The Eleague Counter-Strike Major tournament in Boston, Massachusetts finally came to a dramatic conclusion, as grand champions Cloud 9 from North America had to fight with everything that they had to win.
The North American team came in to the finals as the popular underdogs, having been 0-2 in the early stages of the tournament, only to climb back up the rankings and defeating heavily favored teams such as SK Gaming along the way. They eventually faced the very popular European team FaZe clan, who, with a seven game winning streak, were expected to take the championship.
The final clash required all the wit and grit from both teams' entire roster. The first round saw FaZe come from behind in the first round with a desperation bomb defuse to steal the victory.
The second game saw the favor shift for Cloud 9 once again, but unlike the first round, the team was aware that FaZe can snatch the victory from them once again. FaZe tried to sneak their way back to an even score but Cloud 9 did not allow them to steal another one, taking the series to the third and final map.
The final map of the series was Inferno, where Cloud 9 had a 5-1 lead early in the round, but found themselves down 15-11. The "home team" managed to claw their way back to 15-13, and team member Stewie2k make crucial kills with an AWP from the B bombsite to the first overtime.
Cloud 9 managed to ride their momentum from the closing minutes of the third round by going up 18-16 in the first half of overtime, but it was FaZe's Guardian that played the hero this time around, taking out two of Cloud 9's players before the clock ran out, forcing the game to a second overtime.
Guardian attempted the same tactic in the final round, using an AWP from the back, but was too far back to reclaim the lead when Stewie2k and Skadoodle rallied to come from behind, finishing the third round with a score of 22 to 19 and winning the championship.
The team bagged a huge sum of $500,000 in prize money for their efforts, as well as having the distinction of becoming the first North American team to win a CS: GO major tournament.
