After 8 matches and just 1 loss amongst them, K23 were crowned the victors in the latest of the Pinnacle events, Pinnacle Winter Series 1. 

In the Final, K23 saw down Apeks who themselves also had an exceptional run and lost just one match, unfortunately for them, that one match was the Final here with K23. In the best of 3 final, we adventured across Ancient, Nuke & Overpass until a winner was known. K23 dominated on the CT side of Ancient, going to 10:5 at the end of halftime, however as Apeks found their groove on the CT after the break, K23 notched up the 6 extra round wins they needed, whilst Apeks got another 5, to go 16:10. Moving over to Germany, comes the map Nuke. Here Apeks managed to destroy on CT, where they saw off K23 on a 3:12 half. Thankfully they needed just 4 more to win, and they managed to get them notched onto the board just as K23 were finding their own steps again, ending Nuke 16:12 to the newly formed Apeks, and in doing so, had stolen the map pick from their Russian opponent, just as they had done to Apeks on Ancient. Next map, we stay in Germany and move over to Berlin, also known as Overpass to Global Offensive players. Here, K23 had found the book of strategy they may have misplaced in Nuke, and managed to run over Apeks 16:11, signing themselves a check for $40,000 and the important ticket to LAN Sweet LAN.

Even though they may have crashed out of the Grand Final, Apeks now know one thing for sure, their new team is definitely a hit. The current roster was only finalized on the 9th of January, which is when STYKO joined. Prior to that, jkaem, chawzyyy & nawwk had signed up, leaving only AcilioN from the previous roster of players. Although it seems clear that these 5 players work well together, they played 7 matches and lost 1 here in the main event of Pinnacle Winter Series 1, although they also plowed through the regionals for the event too, where they played 5 matches, and won 3 of them, a little more of a rough start, but easily written off as the teams learning how to play well together, which had clearly happened by the time of the main event.

K23 now join HAVU, MOUZ, forZe, Virtus.pro, OG, ECSTATIC & OG in the list of qualified teams for LAN Sweet LAN, currently scheduled for April, and will be the grand finale to the Pinnacle events of the season, with a $250,000 prize pool.