ENCE are the Elisa Masters Espoo 2024 champions on home soil after completing their fairytale run with a 3-1 victory over HEROIC in the final.
Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander's squad were debuting their new-look youthful roster in Espoo and entered as the second-lowest seed with just five days of practice.
ENCE complete a fairytale run and beat Heroic 3-1 in the grand final!
It is an incredible achievement for the Finnish org, to lift the trophy on home soil, just days after making changes to its CS2 roster.
The grand final even started bad for ENCE. They conceded their own opening map pick of Ancient 10-13 and had to fight back immediately. And they did.
A whopping 10-round half on their CT side of Nuke secured them Heroics first map choice 13-7.
Their new addition, 19-year-old Ryan "Neityu" Aubry, carried them to tie up the grand final.
French excellence pic.twitter.com/Kzrpex4ykD
— ENCE (@ENCE) October 20, 2024
Triple overtime on Vertigo
The best map of the series surprisingly happened on Vertigo. ENCE also started 10-2, but then fell apart. They only just made it into OT.
Then it was time for former Natus Vincere star Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev to take over. He produced this insane ace:
INSANE @somedieyoungCS pic.twitter.com/YeBjz7eViB
— ENCE (@ENCE) October 20, 2024
ENCE clinched the map and took a 2-1 series lead by 22-19. The Finnish crowd was going wild, pure spectacle.
CINEMA THROUGH AND THROUGH ENCE 22-19 H E R O I C pic.twitter.com/qkrTDrwRwu
— ENCE (@ENCE) October 20, 2024
Dagger on Dust 2
HEROICs hope of a deciding fifth map fell short. Once again, it was a strong CT-side for the gla1ve-lead squad.
As HEROIC started to mount a comeback, Paavo "podi" Heiskanen slammed their hopes with this double-kill:
HELLO THERE pic.twitter.com/FzqbCANWgs
— ENCE (@ENCE) October 20, 2024
ENCE closed the deal by 13-8, winning Elisa Masters Espoo 2024 on home soil and ending a 17-month trophyless drought.
THE TROPHY STAYS IN FINLAND WE ARE YOUR ELISA MASTERS 2024 CHAMPIONS pic.twitter.com/szRZDYMJiu
— ENCE (@ENCE) October 20, 2024
All the young talent on the ENCE side showed up, being guided through by their veteran leader in gla1ve, who himself won his first LAN trophy in almost 5 years!
The IEM Rio semi-finalists on the other side, meanwhile, struggled. Rasmus "sjuush" Beck had a disastrous Vertigo showing on the B bomb-site, René "TeSeS" Madsen managed 25 kills on that T side but had little impact elsewhere, and their AWP Abdul "degster" Gasanov's whiffs on Dust2 turned out super costly, as podi owned him throughout the map.
The bad news for ENCE is that there won't be too many more LAN events in 2024, given their failure to qualify for the RMR with their old lineup.
What do you think about ENCEs performance overall? Will this roster continue to impress, or will they get figured out quickly by their opposition?