The Frenchmen of LDLC were crowned as the champions of not only the first international event of the year, but also the first CS:GO tournament organized by Major League Gaming. Team LDLC defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 in their DreamHack Winter 2014 rematch.

Team LDLC's road to the championship round of MLG X-Games Aspen 2015 began with an unfortunate loss against the North American team Counter Logic Gaming 14-16 on Dust II.

The French team's next challenge was none other than the Swedish team Fnatic on Inferno, where LDLC starting on the defensive side managed to take down the Swedes in a persistent fashion ending up with a 16-9 victory.

The final match in the group stage for the Frenchmen was versus Team Liquid, who replaced ex-iBUYPOWER only two days prior the event. LDLC topped Group B with an easy 16-6 victory on Dust II over the North American team.

Following the next day, Team LDLC faced the Danes of Team Dignitas in the playoffs. The first map was Dust II, where the French team started as CT and managed to secure twelve rounds during the first half, which is expected against a CT side relying team such as Team Dignitas. The Danish team managed to earn the early rounds of the second half, but were unable to stop the aggressiveness of LDLC, eventually ending up 16-10 in favor of the Frenchmen.

The second map was Inferno, a map which LDLC is known to be extremely dangerous on. Despite Team Dignitas' advantage to start on the heavily favored defensive side, LDLC secured whooping seven rounds against the odds. The situation looked disappointing for the Danish team, but surprisingly Team Dignitas' new leader Finn 'karrigan' Andersen was able to turn the tide, as his offensive calls were crucial for Team Dignitas' success as T. Team LDLC shockingly lost 14-16 in the end and thus forced a third and deciding map.

The North American favorite Cache was next on the line, where the Danes once again were assigned on the favored CT side. Unfortunately for them, LDLC completely devastated them by scoring total of eleven rounds on the weaker side. Team Dignitas managed to win only one round during the second half, until LDLC to eventually secure the needed five rounds to win the game with 16-5 end result. Team LDLC moved forward to the final of the tournament with 2-1 win over Team Dignitas.

Grand final: Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. LDLC

Dust II was chosen by Ninjas in Pyjamas for the opening match of the grand final. Team LDLC began as CT and managed to infiltrate bombsite B during the pistol round, thanks to Vincent 'Happy' Cervoni scoring three frags. Ninjas in Pyjamas managed to get back the bombsite, but delayed to defuse the bomb too much and lost the all important pistol round. The Swedish team however quickly overwhelmed bombsite A and won the followed economic round, striking down LDLC's early advantage. With Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund leading the Ninjas in the third round, the Swedish team took the lead, but unluckily not for long. Fabien 'kioShiMa' Fiey's three kills during LDLC's mix buy fourth round and former Titan eSports' player Edouard 'SmithZz' Dubourdeaux's one-on-one clutch versus GeT_RiGhT quickly scored four rounds in a row in favor of the Frenchmen. Ninjas in Pyjamas returned in the game during the eight round and tied LDLC with four rounds won in a row. LDLC's in-game leader Happy came up with another three important kills to win the twelfth round. Adam 'friberg' Friberg and Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg boosted Ninjas in Pyjamas forward with couple of strong moments. The Swedish team's double AWP stack was the biggest reason why the Ninjas managed to secure lead for the second half. Richard 'Xizt' Landström won the last round of the first half for the Ninjas and gave them total of nine rounds to work with.

The pistol round of the second half went flawlessly to the Swedes, thanks to Xizt and the former SK Gaming player Mikail 'Maikelele' Bill. Unfortunately for NiP, the French team's outstanding pistol buys completely shut down the momentum of the Swedes. LDLC and particularly Nathan 'NBK' Schmitt continued to closely outmatch Ninjas in Pyjamas during the couple next rounds. NiP scored one more round, before going down to LDLC.

Despite LDLC's struggles on Inferno this event, the team still decided to go for it. NiP starting on CT gained map control and picked up the pistol round of the second map, mostly thanks to friberg's play. LDLC's infamous economic strategies unfortunately failed this time, thus leaving NiP to take the followed two rounds as well. The first gun round favored the Swedish team in the beginning, as Maikelele was able to take down three enemies, but in the end the round went to LDLC in a one-on-one situation clutched by Richard 'shox' Papillon against friberg. Team LDLC's streak continued to round eight, where friberg and Maikelele managed to retake the site and defuse the bomb. Ninjas in Pyjamas' up and down outcomes won them the last round of the first half and overall nine rounds on the heavily favored side.

Team LDLC kicked off extremely well during the second half, as the French team managed to not only score the pistol round and the followed two, but also won the crucial first gun round to take the lead. But the enormous experience of GeT_RiGhT greatly payed off, as he managed to clutch an insane one-on-three situation across bombsite A. Furthermore friberg's excellent individual performance and f0rest's ability to constantly surprise his opponents managed to win four rounds in a row. Several round exchanges between the two teams appeared in-between the couple last rounds. Maikelele's aggressive AWP play opened bombsite B for NiP during the twenty-eight round and scored map point. Fortunately the Frenchmen managed to return and force overtime, which still went to the Swedish team.

The third, deciding and final map was the ridiculous Cobblestone, randomly selected by the system, which has been avoided during the entire event for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, NBK and his teammates rushed CT spawn and received the early advantage of the pistol round. Ninjas in Pyjamas down by three rounds managed to win the first gun round. Five rounds in a row after that went to Faruk 'pita' Pita's squad. Team LDLC had couple of uprising moments and overall secured two more rounds to go. NiP's friberg, who has been performing very well during MLG, won the last round of the first half.

The offensive side was confusing for Ninjas in Pyjamas, as LDLC destroyed them easily, taking the pistol round, winning the first gun round and overall winning all the needed eleven rounds in a row to be crowned as the champions.



The final standings of MLG X-Games Aspen 2015 are the following:



Congratulations to LDLC for winning MLG X-Games Aspen 2015.

Stay tuned to SK Gaming for more events. (Photo courtesy of fragbite.se)