2014 has been a year of confirmations for CS:GO. The comeback of Counter-Strike on the front of the eSport scene started at the end of 2013 with the first major tournament, during the DreamHack Winter, which was made possible by the support of Valve and the investment of many organisations and competitions. 2014 has been a key year where everyone tried to stand out before starting 2015, announced as very promising year for CS:GO. Return on the routes of the four teams that have dominated the past twelve months on the Counter-Strike world.

 Ninjas in Pyjamas

GeT_RiGhT  Xizt  f0rest  Fifflaren  Friberg  Maikelele

DH Invitational    EMS One Katowice  FACEIT Mars  CPH Games  GSL Cup  eSportsventure Cup  SLTV StarSeries IX  Mikz Challenge

SCAN Invitational  DH Summer  ESPORTSM  IronGaming  ESL One Cologne 3/4. Finales CoTH  DH Winter

The greatest team in the history of the game started this year pretty confident about their “top world” status. Yet until the EMS One Katowice, first major tournament in 2014, Xizt’s teammates appeared to be a little less efficient than the French-Belgian players from Titan then considered as one or even the best team in the world thanks to their gaming house. This feeling got confirmed at the DreamHack Invitational where they lost twice against Ex6TenZ’s mates.

The Swedes started 2014 with a silver medal. A metal they got again few weeks later at the EMS One in Poland where they ended pretty helpless against the horde of Virtus.Pro supported by 12,500 people during the grand final. Once again, NiP didn’t manage to grab the supreme title at the very end.

As we approach of the Copenhagen Games which they were defending champions, the Ninjas in Pyjamas didn’t win any new trophy since the DreamHack Bucharest in September 2013. A deficiency that ended in the Danish capital in a pretty nice way. NiP found back the glory after successively winning against Reason, Dignitas and the very same Virtus.Pro that stole their gold medal few weeks earlier. A revenge taken during the grand final that will allow the Swedes to keep their title and add a new line to their huge list of achievements.

If the Ninjas in Pyjamas seemed to be back on top, they faced new troubles while playing against the home team during the final of the ninth season of the StarSeries. A team called Natus Vincere that back then appeared to be lower than their three opponents. Nevertheless they didn’t show any mercy especially towards Ninjas in Pyjamas that they defeated twice, including in the grand final. Four event and three second place for this part of the year. Ninjas in Pyjamas wasn’t invincible anymore but remained the most stable and regular team in the world.

The summer tour went much better. Starting with an eternal DreamHack Summer, another competition where GeT_RiGhT’s teammates were the defending champions. Like the 2013 edition, the DreamHack Summer 2014 ended up being a pretty hard tournament for the champions, especially during the semifinal against HellRaisers who were really close to the victory after a crazy third map. After that, the Swedes took their revenge during the final against Na`Vi, and managed to keep their throne.

This victory in Jönköping quickly disappeared as their trip to Dallas for the ESEA XVI Invite finals turned into a nightmare. For the first time in their history, NiP got knocked out of a tournament before reaching the semifinals. Their tormentors? CompLexity and once again, Virtus.Pro. No sign of improvement at the Gfinity 3 where Friberg and his mates were only two rounds away from an early elimination during the group stage. Two very bad results in a row that threw Ninjas in Pyjamas into the middle of the world ranking.

Tweeday named the movie he did about Ninjas in Pyjamas at the ESL One Cologne, second major of the year, “Redemption”. This name perfectly fits to the journey of the Swedes at this event during which very few people would have bet on a potential success. What a tournament! Victims of a first loss against Epsilon during the group stage, NiP reached the tree without impressing anyone. Then, and as often with the Ninjas in Pyjamas, a change happened and the team managed to win three absolutely hellish games against Cloud9, LDLC and Fnatic in a revenge of the grand final of the 2013 DH Winter.

 After being on the edge of the elimination during these three games, Xizt’s men managed to demonstrate their very strong mental and ended up winning at a moment where it seemed almost impossible. With this performance, they managed to reach the top scene, yet it seemed to only be a one-shot. Why? Because after that Ninjas in Pyjamas will face new pre-Cologne problems.

Starting with the DreamHack Stockholm that was pictured as a ground of rivalry between Swedes and Frenchies. The NiP’s journey will quickly turn into a nightmare with losses against LDLC and Titan. This is the first time Ninjas in Pyjamas are not qualified for the playoffs at a tournament they attend.

And things continued getting worse for NiP : several losses online, making them miss several offline finals, and particularly an elimination in the group stage at ESWC 2014. This last disappointment was the last straw for the Swedish players who had to face their first roster change since the beginning of their team. Fifflaren retired from NiP leaving his place to the young Maikelele, a sniper formerly playing for LGB-eSports. This first change seemed to be paying, as NiP showed a very interesting level at DreamHack Winter 2014, 3rd major event of the year.

