The ECS Season 8 Finals, in Arlington, marked the beginning of the last stretch of the event season. The eight-team tournament culminated with a dream final between Astralis and Liquid, with the Danes running out 2-1 victors to collect the grand prize of $225,000. Nicolai "device" Reedtz won a record 15th MVP award for his heroics in Texas, with this being his fourth medal to come from ECS tournaments. Both Astralis and Liquid provided three players to the tournament's six-man EVP list.
The two ECS finalists would fall short at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, where fnatic and mousesports contested the final. After watching his team cruise to a 3-0 series victory, Robin "ropz" Kool picked up his first-ever MVP medal, with three of the Estonian's teammates also featuring on the list of the tournament's top performers.
The event in Odense would be the last time the 2018 player of the year, Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, would make an EVP list. The Natus Vincere star ended 2019 with one MVP, from StarSeries i-League Season 7, and five EVP presences.
The four-team BLAST Pro Series Global Final rekindled the rivalry between Astralis and Liquid, though the outcome was the same as it had been in Arlington as the Danes came out victorious. This time around, it was Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen who was named the MVP, with his team also providing three of the five EVPs. The tournament in Riffa was the 12th this year in which Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski was either the MVP or among the EVPs.
EPICENTER saw Cédric "RpK" Guipouy earn his first EVP mention since we began revealing our picks for every Big Event, at the start of 2018. The 30-year-old was the third standout player from Moscow champions Vitality, together with MVP Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut and with team captain Alex "ALEX" McMeekin, with losing finalist mousesports providing two names to the EVP list.
Below you can find all the Exceptionally Valuable Players of the four Big Events that took place in December:
