CSGO10: Global Offensive takes off after the first Major (2013)

Ninjas in Pyjamas’s 87-0 map record on LAN came to an end, new challengers in the competitive scene appeared and the first Major was played in a year that launched GO above 1.6 and Source.

The first few months of CS:GO lay in the rear-view mirror when 2013 rolled around, the beginning of the first full year of the new game’s life. The community was starting to warm up to the newer game, but it was still overshadowed by both 1.6 and Source in terms of active players. In the competitive scene, Ninjas in Pyjamas’s dominance was unrivaled. They sported an unbeaten streak on LAN since the game’s launch that was up to 58 maps and were, by all accounts, invincible.

The Swedish team’s epic continued at the first LAN of the year, Mad Catz Vienna, where they tallied 9 more maps to the streak, three from the group stages and six from the best-of-three series in the playoffs, including their semi-final against ESC and the grand final against Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen’s Anexis.

The event in Austria had the particularity of being Natus Vincere’s first LAN event and one in which it wasn’t sure how they would perform. The Ukrainians were latecomers to CS:GO and had a catastrophic online debut in November 2012 with a measly three out of ten maps won in the online portion of SLTV StarSeries IV. They scraped a playoff appearance before bowing out 1-2 to VeryGames.

Mad Catz Vienna was also Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom’s international LAN debut with VeryGames. The Belgian player had replaced CS:Source legend Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy in January. The results didn’t come immediately for the French squad and they bowed out in the semi-finals to Anexis, unable to fight NIP for the title. Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans and his men’s finish was bittersweet as they settled for third place over ESC.

NIP were still untouchable at the beginning of 2013 and won the first three events of the year

Ninjas in Pyjamas added three more maps to the count at TECHLABS Cup in Moscow, Russia, winning the four-team double-elimination bracket in three best-of-ones. They started against Natus Vincere before taking out Virtus.pro in back-to-back matches. Their tally was now up to 70-0. The Swedes didn’t let down at the 32-team Copenhagen Games, where they once again took down Virtus.pro, VeryGames and ESC on the way to the title. Their undefeated streak on LAN was now up to an incredible 85-0.

Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund and company started their SLTV StarSeries V run in Ukraine like any other event, with a 2-0 victory, this time against ESC. Then the Stolyarov brothers happened. Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov and Sergey "⁠Fox⁠" Stolyarov averaged 1.27 and 1.18 ratings in a 2-0 victory on Mirage_ce (16-14) and Nuke (16-10) that not only ended their map streak, but brought NIP back to the realm of mortals. The Swedish squad recovered in the lower bracket, making quick work of Natus Vincere, but were once again met with a wall in the grand final as VP doubled down and took NIP out 2-0 to lift the trophy in Kyiv.

April was one of the busiest months of 2013 for CS:GO, and the four teams at StarSeries V had to miss Mad Catz Birmingham as it overlapped with the final day of the event in Ukraine. A thinned field gave VeryGames the perfect chance to win their first international LAN and the French-Belgian squad didn’t fret. Ex6TenZ and his men seized the moment, finishing over the two other heavy hitters present, fnatic and Western Wolves, to lift the silverware.

RaidCall EMS One Spring Finals came next, halfway through the month. Ninjas in Pyjamas and VeryGames headlined the show, but the two were put on the same side of the single-elimination bracket, making a final between the two impossible. They met in the semi-finals instead and the Swedes showed that their slip-up in Kyiv was not their demise. The Ninjas beat their French rivals 2-0 before also sweeping fnatic in the final. GeT_RiGhT and Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg were the two heroes, with 1.40 and 1.38 ratings, respectively.

The circuit moved to the United States of America for the final event of April, where the ESEA Global Finals were set to take place in Dallas, Texas. Four teams from Europe and four from North America were slated to go head-to-head in a double-elimination best-of-three bracket. Two rounds in, Ninjas in Pyjamas and VeryGames duked it out in the upper bracket final, the Swedes once again coming out on top albeit in an extremely close 2-0 — both maps ended 16-14. GeT_RiGhT and f0rest were once again the tip of the spear for NIP in the nailbiter against the Frenchmen.

VeryGames tripped up in the lower bracket, where they were taken out in another close two-map series by Quantic, the first North American team to make an international LAN grand final, a step up from their first third-place finish at ESWC 2012 under Area 51. The Americans crumbled in the final, however, losing 16-10 on Nuke_ce and 16-4 on Inferno_se to the almighty Ninjas in Pyjamas. April was also the last month a 1.6 tournament was recorded on HLTV, the ESEA Invite Season 13 Finals, clearing the way for CS:GO to take the torch.

