Astralis

Astralis was formed by the former players of the Danish Team SoloMid roster, after the players left the org and were known as ?/Questionmark for a short time. The original Astralis roster consisted of René "cajunb" Borg, Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, Peter "Dupreeh" Rasmussen, Finn "Karrigan" Andersen, Andreas "Xyp9x" Hølsleth, and Danny "zonic" Sørensen as coach. Astralis’ first event was DreamHack Open Leipzig 2016 in January 2016. The team topped their group after defeating their Danish brethren Dignitas and the European-mix team mousesports in best-of-ones, however they exited the event in the semi-final losing 0–2 to Luminosity Gaming. Their next LAN was Global eSports Cup where they topped their group once again, this time with best-of-three wins over Method and G2 Esports. They would go on to lose the semi-final vs their rivals from the previous year, Team EnVyUs 1-2 and then defeat CLG in the third-place decider, only losing seven rounds over two maps. ESL Expo Barcelona was up next which featured an unusual format where each team had three lives and a map loss would mean a life lost. Astralis won five maps against G2 Esports, x6tence, Team EnVyUs and Dignitas. Astralis narrowly lost a life to G2 and played two close games vs Fnatic in the faux-final as the only two teams left.

IEM Katowice was next and Astralis would once again top their group and go straight to the semi-final with best-of-one wins over Team EnVyUs, Virtus.Pro, E-Frag, FaZe Clan and Tempo Storm. Astralis were set to play the last match of the day vs Fnatic, but due to delays, this didn't start until midnight and finally finished at 3am with Astralis losing 1–2.

Astralis were expected to go far in MLG Columbus, the eighth CS:GO Major following their 2nd-place finish to Natus Vincere at Counter Pit League Season 2. The event started well as Astralis beat Gambit and CLG to top their group but were rewarded by being drawn against Fnatic in the Quarterfinals, the favourites to win the whole event after winning their previous six events in a row. Things did not go well for the Swedes though, as Astralis won in two maps, 16–10 on Overpass and 16–5 on Fnatic's map pick, Cache due to a standout performance from Dupreeh. Astralis went on to face Navi in the semi-final where they narrowly lost Inferno 14-16 and were outclassed on Dust II thanks to stellar performances from Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev and Egor "Flamie" Vasilev.

Over the next few events Astralis did not live up to their reputation of cleaning up in groups and advancing comfortably to playoffs. Their first group stage exit in six months occurred at DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016, where they won the opener vs Lounge Gaming but were upset by their Danish counterparts, Dignitas 9–16 on their home map Overpass. Astralis drew the hometown heroes, Ninjas in Pyjamas in the decider match and lost 1–2 with poor performances from dupreeh and IGL Finn "karrigan" Andersen. NiP would go on to win the event in front of a roaring Swedish crowd. A month later, the team attended ESL Pro League S3 Finals in England. This time they lost to the North American mix of OpTic Gaming in a best-of-one 7-16 and came up against the Columbus Major champions, Luminosity. They fought a tough best-of-three, winning the first map and narrowly lost the remaining two despite Device having a K-D of 81–50. Luminosity went on to win this event in a grueling best-of-five vs G2. Following this defeat Astralis decided to swap cajunb for Dignitas’ Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjaerbye who was headhunted by Astralis’ coach, zonic whom he knew from his time coaching him during 2015.

With a month of practice Astralis attended DreamHack Summer 2016, and this time things were looking up as they topped their group, comfortably defeating the Finnish ENCE eSports and Danish SK Gaming. An all too familiar story occurred in playoffs where they faced NiP in the semi-finals and once again fought a strong best-of-three but ultimately lost 1–2, nearly winning on Cobblestone, Astralis’ perma-ban map. Astralis played their ELEAGUE Season 1 group in June, topping their group winning 5 out of 6 maps vs NRG, CLG and SK Gaming with the help of zonic standing in for IGL karrigan who arrived late to the event. They then won best-of-threes vs NRG and CLG. At the ECS Season 1 Finals, Astralis once again uncharacteristically lost to a North American team, this time being Team SoloMid led by Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen. They went on to face Cloud9 in the decider match and were beaten 0–2.

