On May 9, the CS:GO Major began in the Belgian city of Antwerp. This is the most important championship of the first half of the year. CS:GO majors are held twice a year, and unlike the other popular eSports discipline Dota 2, there is no single large annual tournament. All of these championships are sponsored by the developer of the game Valve: one major is allocated $1 million. But for players and regular CS:GO fans betting at gg.bet/en/counter-strike, the prestige of the tournament is much more important. Since the birth of the professional scene, Counter-Strike has not seen a more prestigious tournament.
Majors are always more memorable for the audience than the usual tournaments, because every team here has to give their all. The dream of every professional CS:GO player is to win at least once at such a tournament. Winning the major is as important to an eSports player as the Champions League trophy is to a soccer player. Not surprisingly, it is at these championships that the most memorable and emotional events in the entire discipline take place.
The craziest highlight in Counter-Strike history. Coldzera noscope
If you’re even a little into eSports, and maybe even check out gg.bet/en/esports, this is a must-watch moment. Fans around the world spend hundreds of hours watching their favorite game for highlights like this.
The masterpiece created by Brazilian Marcelo “Coldzera” David in the quarterfinals of the MLG Columbus Majors is truly unprecedented.
At that moment the Luminosity team was already on the verge of defeat in the first map of the match – the Americans from Liquid led 15:9. Coldzera picked up an atypical weapon for himself – the AWP sniper rifle, which kills enemies with a single hit. The Brazilian is good with this gun, but he’s never been a core sniper, so one wouldn’t expect him to be an incredible highlighter. But he did deliver something out of this world.
A little bit of theory: in Counter-Strike, you can shoot with a sniper rifle without using a scope, but that makes the shot much more random. In a jump, accuracy is also reduced. Now imagine that the player made a shot with the AWP without the sight, and moreover in the air. The probability of killing the enemy in such a situation is negligible. But Coldzera hit not one, but two opponents at once! And then he accurately shot the third enemy without a scope. Does that sound unreal? But it wasn’t a dream.
Illegal boost and the biggest scandal in CS history
One of the main mechanics in Counter-Strike is boosts. Players can climb on top of each other to get to hard-to-reach places and for extra vision. One player (rarely two) lets a teammate climb on top of him, thereby allowing him to shoot his opponents from unexpected positions. This mechanic is perfectly legal and used in CS everywhere.
But Fnatic has gone further. The Swedes have found on the map Overpass a pixel near the wall, which allows the player to literally float in the air. Of course, the developers didn’t intentionally leave this bug in the game, but Fnatic used it to its full potential. Players were planted on top of each other in such a way that the topmost player could look out over that high wall. Naturally, none of the opponents would ever think to look that high in their lives-no one ever used a drop-off there.
Obviously, with such an incredible advantage, Fnatic had an easy ride on their opponents! Although Fnatic was losing 3-12 before going behind the defense (the wall was near where the defense players appeared, so it wasn’t realistic to use the bug on offense). But as soon as Olofmeister got a sniper rifle, the game was solved – he was blatantly beating all opponents from behind the wall, and the poor French couldn’t figure out where the fire was coming from until the last round.
American outsider sensationally wins home Major
ELEAGUE Major Boston probably wouldn’t be in history if it hadn’t been won by the least expected of all teams, Cloud9. The American squad has always floated somewhere between the first and second tier of CS:GO. In the Majors, Cloud9 has quite a sad history of performances – only one playoff appearance in 7 tournaments, according to Liquipedia.
The team also started the home Major in Boston terribly, with two defeats. One more loss would have left the United States without their beloved team in the playoffs and only added to the curse of the region – no American team has won the majors since CS:GO was released in 2012.
That’s where the fairy tale began. Cloud9 won the remaining three matches in the group stage, effortlessly knocking off tough teams from the tournament: Virtus.pro, Astralis, and Vega Squadron. In the playoffs, the American squad was the underdog in every game, but made it to the finals anyway.
The last game of the tournament is a real blockbuster, on which you could make a feature film. Cloud9’s opponent was the European team Faze Clan, where at that time played five star players. Faze Clan was considered the top favorite from the beginning of the tournament.
On the third map, Faze Clan led 15-11, just one round shy of victory. But Cloud9 was already used to getting out of tough situations in this Major. After dragging the game out to overtime, the Americans clawed their way to victory and the title of Major Champion in a tense fight. A Boston arena filled to the brim roared as the American team won the Major for the first time in history.