The results of 2019 in CS:GO
Ihor MatusEZ4ENCE? Not anymore
2019 started with the moment when Astralis once again won the trophy of the Major tournament and reinforced the status of the most successful CS:GO team in the history of the discipline. At the same moment, the Finns from ENCE stood out at IEM Katowice Major 2019 who played well in the initial stage of the Major and made a comeback in the Legends stage from a score of 0-2. When all thought that their performance at the championship was coming to an end, allu with his teammates made it to the playoffs with a score of 3-2 and beat Team Liquid and NAVI in the final stage with a score of 2-0 and 2-1, respectively. They were not able to show something against Astralis in the grand final and lost with a score of 0-2. After the team unexpectedly advanced to the grand final, the band The Verkkars’ fan clip called EZ4ENCE became popular rapidly and ENCE received a lot of respect.
A half a year later, Aleksib left ENCE and suNny was taken on his place, the team lost its positions and doesn’t shine on the Tier-1 stage.
50 shades of Windigo
The name of the Ukrainian esports organization Windigo Gaming appeared in headings of news of various esports portals for a number of times this year. There were different reasons and situations, which happened with the representatives of Windigo. In March, Bulgarian five managed to surprise everyone and placed first at WESG 2018 World Finals, the prize pool of which amounted $890,000 and the main money prize was $500,000. But Windigo had not that many reasons for fun as it might seem to be at first sight. “They earned half a million dollars. Now, every player will have $100,000, everyone is satisfied” — you may think that this conclusion was made in advance and wrongly. It appeared a half a year later that Alibaba Sports didn’t pay prizes and the organization stuck in debts due to this. Because of it, the owners left nothing to do but to announce bankruptcy and disband Windigo. In such a way, Windigo had a quick way from a team, which became famous for the victory at the CS:GO world championship, to a team, which failed.
Summer holidays for Astralis and the rise of Team Liquid
When after IEM Katowice 2019 Astralis started losing its gaming shape and missing big championships, the ground under their legs started shaking and then, the Danes were moved from the top of the rate by HLTV. The team had held out for a bit more than 1 year, which has become the record for the shooting discipline. Their place was taken by the arch enemies of Astralis, Team Liquid. The last ones managed to gain good gaming shape and perform successfully at a couple of big championships in a row: IEM Sydney 2019, DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019, ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, ESL One Cologne 2019, and IEM Chicago 2019. It’s worth to notice that together with the victory at ESL One Cologne 2019, the Americans scored the fourth note on the list of the won championships in the Intel Grand Slam Season 2 series and became the winners of the second season of IGS, having earned the reward of $1,000,000. It took 144 for the players, which has become the record for Intel Grand Slam. After this, the rules of IGS became so strict that you will have to work hard to earn $1,000,000. The summer was very successful for Team Liquid and the last ones managed to beat the record of Astralis for the number of earned money. The American triumph came to an end soon. With the return of Astralis to the international arena, Twistzz with his teammates lost their positions and their performances were that unsatisfying that there were rumors on the Internet that Liquid had to make replacements on the roster, having supposedly replaced NAF on another player. The situation stabilized a bit later and Liquid returned to the usual rhythm of training. Now, they hold the 4th place in the world rate.
The rise of the Kazakh CS:GO
The players who were playing under the tag AVANGAR managed to surprise everyone at the second Major, having placed second at the second main tournament of the passing year. Like ENCE at the previous Major tournament, AVANGAR were on the brink of losing the group stage and, despite this, successfully qualified to the playoffs through the Challengers and Legends Stage. In the playoffs, Jame with his teammates defeated Team Vitality in the quarterfinal and Renegades in the semi-final with a score of 2-1 and 2-0, respectively. Just like the Finns at the previous Major, AVAGAR were not able to show something in the match against Astralis and consequently lost the grand final. After the end of StarLadder Berlin Major 2019, the Kazakhs placed first at BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019 and earned $125,000. Soon, they said that they would continue playing under the tag AVANGAR and would not consider offers from other CIS organizations but moved to Virtus.pro in December and took the place of the Polish roster. The sum of the deal between AVANGAR and Virtus.pro is not announced. The recently-created VP played extremely badly at EPICENTER 2019. According to the players’ statements, they started to realize not immediately that they were playing under the tag Virtus.pro. This might make an impact on their performance at the championship.
The strengthening of the position of Astralis
The beginning of the year was lucky for Astralis. After the successfully-ended 2018, the Danes decided to keep their domination at the beginning of 2019. In such a way, they won IEM Katowice 2019, the first Major tournament, and then BLAST Pro Series São Paulo 2019. After that, the team, roughly speaking, took a break until August and during this period, as was said earlier, Liquid used the opportunity and placed 1st in the world rate. When the Danes returned to activity, they solved their situation, having achieved victory at StarLadder Berlin Major 2019. After that, there were a couple of not very successful performances of Astralis but despite this, the team held its positions and still has the maximum number of rating points in the rate by HLTV. Close to the end of the year, the Danes failed the performance at the home tournament BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2019 but they got in shape for BLAST Pro Series Global Final 2019 and showed that they are still worth to be afraid. The $500,000 championship was over with the victory by Astralis and the last ones looted probably the easiest $350,000 in their career. According to the majority of viewers, dev1ce who has been playing under the tag Astralis for a long time will receive the title of the best player of 2019. He lost primacy to Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev last year, having placed second. He will definitely have to place higher than s1mple.