May was a sleepy month in terms of competition, as the four events from April weren’t followed up with anything until June, but a free-to-play weekend turned the tides for the Global Offensive community. The GO player base had lagged behind the two older games, but a jump from around 30,000 to over 50,000 players in that mid-May weekend brought steady growth to the game. Following the f2p weekend Global Offensive dropped below 1.6 for the last time in June before growing steadily for the rest of the year, outpacing its two predecessors.

CS:GO experienced a small spurt in average concurrent players in May, during the free-to-play weekend, before a more meaningful increase during and after the Major. The green line is CS 1.6 and the blue line is CS:S.

Excitement also came in the form of a big roster move during the month-long break. Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon took the place of Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub in VeryGames, although the French-Belgian squad would have to wait to make their debut after DreamHack Summer. The yearly event in Jönköping, Sweden, featured a different French squad, kennyS’ new team, LDLC. Alongside Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire, Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer, Gordon "⁠Sf⁠" Giry and Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez, kennyS went on a semi-final run and finished as the second highest-rated player at the event. He averaged with a 1.30, just 0.03 behind f0rest, whose Ninjas in Pyjamas lifted the trophy by taking down the likes of CPH Wolves, Virtus.pro — who had just signed Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács — and Epsilon.

The competitive circuit led back to ESL’s studio in Cologne in the last weekend of June for the second EMS One Raidcall of the year, the Summer Finals. VeryGames won their first event with shox there, but didn’t meet NIP in doing so, as the Swedes fell early to Virtus.pro. Despite the Ninjas’ semi-final finish, GeT_RiGhT ended the event atop the scoreboard, continuing to show player-of-the-year form.

Action returned to Kyiv for the SLTV StarSeries VI Finals. This time around Ninjas in Pyjamas didn’t falter in the city in which their 87-0 winning streak came tumbling down. The Swedes defeated Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro in 2-1 series before rematching the home team in a best-of-five grand final that went the distance. GeT_RiGhT earned his fourth MVP medal of the year in his team’s victory with a superb 1.41 rating by the end of the tournament.

The smaller Prague Challenge came about in mid-July. Most top teams did not travel to the Czech Republic, but a mix-team sponsored by Alexey "⁠OverDrive⁠" Birukov with kennyS, apEX, Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski and Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas competed at the event, as did Natus Vincere. Expectedly, the two made it to the grand final against an inferior field. But Nostalgie came out on top, shockingly, winning 2-1 as apEX put on an MVP performance in the final series with a 1.33 rating. Natus Vincere didn’t bounce back from yet another hard hit and went on to sign Russian youngsters Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin and Anton "⁠tonyblack⁠" Kolesnikov (then known as kibaken) in lieu of Yegor "⁠markeloff⁠" Markelov and Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev.

Competition stopped until mid-August, but big changes came to CS:GO during the pause. Over a dozen updates had come out during the first half of the year, mostly fixing bugs and adjusting power levels of weapons, but this time Valve announced something new. The Arms Deal update introduced skins and a marketplace for people to trade weapon cosmetics, as well as an esports case to help fund the game’s competitive circuit. Mirage, which had been released in June, as well as other maps, continued to get worked on and tweaked as the competitive circles continued to play on many of the non-official versions of the map.

The 2013 summer season brought with it many changes. CPH Wolves picked up Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth, creating a core that would become one of the most impactful in CS:GO history alongside Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen and Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz ⁠as the trio went on to be part of a game-changing team years later. Xyp9x was on the market due to his fnatic going in a different direction and picking up the Swedish lineup featuring Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell and Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist, while the Astana Dragons super team was born from the fusion of former NAVI duo Edward and markeloff teaming up with VP alumni Dosia, Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev and Kirill "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow. This union sent shock waves through CIS as it became the prime team to watch for fans in the region.

Did you know?

The Arms Deal also introduced two silenced weapons for the CTs, the M4A1-S and the USP-S.

The Polish scene didn’t go unscathed, either, as Mariusz "⁠Loord⁠" Cybulski and Jakub "⁠kuben⁠" Gurczynski were removed from ESC, clearing the way for two youngsters Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski and Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński to have a shot at bringing Poland to its former glory days. kuben then became the team’s coach.

Counter-Strike returned to North America in August, a decaffeinated ESEA Global Finals took place in Dallas as all European teams with exception of NIP pulled out due to a lack of resources or diminished expectations due to recent roster changes. The Swedes cleared the gauntlet through the upper bracket and claimed the title in a final bout against a combative Complexity.

