ENCE won the Elisa Masters Espoo 2024 tournament after an impressive 3-1 win over Heroic, motivated by gla1ve, who is winning his first LAN win since the BLAST Pro Series Global Final 2019. For those who have been familiar with gla1ve, he was previously with Astralis, and it may sound strange for those who didn’t keep up with him to see him winning Counter-Strike tournaments in front of a big crowd but not with Astralis.
While it is not an attempt to discredit the quality of Heroics, it is important for it to be said that ENCE has been subpar this year, but substituting the remaining two members of the former 9INE core roster proved to be worth it, although it meant ENCE looked different at the Elisa Masters Espoo 2024.
Kylar and Goofy were replaced with talented youngsters xKacpersky and Neityu, and straightforwardly, it has proved to be a good move with a more promising future in the offing for ENCE. They had to grind for the win as ENCE had to come from one map down to win the Grand Final 3:1.
ENCE blew an 11:2 lead on Vertigo to go overtime in a nervy performance on map three. Nevertheless, they recovered and made Map Four a formality and won a trophy on their first attempt.
In the end, gla1ve rolled back the years to 2018 as he topfragged the series with 82 kills, including 39 on Vertigo to win the MVP. His performance was supported by great showings from xKacpersky and sdy,
Irrespective of the general feelings surrounding the status of the Elisa Masters Espoo as a prestigious CS2 tournament on the calendar or otherwise, ENCE would take it nevertheless after their Semi-Final finish at IEM Rio 2024.
Up next is the Thunderpick World Championship 2024 before the Major RMR.
