(Photo credit: John Meore/The Journal News)

Neither took the easy route, but Aurora Gaming and Natus Vincere are the last two teams standing at the ESL Pro League Season 23 Main Event at Stockholm.

Natus Vincere opened Saturday's semifinals with a 2-1 win over FUT Esports, with Aurora following with its own 2-1 win, against Astralis.

The eight-team Counter-Strike: Global Offense event features a $275,000 prize pool. The single-elimination bracket consisted of best-of-three matches until Sunday's grand final, which will be best-of-five. The championship side will receive $100,000.

Natus Vincere's semifinal win was noteworthy in that the Ukrainian outfit was the last of the eight teams to advance to the main event out of online qualifying. After opening Saturday's match with a 13-5 win on Mirage, Natus Vincere lost 13-11 on Ancient as FUT forced a winner-take-all third map. Natus Vincere took the map -- 13-7 on Dust II -- to advance and relegate FUT to Sunday's third-place match.

Natus Vincere 67 kills and a plus-30 kill-death differential from Romanian Mihai 'iM' Ivan. Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri of Kosovo netted 51 kills. Romania's Laurentiu 'lauNX' Tarlea had 44 kills but a minus-4 differential as no FUT member had a positive differential.

Aurora, like Natus Vincere was one of the sixth- through eighth-place teams from the online tournament. Aurora had an even more difficult time in the semis, losing 13-11 on Nuke to open the match against Astralis. That forced Aurora in need of a reverse sweep in order to make the grand final ... which they got, winning 13-2 on Dust II and 13-10 on Inferno.

Ali 'Wicadia' Haydar Yalcin led the all-Turkish Aurora squad with 57 kills and a plus-21 K-D differential. Love 'phzy' Smidebrant of Sweden led Astralis with 41 kills but had a minus-6 differential. Victor 'Staehr' Staehr of Denmark had 39 kills and a plus-2 differential -- the only Astralis player in the black -- in the loss.

ESL Pro League Season 23 Main Event schedule

Sunday

--Astralis vs. FUT Esports (third-place match)

--Aurora Gaming vs. Natus Vincere (grand final)

ESL Pro League Season 23 prize pool

1. $100,000

2. $55,000

3. $37,500

4. $22,500

5-8. $15,000 -- Team Spirit, Legacy, The MongolZ, MOUZ

--Field Level Media