AVANGAR top ECS Season 8 Europe week 1 over forZe

AVANGAR have secured the first week victory of ECS Season 8 after besting FORZE 2-1 in the grand final.

The first week of ECS Season 8 in Europe has drawn to a close as the eight-team tournament reached its conclusion following an all-CIS final which saw AVANGAR pitted against Russian side FORZE in a rematch of the recent BLAST Pro Series Moscow final.

AVANGAR had made their way to the final with victories over Virtus.pro and a fnatic side that had seen the return of Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist and Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim. Meanwhile, FORZE had reached the final stage by taking down Ambush and Japaleno in the previous rounds.

The grand final looked destined for a swift ending as AVANGAR took control of the series with a 16-9 showing on their map pick of Dust2. However, FORZE recomposed going into Inferno, where they grinded out a closely-contested 16-14 map win to force a decider.

As the series headed in the direction of Train, AVANGAR turned their game up a notch, locking down 12 rounds on the CT side in rapid fashion. Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali and his squad swiftly took the remaining four rounds on the offensive half to take a 16-3 map victory, and a 2-1 series win to top week one of ECS Season 8 Europe with $12,500 in winnings.

AVANGAR have now taken a giant step towards securing the first European spot at the ECS Season 8 Finals, which will go to the team that accumulates the most prize money over the course of the first two $25,000 single-elimination online cups. After that, each weekly winner will automatically qualify for the main event.

Week 1 standings:

1. AVANGAR - $12,500
2. FORZE - $7,500
3-4. fnatic - $2,500
3-4. Japaleno - $2,500
5-8. Heretics
5-8. Virtus.pro
5-8. HEROIC
5-8. Ambush