Smaller roster moves also happened during the rest of August and early September, such as Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer teaming up with Alexander "⁠SKYTTEN⁠" Carlsson and Mikail "⁠Maikelele⁠" Bill in LGB after beating the likes of Astana Dragons and CPH Wolves in the MSI Beat it! European qualifier. ENCE also joined the fray, picking up Joona "⁠natu⁠" Leppänen, Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi, Mikko "⁠xartE⁠" Välimaa, Harri "⁠reVicer⁠" Kukkonen and Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli.

Future player-of-the-year olofmeister broke out in 2013 with LGB

Interest was at a high going into DreamHack Bucharest to see where the top teams landed after all of the summer shake-ups, but in the end of the day stability prevailed and Ninjas in Pyjamas took it all with GeT_RiGhT at the helm once again. Unexpectedly, the other finalist was Lemondogs, a Swedish team featuring the likes of Faruk "⁠pita⁠" Pita and Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson.

The two Ukrainian-majority squads, Natus Vincere and Astana Dragons, came in 3-4th place, while fnatic, CPH Wolves, VeryGames and Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen’s n!faculty had to settle for quarter-final finishes.

The day after the event in Romania Valve announced the first CS:GO Major, which would take place at DreamHack Winter with a community-funded $250,000 prize pool made possible through the esports case. To put the magnitude of this event into context, the majority of tournaments at the time were dispensing $15,000 to $35,000. Three notable tournaments preceded the Major in November, starting with ESWC in Paris, France.

The tournament on the shores of the Seine provided a shocking result, as many of the favorites were there competing, including Ninjas in Pyjamas, Astana Dragons, VeryGames, fnatic and CPH Wolves, but it was a local team, Clan-Mystik, that went on to win it all. The roster was comprised of 1.6 veterans Michael "⁠HaRts⁠" Zanatta and Jeremy "⁠ioRek⁠" Vuillermet alongside Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey, apEX and the infamous Hovik "⁠KQLY⁠" Tovmassian, who went on to be ostracized from the community after he was caught by Valve’s anti-cheat system in 2014.

A second TECHLABS event took place in Moscow, the Grand Finals, with four teams: the former Polish ESC roster, now under UniversalSoldiers with the two new youngsters; Astana Dragons with Emil "⁠kUcheR⁠" Akhundov in place of Edward; 3DMAX, who were vastly inferior to the other three teams; and Natus Vincere. The final pitted Astana Dragons, who came from the lower bracket and finally had the chance to win silverware for the Kazakh organization, up against UniversalSoldiers. The Poles started off 1-0 with a victory on Cache in the simple best-of-three final with no advantage for the upper bracket team, but caved in the last two maps, tallying only eight rounds in total on Inferno and Nuke. markeloff, one of the most talented AWPers in 1.6 who struggled to bring his impact to CS:GO, was named the tournament’s MVP. It was his first and last HLTV MVP award in the new game.

The last tournament before the Major took CS:GO to new frontiers as teams flew to Asia. Beijing, China, played host to MSI Beat it! VeryGames, fnatic and SK (formerly Lemondogs) finished in the top three spots. An Australian team, Vox Eminor, took fourth ahead of a field of Asian teams, before flying to the Major with the other top three teams. The Europeans with spots secured to play at the Major, Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill and company with hopes of making it through the BYOC qualifier. They ultimately didn’t, falling in the qualifying match to Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller's Xapso

Australia's Vox Eminor flew to Europe to participate in the DreamHack Winter BYOC qualifier

The first Major had a big impact before it was even played. DreamHack announced that the maps would align with Valve’s official map pool, ditching the _se versions that had been standard for most tournament organizers. The stage was set at the Elmia Congress & Concert Hall in Jönköping. For the first time, matches were going to be embedded into the CS:GO client itself for viewers to watch the whole thing through GOTV, where souvenir weapon skins were also going to be given away.

Excitement was at an all-time high going into the $250,000 tournament. Four groups of four were drawn, to be played GSL-style, with a single-elimination best-of-three playoff bracket awaiting the top eight. fnatic, Ninjas in Pyjamas and CPH Wolves all won their groups. VeryGames didn’t, losing their winners’ match to Complexity, but powered through in the decider over the n!faculty team comprising karrigan, gla1ve, Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche, Rasmus "⁠raalz⁠" Steensborg and René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg.