After a shaky group stage, NiP adjusted their game and qualified for quarter finals. Dominant against HellRaisers and Virtus.Pro, they didn’t manage to win the final against the Frenchmen from LDLC. Despite two match points in their favor, they couldn’t close the game and lost to LDLC. Four major events, four grand finals. The conclusion is simple : Ninjas in Pyjamas is the most consistent team in the history of CS:GO major events.

At the onset of this new year, Ninjas in Pyjamas seems back on track and should be able to confirm their DH Winter 2014 performance on late january, at X-Games.

The skill Maikelele brings to the team opened them to new strategic horizons, as we could see in Jönköping. Ninjas in Pyjamas also has the biggest fanbase, and are still considered at the best team on CS:GO regarding their consistency at major events.

2015 will be a great year for CS:GO, and Ninjas in Pyjamas might remain the most prolific team for the third time in a row. With 220 000 euros earned, and the sticker’s money, it is a great time to be a Ninja.

 Virtus.Pro

byali  Snax  TaZ  Neo  pasha

EMS One Katowice  Fragbite Masters  CPH Games  eSport-bets Cup 4. SLTV StarSeries IX  FACEIT Spring League  ESEA XVI Invite  EPS Poland VIII  Gfinity 3

GameShow League 3/4. Hitbox Arena 3 3/4. FACEIT League 2  ESWC  Finales CoTH 3/4. DH Winter   ESEA XVII Invite  TakeTV Invitational

At the beginning of the year, Shox used to say that the Polish guys from Virtus.Pro were the most impressive ones during practice games. Playing together since september 2013, they signed on Virtus.Pro on january 1st. Winners of the StarSeries’ eighth season on december 2013, Neo’s teammates were really quiet until the event that changed everything: the EMS One Katowice.

Titan and Ninjas in Pyjamas were the favorites but Virtus.Pro could have expect at least a podium. But no one could have anticipate such a domination. On their land, neither Titan nor LDLC nor LGB and not even NiP managed to make the polish even doubt.  

It’s with 12 500 supporters behind them that they won the biggest success of their career - a really long one for some of them. TaZ (who took the lead) and his teammates sent a huge message to the rest of the scene: by ending on a second position at the Copenhagen Games, everyone understood that the three former guys from the Golden 5 got their 1.6 top position back.

Since then, Virtus.Pro confirmed they were one of the three top team in the world. Their second beautiful victory of the year didn’t happen on lan but online during the finals of the spring edition of the FACEIT League. Facing LDLC, Titan then the redoutable Dignitas, the Poles once again impressed and won with more or less difficulty.

Following StarSeries finals and a mixed DreamHack Summer, Virtus.Pro went to the Gfinity 3 which took place two weeks before the ESL One Cologne. After a difficult group stage where they conceded two defeats against Mousesports and Dignitas, the Poles stepped up during the final phase, losing every first map but easily winning the last two each time. Facing Titan during a pretty unexpected final, Snax and his teammates won very easily and positioned themselves as the favorites for Cologne.

At the Gamescom, the holding champions of the last major faced LDLC in the quarter final. After losing, the polish guys joined the spectator bench to witness the Fnatic - LDLC rivalry. These two teams share most of the first places, leaving Virtus.Pro just with the remainings.

This fall, the only accessible title for them was probably the finals of the GameShow League, but in Russia, the ukrainian teams Na`Vi and HellRaisers dominated by taking the two first positions. After that, the Poles managed to scrounge few third positions, for example during the FACEIT League 2 or at the ESWC. At the DreamHack Winter, Virtus.Pro took advantage of a very favorable draw with a quarter final against the Germans from PENTA and reached the semi final without any problem. Then facing Ninjas in Pyjamas, they failed on Inferno, a third map dominated by the Swedes. A new top 3/4 that perfectly resumes the actual situation of this team.

And to prove that once again, at the moment, it’s Fnatic, LDLC and the others, Virtus.Pro took a last beating during the grand final of the ESEA XVIII Invite by losing two BO3 in a row against pronax’s teammates, way too strong. To end on a good note, Virtus.Pro easily won the last european tournament of the year : the TAKETV Invitational even if the competition wasn’t very stiff.

