Intel Grand Slam race heats up as Gambit secure second title

13-6-2021 21:32

The Russian squad tied Astralis and Natus Vincere in the competition for the $1,000,000 prize.

Gambit have become a genuine contender to win Intel Grand Slam Season 3 after a flawless performance in the playoffs of IEM Summer, where they brushed aside Evil Geniuses, G2, and OG without losing a map in order to be crowned champions.

With their second ESL Pro Tour trophy from the last four events held by ESL and DreamHack, Gambit have equalled the tally of Natus Vincere and Astralis and need just two more titles to grab the grand prize.

Hobbit is looking to add an Intel Grand Slam win to his resume

Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov and co. are in a more favorable position than their rivals, though, as they have six events left to complete their Grand Slam, in comparison to four for Natus Vincere and just two for Astralis. Both CIS sides have already won a Masters Championship event (IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne), which allows them to complete the "short" Intel Grand Slam with four titles. The $1,000,000 prize can also be won without a Master Championship, but it requires winning six "regular" Pro Tour events.

Astralis needs to win the upcoming Masters Champions event, IEM Cologne, as well as the first event after the tournament break, ESL Pro League S14, in order to complete their Intel Grand Slam before the IEM Beijing victory will be removed from contention - as only the last 10 tournaments played are taken into account.

HEROIC is the fourth team in the running, having won ESL Pro League Season 13, while MOUZ' addition to the list is only technical, as the international squad would have to bring back one of Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen, Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong, or Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker and win the next three ESL Pro Tour events in a row in order to build on their ESL Pro League S10 success and win the Grand Slam.

The Intel Grand Slam Season 3 running currently looks as follows:

Gambit - 2 wins (1 Masters), 6 remaining chances
Natus Vincere - 2 wins (1 Masters), 4 remaining chances
Astralis - 2 wins (0 Masters), 2 remaining chances
HEROIC - 1 win (0 Masters), 7 remaining chances
MOUZ * - 1 win (0 Masters), 3 remaining chances

* mousesports no longer have the 3-man core from the EPL S10 win

Intel Grand Slam Season 3 was put on hold in May of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic fragmented the CS:GO circuit into regionalized tournaments, but restarted at the end of the year with IEM Global Challenge being the first online event to be considered for the competition.

Below, you can find all of the events that are a part of the current season, including those whose results already expired and those set to take place before the end of the year:

IEM Chicago 2019 - Liquid
ESL One New York 2019 - Evil Geniuses
DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019 - fnatic
IEM Beijing 2019 - Astralis
ESL Pro League S10 Finals - MOUZ
IEM Katowice 2020 * - Natus Vincere
IEM Global Challenge 2020 - Astralis
IEM Katowice 2021 * - Gambit
ESL Pro League S13 - HEROIC
DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 - Natus Vincere
IEM Summer 2021 - Gambit
IEM Cologne 2021 - July 6-18
ESL Pro League Season 14 - August 16 - September 12
IEM Fall - September 28 - October 10
IEM Winter - Dec 2 - 12

* Represents a Masters Championship Event

Nice. Unfortunately for them, LAN will be back soon. RIP Gambit :(

2021-06-13 21:33

17 replies

ez grand slam for Gambit

1 reply

2021-06-13 23:13

they will win all 6 and get 2 grand slams

2021-06-13 21:40

4 replies

Mr delusional?

2021-06-13 22:08

3 replies

more like mr reality

2021-06-13 23:09

2 replies

What ever you are on right now, it’s obviusly bad for Your brain

2021-06-13 23:31

What kind of crack are u smokin'?

2021-06-14 00:22

+++ bro((()))()

2021-06-14 02:50

2021-06-14 08:28

There is no such a big difference between online and lan

2021-06-14 09:52

6 replies

Kappa

2021-06-14 20:04

??? Hrtctdrtd

2021-06-14 20:58

the difference is that gambit is constantly gambling and being rigth, allmost like they have information they couldnt have, hmm. somehow i think this wont happen on lan

2021-06-15 10:18

It is called "preparation for tge opponent" and "luck", don't look for conspiracies when there aren't any

2021-06-15 10:39

there is no sutch thing as being "constantly"(my original comment) lucky. you can see them play against top teams like astralis, and allways guessing rigth, astralis invented analysing opponents every secound of every game they ever played. they forced every other team to play unpredictably. so i dont buy that gambit are just watching demos and being like ah yeah, they do this every time lets exploit it. allso when you watch the situvations they gamble in they are shift walking out aps the 1 round astralis plays for brackets control with nobody watching aps, they do this before any team mates see anything brackets. and then they flash for peeking short from aps, but no flash for the initial pit peek or site peek. allso when they are hunting people they allways guess rigth.

