First Strike Turkey concluded with BBL Esports BBL Esports Europe Rank #34 Jamppi Elias Olkkonen sociablEE Volkan Yonal chiwa Egor Stepanyuk PROFEK Dawid Święć LewN Burak Alkan taking the championship over FUT Esports FUT Esports Europe Rank #7 xeus Doğan Gözgen MrFaliN Furkan Yeğen yetujey Eray Budak AtaKaptan Ata Tan cNed Mehmet Yağız İpek qRaxs Doğukan Balaban in a 3-0.
While the scoreline suggests it was an easy victory for BBL Esports, in reality the match was much closer. BBL started the series up 1-0 off of a map advantage and won the next two in tight 13-10 games. Ali Osman " AsLanM4shadoW " Balta, the tournament's leader in ACS, shared the frags with his teammates as four BBL players finished between 37 and 40 kills in the grand finals.
BBL Esports' path to the tournament title was smoother than their path to qualify for it.
The team failed to make it to the main event through the first qualifier, despite being regarded as one of the two best teams in Turkey. BBL qualified in the second qualifier, but only after they were unexpectedly knocked down to the lower bracket.
Their run in the main event, however, saw no defeats. The team stomped through the bracket, only losing a map to other Turkish powerhouse Oxygen Esports Oxygen Esports Inactive .
In perhaps one of the tournament's biggest surprises, Oxygen Esports was not the team BBL Esports met in the grand final. Instead, Oxygen Esports, who were sent to the lower bracket by BBL Esports, lost 2-0 in the lower final to Futbolist.
While they fell short to BBL Esports in First Strike, Futbolist has established itself as a contender to the top teams in Turkey and perhaps Europe as a whole. The team qualified for the main event in the first qualifier and between the qualifiers and main events took matches from both of Turkey's top two teams. Since September, Futbolist has only lost matches to BBL Esports, Oxygen Esports, FunPlus PhoeniX, and SUMN FC.
But regardless of what happened in the past, no one could touch BBL Esports this weekend. They'll return to international competition riding high after their national success.