Virtus.Pro is the only top world team who didn’t change any player in 2014. This stability was probably very crucial in their different successes, especially at the EMS One Katowice. Steady through the year, it’s not surprising to see them at the second position in term of earned cashprize. While waiting for 2015, this year will remain as one of the best for the career of the legends such as pasha, Neo and TaZ. 2014 also saw two big revelations of the year, Snax and byali, hopes of the Polish scene who were able to take their chance and become respected players, the first for his slyness and amazing game sense and the second for an impressive aim. Under contract with Virtus.Pro for the next two year, the Poles should stay in the top.

Nevertheless, their scope for growth seems pretty thin and the individualities that make up this team will have to stabilize at their best if they want to find gold again in a major tournament.

 Fnatic II

JW  flusha  olofmeister  KRiMZ  pronax

3/4. Gfinity 3   ESL One Cologne  Hitbox Arena 2  SLTV StarSeries X 3/4. DH Stockholm

3/4. Hitbox Arena 3  FACEIT League 2  ESWC  Fragbite Masters 3  ESEA XVII Invite

Fnatic has had two chapters this year : the first runs from their victory at DreamHack Winter 2013 to the departures of Devilwalk and schneider following DreamHack Summer 2014. A six month long period where Fnatic never quite managed to repeat their impressive performance.

It is only after the arrivals of KRiMZ and olofmesiter, two former LGB-eSports players, that things picked up again for Fnatic.

It all started at Gfinity 3 where Fnatic proved that the team was capable of digesting significant changes in their game. Undefeated in a high level group A, Fnatic fell against their nemesis. A rather surprising nemesis since it is none other than Ex6TenZ, Titan’s Belgian captain, who has always known how to counter Pronax & co’s game plans.

In Cologne, cArn’s protégés once again made ??a very strong impression. Despite a difficult group and a very tight quarterfinal versus Na`Vi (ending 16-14 on the third map), Fnatic found themselves once again facing off their rivals : Ninjas in Pyjamas. It was once again the grand finals of a major, and nine months had passed since DH Winter 2013. This time Fnatic were solid favorites, but the gods of CS:GO love to surprise us. Were it not for three rounds, Fnatic would have become the first team in history to win two major titles. Three rounds.. which went to NiP.

Nevertheless, the performance got the yellow & black back on everyone’s radar. And kicking the Ukrainians at home in Kiev for the StarSteries lan finals confirmed the trend. The four map grand final versus Natus Vincere will go down in history as the first high level victory for the new fnatic, and the start of a great run.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks and another kicking by Titan in the Stockholm DreamHack semis that fnatic truly and unarguably emerged as the best team in the world. The swedes have since scored a number of victories that are second only to NiP’s original winning streak. Starting with FACEIT League 2 in Milan, where despite a difficult final against iBUYPOWER, pronax and his teammates acquired the status of global leaders. Status which was then set in stone a week later with a world champion title from ESWC featuring a landslide finals win over LDLC.

Two teams that ended up just a few days later in Stockholm in the grand final Fragbite Masters 3 and again Fnatic was in another dimension, far ahead of the competition. If DreamHack Winter 2014 held out his arms to those who had won in 2013, a witch hunt arising from KQLY and Sf’s VAC bans particularly affected Fnatic and Flusha. Did it really have an impact on their preparation for the third major event of the year? No one will ever know for sure but one thing is certain Fnatic wasn’t on its cloud anymore in Jönköping.

A group stage loss to Hellraisers set up everyone’s predicted grand final, Fnatic - LDLC, as a quarterfinals match. A high voltage encounter between the two best teams in the world at the time. An encounter which, for better or worse, will forever be etched in Counter-Strike history due to a boost from Olofmesiter that allowed Fnatic to come back from a ten round deficit on the third map, Overpass.

After a huge scandal and a passage of the keyword "Fnatic" in the global trends of Twitter, the team withdrew leaving the French advance to the next stage. Pressured by the sponsors or not, the enigma still reigns and everyone still has their own opinion on the matter today. Anyway, Fnatic has gone from being best team in the world to the most hated team in the space of a day.

Fnatic could have sink considering the media pressure on their shoulders. Yet they thumbed their nose at all their detractors by handing things out the next week in Dallas during the finals of the ESEA Invite XVII. For their last event of the year, the Swedes hit hard. Very hard. Beat Virtus.Pro in grand final of a competition without losing a map and with a delay of a BO3, few teams could have claimed such a feat. Fnatic did.

Fnatic, since the arrivals of KRiMZ and Olofmeister, it’s € 141,000 winnings without major victory. A paradox that shows how this team dominated the second half of the year. The triple Faceit League 2, ESWC, Masters Fragbite 3 in the space of two weeks is not going to be forgotten.