2021-06-15 15:36

If they weren't playing fair, they would have stopped doing it after the akuma hype, but they didn't

2021-06-15 15:58

There's really no difference. They said this shit back in 2012-2013 and before. Stay mad because your team got swept like your moms kitchen floor.

2021-06-14 13:19

nice!

2021-06-13 21:32

Hype

im ngl i dont know what this means

It means that Navi/Gambit/Astralis need 2more win in ESL sponsored events to get the 1M Intel Grand Slam prize

2021-06-13 21:51

Basically means you're the best team in the world, last winners were Astralis and Liquid won the first one you also get 1.000.000$ for winning it

You're right, except Astralis won the first, then Liquid.

2021-06-13 23:01

ah ok thanks

Astralis won the first Grand Slam tho

2021-06-14 02:09

I just flipped the two wins by accident

2021-06-15 17:01

easy 4 events for gambit LUL #goGAMB

2021-06-13 21:34

why are they giving grand slam for online tourneys? kinda ruins the prestige of having one

12 replies

2021-06-13 21:36

Why does it ruin the prestige? Also they are still running the tournaments that make up the grand slam. Grand slam is only about winning X amount ESL tournaments out of the last 10 you played. The same tournaments are happening so why would the grand slam not happen. Also it literally exists to get teams to play more ESL events. ESL want good teams in their events even though they are all online.

2021-06-14 02:33

if gambit win 4 online events to win 1 mill its much less important and much less prestigious than astralis or liquid winning it

2021-06-14 02:35

It would of been ridiculous if they didn't give it this year imo.

2021-06-14 10:22

#78

2021-06-14 13:55

I understand that. My viewpoint is that why are teams/players being punished for something out of their control? Secondly lowering total prize money for the year also lowers player motivation which in turn makes a lesser quality product for us to view.

2021-06-14 15:39

I guess that is true, its just a weird situation

2021-06-14 15:40

not doing this would only hurt the cs scene more

2021-06-14 11:32

my point was more specifically that it ruins the prestige of the grand slam since 4 online events < what liquid or astralis did also consider how some pros value a grand slam over a major because they think its harder to win a grand slam and then come back to me and say giving it out to a team that won 4 online events doesnt ruin the prestige

The 'health' of the scene is more important than the prestige of a title, no? With how everyone has/had motivation issues, removing the grand slam for online would've just caused more players to retire/go to Valorant

2021-06-14 16:49

#82

User with a brain! +1 friend.

what if Navi or gambit will win 2 master level events

2021-06-13 21:35

7 replies

nothing, they need to score just 4 events now

2021-06-13 21:37

thx. but I was really confused ngl

2021-06-13 21:38

5 replies

If you win masters event, you'll need 4 wins to win grand slam, otherwise you'll need 6 events

2021-06-13 21:39

but why Astralis, having won no masters event, have two chances, when Navi and Gambit, having won at least one, have to win 4? I just don't get it

2021-06-14 01:09

It means that if they dont win in this 2 chances, the iem beijing trophy will not count anymore

2021-06-14 03:30

It means that if Astralis don't win next 2 events, they'll be out of race completely or lose 1 win (I don't for sure, but remaining chances =/= number of needed trophies, it's literally an amount of remaining chances to win events) Both NaVi and Gambit need to win 2 more events, but NaVi have 4 chances to do it, Gambit - 6

2021-06-14 12:12

i get it now, ty men)

2021-06-14 17:31

i read for "free" not for the

online ((((

cologne ))))

yeah, but still not full lan(without viewers)

2021-06-13 22:38

I dont think any will win tbh

2021-06-13 21:47

ez for sh1ro

2021-06-13 21:57

I didnt understand what changes with short and long win please explain

2021-06-13 22:01

So basically you have to win one of cologne or Katowice + 3 more tournaments to win grand slam If you don't win cologne or kato you would need to win 6

2021-06-13 23:14

thanks

2021-06-15 00:37

Short win is when you win one of the big EPT championships- Katowice or Cologne- You will then only need to win 3 more EPT tournaments, if you don't win Kato or Cologne you need 6 EPT tournament wins.

