The inaugural Intel Grand Slam<\/strong> – a monumental initiative used to award the most dominant team in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive<\/strong> – has come to a close.<\/span><\/p>\n

RFRSH Entertainment-owned team Astralis<\/strong>, made up of entirely Danish players, is the first team to claim the Intel Grand Slam title and prize winnings.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Announced on June 12th, 2017<\/a>, Intel and ESL revealed the initiative at E3 as a way to raise the stakes of the competitive circuit in CS:GO and rewarding the first team to display a certain level of dominance.<\/span><\/p>\n

John Bonini, Vice President and General Manager of VR, Gaming and Esports Group at Intel<\/strong> discussed the victory: \u201cCongratulations to Astralis, who have thrilled the world with a dominant run to become the first team to complete the Intel Grand Slam. The Intel Grand Slam is the toughest win in all of CS:GO, and we look forward to many more triumphs in the future.”<\/span><\/p>\n

To win the Intel Grand Slam and claim the $1,000,000 (\u00a3789,610), a team had to win four championships at ESL and DreamHack Masters tournaments within 10 events. The four victories for Astralis were at DreamHack Masters Marseille, CS:GO Pro League Season 7 finals in Dallas, IEM Chicago, and the CS:GO Pro League Season 8 finals in Odense.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michal Blicharz, Vice President of Pro Gaming at ESL<\/strong> added: \u201cCompleting the Intel Grand Slam is one of the most difficult feats in all of esports because of how insanely competitive CS:GO is. What Astralis have done is nothing short of historic. This was truly the era of Astralis.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Intel Grand Slam has now reset, starting all over again at the next CS:GO Major: IEM Katowice. This event starts in February 2019, giving teams a small break after a busy year of competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Esports Insider says: If there was any doubt that Astralis was the team to beat in CS:GO throughout the year, then this key achievement has cemented it. The Intel Grand Slam displays a great commitment to esports from both ESL and Intel, and it’s exciting to see it return for a second iteration.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The inaugural Intel Grand Slam – a monumental initiative used to award the most dominant team in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – has come to a close. RFRSH Entertainment-owned team Astralis, made up of entirely Danish players, is the first team to claim the Intel Grand Slam title and prize winnings. Announced on June 12th, 2017, … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":21555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","esi_template":"default","excluded":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,239,51,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-counter-strike","category-europe","category-events-calendar-news","category-esports-titles"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n