Gamers8 impressions (CS:GO)

Gamers8 was a $1 million CS:GO tournament with an unusual format, one that we generally see in traditional sports. There was no group stage and the playoffs consisted of a single-elimination competition.

The winner had to do one thing: win four consecutive best-of-three series. The team that  managed to accomplish this task was Team Vitality. Nobody was surprised, given their result at the recent Paris Major. What was far more surprising was ENCE’s run.

The Finnish team got to the Grand Final and won the first map before getting crushed by Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and his squad. This excellent result came after two other Grand Finals. One at ESL Challenger Katowice 2023 and one at IEM Cologne 2023. Not to mention the fact that ENCE also won IEM Dallas 2023 in June.

This scenario is very unusual but it seems that the addition of Guy “NertZ” Iluz has had a positive effect on the team’s morale and capabilities. Not to mention the fact that Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia is an absolute beast.

ENCE look destined to become one of the best teams in CS:GO. Right now, they’re ranked 4^th globally but they might climb even higher.

Beat @ENCE 2-1 to win #Gamers8 Grand-final super happy and proud of the team.#VforVictory

— Shahar Shushan (@flameZcsgo) August 20, 2023

Gamers8 matches and results

Gamers8 featured a lot of great matches. Natus Vincere defeated FURIA Esports in the round of 16 after losing the first map. G2 Esports achieved a similar result against 9INE. Then we had the first map between ENCE and Heroic, which ended with a 20-22 score in favor of ENCE.

Perhaps the most anticipated match of the tournament was the one between ZywOo and Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. But unfortunately for Natus Vincere and the viewers, the battle was extremely one-sided: 2-16 on Mirage and 11-16 on Nuke.

The best fragger on Na’Vi’s roster was Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen, who is also the IGL! That’s how bad Na’Vi’s game was. Or perhaps, Vitality were simply too good.

In the semifinals, we had another great match to watch, between G2 and Vitality. Both teams played really well and the fight was decided on the third map, Mirage. Vitality won after a round of overtime.

In the Grand Final, Vitality needed an entire map to get used to ENCE’s playstyle but once they were warmed up, nobody could stop ZywOo. He finished the match with a KD score of 66-44 and a rating 2.0 of 1.34. SunPayus was also in great shape (62-45) but the rest of his team couldn’t help him enough.

Header: ESL, Saudi Esports Federation