The end of 2014 showed that Fnatic and LDLC were above the rest. Will they still be in 2015? A first answer will be given during the X-Games where both teams will compete. Nevertheless Fnatic spent the new year with the status of world number one. The genius of pronax allied with JW’s sniper and the rise of KRiMZ, most likely the revelation of the year alongside with Snax and byali, the balance of this team is hardly questionable.

 Team LDLC II

Happy  NBK  shox  SmithZz  Kioshima

DH Stockholm  Hitbox Arena 3  SLTV StarSeries XI 3/4. FACEIT League 2

ESWC  Fragbite Masters 3  DH Winter

Like their rivals from Fnatic, LDLC experienced two distinct parts of the year. While the first formation that evolved from February to August 2014 managed to build up and be considered one of the best teams in the world, the second one reached the world top 1/2 in only four months. After the big upheaval that happened on the French scene during the late August, the new LDLC team composed of two Titans, two Epsilon and still led by Happy, had the difficult task to overshadow former representatives who came really close to a feat during the  ESL One Cologne.

Immediately after arose the question of French supremacy. Whom of neo-Titan or neo-LDLC would take the throne ?

A forced rivalry whose first act took part during the grand final of the DreamHack Stockholm. A competition that should have crowned the Swedish as world dominant in Counter-Strike but quickly turned to humiliation for Scandinavians. Anyway, it’s Titan in an Olympic form that finally won, leaving LDLC beginning their history with a silver medal.

This false start was quickly forgotten. LDLC was more impressive day by day before dominating the finals of the eleventh season of the StarSeries. These famous finals with the top three French teams qualified alongside Natus Vincere. LDLC has made no gifts, scoring three maps in the grand final against the Ukrainian and inflicting a slap to Titan in the winner bracket grand final. In late October, Fnatic and LDLC were the two most fit teams and yet they had still not met except once on the internet. The final phase of the Faceit League 2 in Milan arrived at the best of times and if everyone was waiting for these two teams to face in the grand finale, iBUYPOWER changed the pace by eliminating the Frenchmen during the semi-finals after a great match and a first map concluded on the score of 31-27!

Like any self-respecting French team, the ESWC in Paris is a must-attend event for LDLC. Qualifying for the World Cup has been difficult to live for NBK and his mates. Already jostled by Platinium-eSports in the first round, they were harmless against Titan uninhibited in their status of outsiders. Result: a double defeat in the winner bracket final and grand final, but the bulk was then provided with a spot in the international competition.

It is an internal change that allowed the players to find an interesting dynamic back. Happy, who just wanted to focus exclusively on his aim at the beginning of the project,  has taken the leadership just before entering the world championship. After that, LDLC managed to qualify in the quarterfinals where they made short work of their French rivals, before taking out  Natus Vincere. The grand finale will nevertheless be one sided and was not exactly what shox and his teammates hoped for. Against Fnatic,  LDLC were too shy and never really managed to intimidate their opponents. Third silver medal in four major finals World Cup for NBK and SmithZz.

We didn’t have to wait long to see these two teams face again as it happened only on week later in Stockholm during the grand final of the Fragbite Master 3. And again, Fnatic was way above. Three maps to one, no possible doubt : Fnatic was the best team in the world, LDLC and the others were just trying to intervene.

Far from suffering a psychological disadvantage like VeryGames vs NiP some time ago, LDLC certainly didn’t have knots in their stomach when once again they faced Fnatic in the quarter-final of the DreamHack Winter. In the history of their young rivalry, this meeting in Jönköping was the most important and one that will stay in everybody’s mind but not necessarily for the right reason.

A meeting in which both teams has gone through a range of different and opposed emotions. First of all, Fnatic won the game on paper thanks to a boost - retrospectively judged illegal- of olofmeister. It was without counting the complaint filed by the French and then the forfeit of the Swedes the next morning. LDLC beating his nemesis, nothing could stop them from becoming the first French team to win a major tournament. Nothing except perhaps Ninjas in Pyjamas during the final. Still as impressive on Overpass, Kioshima and his teammates managed to catch up on the defense side, reach the overtime thanks to a superb duel won by Happy and finally win after one of the best games in the history of CS: GO.

If at the beginning of the year, everyone bet on Titan, it is ultimately LDLC who was the great French pride in 2014. Almost €130,000 earnings; a major tournament in the pocket and a qualification to the X-Games. All this in just four short months, the results of this second part of the year for LDLC is just impressive.

As for Fnatic, the balance in this formation is close to perfection. 2015 could see the fnatic - LDLC rivalry intensify and become a true classic as the two teams that dominated the end of the year, appear to be close to each other. Then sprinkled with a hint of drama, this oppositions could truly enter the legend. Unless someone comes in between ...

Photos : ESL.eu

Translation by Sephi, Jus et Joachim