ALM Partners is a CS2 champion!

After a tight final, it’s easy for the winners to smile

17.5. Cave Entertainment’s party space in Espoo was filled with CS players and the public, when Kanaliiga’s third CS2 season ended with the traditional LAN final. Technical challenges delayed the start of the matches, but when the Masters final began, the atmosphere intensified and the audience even got to roaring at times. JIS Automation went into the final match as a great favorite - after all, the JIS team had cleared its way to the finals directly through the upper bracket and dominated the Masters series level throughout the regular season. In the shadow of the statistics, the teams that played through the lower bracket have often been more successful in the LAN finals - perhaps the last welding to the team game is formed in those last games.

Inferno was played as the first map, and if the mood in the audience wasn’t right at the beginning of the game, it eventually rose when the match went from a 12-12 situation to the next rounds. ALM Partners finally won the continuation in style 16-12, after which we got to enjoy the atmosphere of Mirage.

JIS Automation showed its skills and finally took Mirage to a crushing score of 13-2- ALM Partners couldn’t catch the map at all and the audience was in disbelief as to whether ALM’s game that looked good before had completely melted or whether this was already saved for the last map. However, there was no way to talk about throwing the map - JIS Automation simply did not give the ALM team any chance.

I think the second map was reset pretty quickly, we knew that Mirre was our weakness, so we didn’t take any stress from it even though we were overrun in it. After Inff’s OT win, we knew that we were capable of winning the final and went home with a clean slate to get a win from Ancient. It was wonderful to play in Lan alongside friends when the comss and gameplay worked well. - willey, captain at ALM Partners

Ancient was the decider of the match and the balance of the map based on the season tilted slightly more in the direction of ALM Partners: JIS Automation had played the map clearly less during the season, winning only 1/3 of the maps played. Even ALM Partners didn’t have any crunch readings on the winning account from the map: the winning percentage was 50% in six games.

The map started with great JIS control - after 9 laps JIS led 7-2. However, ALM Partners tightened the lead by winning the next five rounds in a row. The final map was played in alternating rounds, until we ended up in the extra rounds again. ALM Partners still had a chance to take the match in regular time, but JIS held their nerve and forced the map to overtime with strong performances.

The playoffs started with fast exchanges, but after the third round, ALM Partners got hold of Ancient and fought their way to the championship. The victory did not come for free - in the finals, due to Mirage’s overrun, JIS Automation was even better in the laps, taking the lap wins 38-34.

“Playing as a team has always been our strength and in the end it decided the victory. We came back from a couple of tight spots and in the buying rounds we succeeded better than the opponent. These had a positive effect on the feeling and throughout Inferno and Ancient I felt that we could win the maps and the championship. The victory celebration continued until three in the morning and the office also celebrated the victory with sparkling wine.” - willy

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