX), was in the process of signing the roster of Heroic, which included es3tag, shortly before the beginning of Flashpoint 1. Astralis signed es3tag which deterred FPX from signing the rest of the Heroic roster.^[4][18] FPX was a founding member of Flashpoint, so the Heroic roster could not continue playing in Flashpoint and had to be replaced by a team of FPX's choosing. FPX originally intended to field the American team of Swole Patrol, but disputes over naming rights led to FPX fielding Bad News Bears instead.^[19] Astralis was criticized for knowingly signing es3tag while he was in the process of being signed by another organization and also for preventing the rest of the Heroic players from playing in Flashpoint and signing with FPX.

References[]

External links[]

• Official website

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