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North America on cloud nine after major win
NORTH AMERICAN COUNTER STRIKE TEAM, CLOUD9, WINS FIRST MAJOR FOR THE NORTH AMERICAN REGION
BY SAM WESTON
PHOTO EDITOR
North America has finally won a Counter
-Strike: Global Offensive major, and it will
likely change the way we look at esports in
this country.
North America is a region that is seen as
competitive in esports as Michael Jordan
was competitive in baseball; Pretty much
a joke. Why should you care? Give it five
years and you will.
CS is played on two sides, the Terrorists
(Ts) and the Counter Terrorists (CTs) in a
best-of 30-round match. Each team gets
a chance to be both the CTs and the Ts,
switching sides after 15 rounds. The first
to 16 rounds wins the game and if both
teams reach 15, then the teams face off in
a best-of-six overtime and this continues
until one team beats the other.
- I n CS, a “ M ajor” is th e b ig ge st
tournament of the year sponsored by the
game’s creator, Valve, and includes a $1
million prize pool. It is the pinnacle of
competitive CS and what teams prepare
for all season.
It began with 24 teams from regions all
over the world vying for one of the eight
“ Legend” spots in the finals in Bostdn.
After a long two week battle, eight teams
¿remained including America’s last hope,
Cloud9. After a 0-2 start to the tourney and
their backs against the wall, they went on
to win three straight matches to qualify
for the final eight and would set them up
for arguably the greatest run in CS history.
Their first m atch cam e against the
French powerhouse G2 esports who at
the time were the No. 4 team in the world
and were at that point in the tournament
favored to win seeing as how they went 3-0
in the previous stage. However, C9 shocked
everyone and rolled over them 16-8 on C9’s
map pick, Mirage and then 16-7 on G2’ s
pick, Overpass. The French just never got
comfortable and struggled to get rolling
against C9, who had a big showing from
Tarik “ Tarik” Celik.
“We had a good game plan going into [it J
but on top of that, we were very confident,
and we came out swinging,” said Celik,
Cloudy’s in -gam e leader during a post
game interview by ELEAGUE.
C9 wohld eventually go on to play SK
Gaming, the current No. 1 team inthe world
who,' unfortunately due to tournament
roster lock rules, were without their fifth
man on the roster and played with a stand-
in.
- C9 plowed through SK on the first map,
16-3 but SK would eventually recover and
regain form on Cobblestone to win 16-8.
The final map of the m atchup took the
teams to Inferno. C9 came out hot starting
the half 12-3 and putting them in a good
position to advance again. It was clear that
SK were on low fuel seeing as how none of
the players had a positive rating which let
Celik and C9 finish the second half with a
16-9 score line. After the match, á frenzy
of controversy came storming on Valve for
making SK play two matches in one day
after SK’s captain Gabriel “ Fallen” Toledo
expressed his displeasure on twitter.
“ Nothing to do with the defeat, but please
stop putting one quarters [on] ^Saturday
with semis,” Toledo said on Twitter.
C9 would go on to make it to their first
major finals in organization history. On
the other side, the second best team in
the world, FaZe Clan, eased past their
opponents 2-0 in both matchups.
This set up one of the most memorable
David and Goliath matches in CS history
since North America’s Team Liquid faced
SK in the Electronics Sports League One
Cologne 2016 Major in which SK won 2-0.
With the crowd on their side, C9 stormed
into Agganis Arena with determination
to show what kind of squad they are. The
first map, Mirage, was C9’s pick and its
strongest map. The half ended with a 9-6
, -
photo provided by Valve
score line in favor of C9. They looked prime
to take the first map but fell short after
a stellar performance by FaZe’s Veteran
Ladislav “ Guardian” Kovacs who proved
to be a thorn in the side of C9 during the
finals. The final score came to a 16-14 finish
prompting everyone to believe that it was
C9-S death notice being that the next map
was FaZe’s-'best, Overpass.
C9 came out swinging, dominating the
first half 12-3. They would win 16-10 with
strong performances once again b y Celik
and Veteran Tyler “ Skadoodle” Latham.
This shocking upset made it seempossible
for C9 to win.
Map three would begin on Inferno. Their
momentum and the crowd’s support gave
them the edge on the final map, but after
the first half, C9 held only an 8-7 lead.
FaZe regained momentum to reach map
and tournam ent point 15-11. W ith all
hope seemingly to have disappeared for
C9, they never gave in. C9 tied the game
at 15 after an amazing clutch play by C9’s
Jake “ Stewie2k” Yip propelling the grand
finals into overtime.
The first overtime ended 18-18 bringing
us to the first ever double overtime major
final in competitive history. From there, it
was game, set and match. FaZe lost all its
steam trying to keep up with the crowd and
finally Kovacs fell at the hands of Latham,
Veteran versus Veteran, giving NA its first
major in CS history.
“ I’m not crying, you’re crying,” a teary
eyed Latham jokingly said on his first ever
major title in the post-gam e interview
by ELEAGUE. Latham would go on to win
finals MVP for his stellar performance.
The drought is over for NA. There are
more to come now that the region has
something to show for their CS players.
Give it five years and these players you’ve
never heard of are going to be the ones on
kids’ walls, the ones that will be called the
best in the world, the ones getting Gatorade
sponsorships, playing in front of sold-out
arenas on a nightly basis, and you’ll finally
see the talent that would have never been
exposed without the inspiration of this
title.
*
.
So yes, I am crying, too.
Cloud9’s in-game leader Tarik “Tarik”
Celik leads the team in overtime
thriller agaisnt FaZe Clan
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Febuary 7, 2018