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The grand finals of ESL Polish Championship Spring 2019 finished with a 2-0 win to Aristocracy, who took home the trophy and approximately $21,285 in prize money.
Taking place in Katowice from June 7-9, the event featured the top six Polish teams from the online stage fighting for a share of 180,000 zł (US $47,893) and the title of champions.
Aristocracy and x-kom qualified directly into the semi-finals as a reward for finishing first and second respectively in the group stage. The remaining four teams had to start off their journey in the quarter-finals.
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While Aristocracy topped the group phase with only three defeats from 14 matches, Virtus.pro failed to live up to expectations. They managed to grab a total of 17 points (5-2-7), which was barely enough for them to finish sixth and progress to the next round of the competition.
Virtus.pro entered the playoffs determined to prove their worth, which is exactly what they did. They destroyed AGO Esports in the quarter-finals with two convincing wins, 7-16 on Mirage and 14-16 on Overpass. The semi-finals saw Virtus paired with x-kom, who caused them problems in the group stage. After losing a close first map 14-16, Virtus gave up only a single round on the second and then sealed it with a 16-12 win on Vertigo.
That set up a date with Aristocracy, who defeated PACT 2-0 in the semi-finals.
The grand finals started off on Mirage, where Aristocracy dominated on the CT side to take a 10-5 lead into the second half. They looked even stronger after the half-time switch, taking four more rounds to go 14-5 up.
Then Virtus.pro woke up and started looking like a completely different team. A string of incredible performances gave them a fighting chance as they took the map to 30 rounds. But, despite all of their best efforts, Virtus failed to stop Mikołaj “mouz” Karolewski, who sealed the deal with two kills in the final round to win the map for his team (16-14).
The second map started much like the first, with Aristocracy going 11-4 up by the end of the first half. Learning from their mistakes, they did not let Virtus.pro catch up to them again, but instead finished the job quickly (16-5) to claim a 2-0 series win and the title.
MVP of the finals was Paweł “dycha” Dycha with a 1.45 HLTV rating, closely followed by Karol “rallen” Rodowicz who earned a 1.44 HLTV rating, while mouz almost singlehandedly won the first map for Aristocracy and played a pivotal role in their victory.