The biggest disappointment was Natus Vincere, who bowed out in last place of Group A to fnatic and LGB. Clan-Mystik, the ESWC winners, were also eliminated in that group. In Group B it was UniversalSoldiers who bowed out in the decider match, while kennyS’ Recursive secured the second playoff seed.

NAVI suffered back-to-back defeats in the BO1 group stage at the Major and were eliminated early

LGB edged Ninjas in Pyjamas in the first map of their quarter-final series, Dust2, but were no match for GeT_RiGhT and company on either Train or Inferno. CPH Wolves won Dust2 and VeryGames won Inferno in their quarter-final, each of them lopsidedly, to set up an exciting decider on Mirage. Ultimately, it was the French-Belgian squad who came out on top 16-12, with Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt and Xyp9x the stand-outs for either squad, sporting 1.34 and 1.33 ratings, respectively.

The other two quarter-finals were also split 2-1, with the in-form fnatic taking down the other French team still alive, Recursive, and the last North American squad standing, Complexity, surprising Astana Dragons.

The dream final once again slipped away, as Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. VeryGames came early, in the semi-finals. The first map, Dust2, promised an exciting series with the Swedes edging their opponents 16-13 in Ex6TenZ’s playground. The French-Belgian squad didn’t let up, however, and imposed their will on Inferno smashing their way to 16-5 with a red-hot Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux tallying 29 kills and a 1.94 rating on the map. VeryGames couldn’t keep the heat on Nuke, however, as Ninjas in Pyjamas imposed their will on the CT-sided map 11-4 before securing victory in the second half 16-5.

NIP and VeryGames met in the semi-finals, which was touted as the true grand final

fnatic had no problems on the other side of the bracket, steamrolling Complexity in a one-sided affair that ended up 2-0 with the Swedes clearing the path to the final 16-7 on both maps, Inferno and Mirage. The trophy match was set and most viewers anticipated an easy win for the defending champions.

Two Swedish teams battled it out on home soil, the dominating Ninjas on one side and the ever improving fnatic on the other. The final started out on Dust2, with the Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström-led squad making a statement on the attack in the opening half which they ended with a 12-3 lead. Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten and company didn’t let up, however, and mounted an impressive comeback on their own T-side, not only tying things up but surpassing their opponents to edge the map in the final round of regulation.

The first map victory was crucial for fnatic, as NIP ravaged their opponents on Inferno, 16-5, to set up a third and final map for the $100,000 grand prize. It took place on Train, which at the time had a 58%-42% skew in favor of the CTs. fnatic, starting on the defense, gave no respite with a fiery JW tallying 18 kills in his team’s 13-2 half. Winning the second pistol round all but sealed the deal for the underdogs, who won three in a row to close it out 16-2, thus becoming the first ever Major champions.

Impressive numbers for the young game were posted during the Major, with a peak concurrent viewership of 145,000. The average concurrent player-base also blew up, from around 53,000 in October to over 92,000 in November. CS:GO was well on its way to breaking the 100,000 barrier at the turn of the year.

The year ended at the SLTV StarSeries VIII Finals in Kyiv, a leading Counter-Strike city in the calendar, where the former UniversalSoldiers, now without backing and under the AGAiN tag went undefeated to claim the trophy. They did so against Natus Vincere, who had brought back Edward in lieu of tonyblack, in a four-map grand final.

A young Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, who had finished 9-12th at both Mad Catz Vienna and DreamHack Bucharest with e-Sports.rs and Refuse, respectively, posted his best finish to date. He and his GamePub teammates ended above Astana Dragons, who subsequently lost the Kazakh organization’s backing going into 2014.

Ninjas in Pyjamas ended their 87-0 map streak on LAN early in the year and missed their opportunity to go down in the history books as the first team to ever win a Major, but their nine LAN victories easily made them the team of the year and its two stars, GeT_RiGhT and f0rest, placed first and second in the top 20 players of the year ranking. The SLTV StarSeries VII Finals MVP, shox, completed the podium, shining a light on the VeryGames name one last time before the French organization shut down its CS:GO operation and the team moved to Titan.

The rivalry between the top Swedish and French sides was set going into 2014, but plenty of teams were prowling in the background, waiting for their time to break through as fnatic had done at the Major.

On December 19 it was announced that EMS One Katowice 2014, set to take place on March 13-16, would become the second Valve-backed $250,000 event. The top eight teams from DreamHack Winter had their berths secured in Poland, becoming the first set of Major Legends, while eight more spots would be open to any team in the circuit able to qualify.

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