Astralis went into ESL One Cologne 2016, the second CS:GO Major of the year with a stand-in for Kjaerbye in the form of Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander. This was because Kjaerbye played and won the European Minor with Dignitas and Valve rules dictated he had to sit the event out. In Germany, Astralis defeated their Danish rivals Dignitas in the event opener but were destroyed by the CIS Gambit Gaming team in the winner's best-of-one 6-16. Tragedy struck after this loss with dupreeh getting appendicitis and resulted in him watching the remainder of the event from hospital. Coach zonic rose to the challenge despite having not played the game since ELEAGUE a month prior and Astralis scraped through to the playoffs besting Dignitas 2–1. Astralis were drawn vs the Polish legends Virtus.pro in the quarterfinals, however they were unable to best them despite a strong performance from device going 68–43 in K-D and taking the Poles to overtime on both maps.

After the Major Astralis returned to Atlanta to attend the ELEAGUE playoffs but lost to mousesports 0–2 in the quarterfinals. Shortly after they attended Power-LAN, a small Danish event. They advanced to the semi-finals as expected but lost to Heroic 1–2, led by their Major stand-in gla1ve. Less than two weeks later Heroic bested Astralis again, this time in the opener at StarLadder StarSeries Season 2 16–13 on Train. Astralis were pitted vs Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev's Navi in the elimination match and won in overtime 19–17. Astralis won vs the Chinese TyLoo 2–1 to advance to the quarterfinals but once again lost to NiP 1–2.

In October Astralis attended ESL New York 2016 featuring an 8 team Swiss format in which they grinded past G2 Esports 16-13 but didn't win another map against opponents SK Gaming (former Luminosity), Fnatic and OpTic Gaming. A week later they bombed out in the round of 12 at WESG 2016 European Finals losing 1–2 to GODSENT with the two maps they lost being 14–16. A breakdown in the team occurred and Astralis decided it was time for Karrigan to go, opting for gla1ve instead. Karrigan had led the core players since December 2014 to five tournament wins in 2015 but none since forming Astralis.

Astralis returned with best-of-one victories against ALTERNATE aTTaX and SK Gaming. A week later they topped their six-team group at IEM Oakland 2016 with wins vs Team Liquid, Natus Vincere, Immortals and TyLoo with the only loss vs G2 Esports. This netted them a semi-final spot and they lost 0–2 to SK Gaming 14-16 and 12-16 where Device had an uncharacteristically poor showing. The team returned to Atlanta for the ELEAGUE playoffs and reached the final, triumphing over Ninjas in Pyjamas 2–1 with Kjaerbye posting a 1.56 HLTV rating, beating SK 2–0 with a stellar performance by Xyp9x. Astralis were expected to win the final vs OpTic Gaming after defeating the Brazilian favourites in the semi-final and OpTic causing upsets on the other side of the bracket. The Danes looked like they were on their way to do this with a 16–9 win on Train but lost the next two maps 6-16 and 11–16 with Keith "NAF" Markovic putting up an incredible 78-45 K-D.

Astralis would get revenge against the North American side a week later at the ECS Season 2 Finals in Anaheim winning their first match of the group 16–7, followed by a 16-3 trouncing over FaZe Clan with Xyp9x going 25–5 against the European team. In the semi-final Astralis bested SK Gaming 2–0 with device achieving a 46-19 K-D over 45 rounds. OpTic met them in the final but this time the Danish side were too hot for them to handle and Astralis obtained their first trophy since they formed twelve months prior.

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.

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 ENCE 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]

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.

Bold denotes a CSGO Major

Bold denotes a CSGO Major

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.[10]

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][15] 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.[16] 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.