2021-06-14 16:21

2021-06-15 00:38

so if gambit wins iem fall and iem winter they win the grand slam?

2021-06-13 22:06

Yes

2021-06-13 22:22

If Navi or Astralis achieve the required tally first, then they would take it before Gambit. For example, if Astralis or Navi win IEM Cologne and EPL-14, that team would win Grand Slam.

2021-06-14 05:02

unfortunately for them only LAN events are left

2021-06-13 22:10

+1 RIP Gambit

2021-06-13 22:23

2021-06-13 22:36

We'll see about that. They've been saying for nearly a year that lan will return with the next event but yet to be seen

2021-06-14 10:23

literally no one has been saying that. they all were hinting that MAYBE at/after summer, they will try to make one or more lans

2021-06-15 09:01

Wasn't ESL pro league season 12 last year meant to be the return to lan? Yeah sure 'literally no one has been saying that' dexerto.com/csgo/esl-pro-league-season-1..

2021-06-15 11:07

Gl hf

2021-06-13 22:18

EZ4NAVI

2021-06-18 09:43

LET'S GO NAV1

2021-06-13 22:39

Gambit taking it easy

2021-06-13 23:12

EZ4MOUZ

2021-06-13 23:28

Navi skipping this event lost them one chance already

2021-06-13 23:34

Gl teams))

2021-06-13 23:36

Astralis comeback ???

let's just say astralis aren't winning anything again in awhile

2021-06-14 01:31

I'm shocked they are counting these online results towards a grand slam I had no idea. I have nothing against Gambit I think they are a cool team and hopefully Cologne is in fact a LAN tournament and we don't have to discuss this anymore but this just doesn't seem as legit to me. It's not even Gambits fault obviously they are playing in the now there's nothing they can do. But if they do win there will 100% be a lot of fans putting asterisks on it because of two online results. Including myself honestly.

2021-06-14 04:44

They initially did not, but when the online era continued beyond the Fall Major schedule of 2020, they decided to put it back from IEM Global Challenge 2020 (which Astralis won). However, the remaining events of ESL Pro Tour are scheduled on LAN, although without crowd.

2021-06-14 05:34

Counting these online events towards the qualification of the Intel Grand Slam doesn't makes any sense to me. It ruins all the prestige of winning a Grand Slam.

2021-06-14 08:34

8 replies

it does not

2021-06-14 11:01

Dude like thirty coaches were cheating a year ago including the coach of one of these teams (heroic). Of course it ruins the prestige. Not just because it's online but because of issues like that have absolutely plagued CSGO in particular in the online era. In fact the CSGO professional community has shown itself to be the least scrupulous of basically any league or esport out there when taken online. It's kind of a shame that CoD pros who look really stupid when they are up on stage yelling at each other can conduct themselves better as a group online.

2021-06-14 19:46

Absolutely yes!

2021-06-15 07:14

nah

2021-06-15 08:16

Good argument? There's a bunch of people saying the same thing I am already so you are actually wrong. I'm not trying to be a dick though. Gambit is a great team so is heroic but there's going to be an asterisk here if either one of them wins. Now if they continue to be dominant and go on a Liquid type 5 LAN streak that's a different story. And it might well happen for the Gambit guys. Shiro and Axile are stars.

2021-06-15 09:18

chad one word response vs virgin wall of text response

2021-06-15 09:28

+1 king

2021-06-15 09:32

No chance for vacbit in lan sorry

2021-06-14 12:46

So winning 3 out of the last 10 tournaments = a grand slam?

2021-06-14 13:13

6 / 10. Unless you won one of Katowice/Cologne, then only need 4 i believe

2021-06-15 09:03

yey online....... half the teams are cheating rn

nt Gambit but lan is back

2021-06-14 16:51

That's really competitive, interesting who will win it. GL to all teams.

2021-06-14 16:58

Please CS don't let a random onliner team win an intel grand slam... LAN come back soon please!

2021-06-14 18:50

Don't worry NaVi will take care of these onliners.

2021-06-18 09:42

if gambit win IEM cologne on LAN so many gambit haters will cry way too much

2021-06-15 00:43

Not true After gambit won katowice all this 13yo gambit haters were saying about team of the one tournament After gambit was playing in EPL finals they were saying about onliners So even if gambit will win 1st lan haters will cry about luck or whatsever

2021-06-15 01:46