Reaching a new level by mousesports
Starting from December 20 and during a month, mousesports were pleasing their fans with nice performances and a high-quality Counter-Strike. Initially, they achieved victory at CS:GO Asia Championships 2019 where earned $250,000, after which placed first at ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, having earned a quarter of a million dollars as a reward. The series of victories continued at cs_summit 5. The remarkable thing is that woxic was not able to receive a visa to the USA and the team was playing with a stand-in on the roster. In the grand final, the first map was played as usual but after it, karrigan said that he was not able to take part in the rest of the maps. His place on the roster was taken by the coach of the team, Rejin. In such a way, the Danish mentor of mousesports has become the first person in the CS:GO history who achieved a victory in a grand final both as a coach and a player at the same time, which deserves a lot of respect. The fact that the final was played against a strong opponent in the face of G2 and the second map was over with a score of 16-1 in the favor of the French but not mousesports makes it even more interesting. The team could give up easily but the Europeans have recently proved that morale and a will to victory are their strongest side, which detaches them from the rest of the representatives of the professional CS:GO scene. Ropz said that cs_summit 5 was not in priority for mousesports but the Europeans managed to prevail at the championship even with two stand-ins. mousesports were pretty close to a victory at the next tournament, EPICENTER 2019, but Vitality were even closer and earned the trophy together with the main money prize in the sum of $250,000. By the way, the grand final was hosted on one of the mousesports player’s birthday, ropz. Well, the 2nd place and $120,000 is a pretty good birthday present, isn’t it?
Vitality and ZyWoo
The French team made a lot of noise around itself due to a few reasons. First of all, the team managed to recommend itself as one of the strongest representatives of the professional CS:GO and the strongest French roster. In 2019, Vitality placed first at such championships as Charleroi Esports 2019, cs_summit 4, ECS Season 7 Finals, and EPICENTER 2019. The second reason for hype, which appeared around Vitality, was ZyWoo, a young talented player. Many viewers expect to see him in the top three players of the passing year by HLTV and for a reason! In 2019, Mathieu Herbaut managed to win 5 MVP even at those championships where the team didn’t achieve victory and placed second in the standings. NBK- left the team this year and his place was taken by shox. This definitely enforced the team, despite the players synergized not at once. The end of the year was successful for Vitality and $250,000 earned for the victory at EPICENTER 2019 will make a new year of the esportsmen even happier.
NAVI, Zeus, GuardiaN
A lot of things happened in the ranks of Natus Vincere this year. Andrey ‘B1ad3’ Gorodenskiy joined Natus Vincere as an esports director, NAVI became the champion of StarSeries Season 7 a month later and forgot about a victory for a long time. Later, Edward left the roster of Natus Vincere and his place was taken by BoombI4 who used to play in Winstrike. After NAVI’s failed performance at StarLadder Berlin Major 2019, it became known that BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019 would be the last tournament for Zeus, after which he would finish his player’s career. The esportsman kept his promise on September 14 and retired. Natus Vincere decided to take GuardiaN on his place who used to play in NAVI in 2014-2017. The experiment can be called successfully failed because the Slovak sniper can’t realize himself fully. The community has divided into two camps. The first ones think that he needs time because the morale pressure, which is made on Ladislav, is too big and GuardiaN worries too much but it will fade with time. The second ones state that three months should be enough for him to get used to the atmosphere and show a good performance. If he can’t play now, he will have to retire. In any case, there are a few interesting moments with GuardiaN. One of them relates the fact that s1mple was making too much pressure on the Slovak at the first LAN tournament. Of course, all representatives of NAVI said that he wasn’t but cameras, observant viewers’ eyes, and a referee who stays behind the players during a match are difficult to trick. We will tell about the last one further in the next part of the material. The second interesting moment is about the fact that in one of the last matches, GuardiaN showed the worst performance in his gaming career and managed to beat the anti-record, which was made 5 years ago. There is only one solution for NAVI. They need to do something with GuardiaN to improve results: they should improve his gaming shape or change him on another player.
Hype, which cost one job
“[I]have never wanted to hurt someone or get the hype on someone. Unfortunately, journalists presented this like I am worse than a serial killer, created hype but everyone has forgotten about it today” — Sergey Zolovkin, a fired StarLadder referee in an interview for GameInside.ua.
This year, one very unusual case happened, which taught people a good lesson. During StarSeries CS:GO i-League Season 8, NAVI were not able to defend the title of the champion and performed horribly, having held the last place. The referee who was staying behind the players of Natus Vincere told some things, which explained the situation in the team. According to Sergey, the coach of NAVI made a pause to ask BoombI4 to be a captain but not a player and concentrate on coordination more than his personal performance. Generally, he didn’t say something, which viewers could see by themselves with the help of web-cameras. Sergey Zolov managed to hype well but as a result, it cost too much — StarLadder decided to show a public execution and leave him without his job. The majority of viewers tend to that this act is related to that one of the involved sides was the organization NAVI but not a less famous esports club. According to Sergey’s statement, Natus Vincere were not angry with him, however, he had to change his profession. Such cases happen too rarely and every situation reminds that people should maximally competent in their job.