Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships
No. of teams 24
Most recent
champion(s)		 Denmark Astralis (2nd title)
Most titles Sweden Fnatic (3 titles)
CS:GO Major Championships
Genre Counter-Strike: Global Offensive eSports tournament
Frequency Biannual
Location(s) Various
Years active 2013–present
Inaugurated November 28–30, 2013
Most recent September 5–23, 2018
Next event February 14–March 3, 2019
Participants
  • 16 teams (2013–2017)
  • 24 teams (2018–present)
Organized by Valve Corporation

The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships, commonly known as Majors, are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) eSports tournaments sponsored by Valve Corporation, the game's developer. The Majors were first introduced in 2013 and took place in Jönköping, Sweden and was hosted by DreamHack with a total prize pool of US$250,000. Six teams were directly invited, six teams were invited based on previous tournament results, and another four teams came from direct qualifiers.

Since then, the Major circuit has expanded significantly, now posing a US$1,000,000 prize pool and features twenty-four teams from around the world. The Major Championships are considered to be the most important and prestigious tournaments in the Global Offensive scene.

History

Prior to Valve being involved with Counter-Strike tournaments, players and organizations had earlier versions of Majors, with the most prominent organizations hosting the Majors being Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), World Cyber Games (WCG), Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), World eSports Masters (WEM), and Intel Extreme Masters (IEM). All the earlier Majors were from the first version of Counter-Strike. Swedish teams dominated, most notably SK Gaming, but the roster known as the Golden Five were the most successful lineup. Many other teams from other parts of the world would go on the win championships, such as Team 3D from the United States with CPL Winter 2002 and WCG 2004, NoA from Norway with CPL Winter 2004, mibr from Brazil with ESWC 2006, and WeMade FOX from South Korea with WEM 2010.

On September 16, 2013, Valve Corporation announced a US$250,000 community-funded prize pool for its first Major; the money was funded through The Arms Deal Update, which offers players in-game items and announced the tournament will take place in Sweden and will be hosted by DreamHack.[1][2] The tournament took place in late November would later be won by the Swedish team Fnatic.[3] After the 2013 Major, Valve would make the Major a triannual event, with all six Majors featuring the same US$250,000 prize pool.

On February 23, 2016, with the MLG Major Championship: Columbus Major coming up, Valve announced a huge increase in the prize pool at one million dollars. All future Majors would feature the upgraded prize pool. However, Valve would reduce the number of Majors each year from three to two.[4][5]

On December 13, 2017, the general manager of ELEAGUE, the hosts of the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, Christina Alejandre announced a partially new format designed by Valve and ELEAGUE that would expand the number of team in the Major from sixteen to twenty-four. This would also be the first Major that would take place in more than one city.[6]

2012-2015: The Swedish Era

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released in mid-2012. When it was first released, many players decided to not yet make the transition to Global Offensive and instead stay with the older games of Counter-Strike, such as Counter-Strike: Source and Counter-Strike 1.6. The Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) was one of the first teams to enter the CS:GO scene, and the team set an unbreakable feat during its dominance. Composed of five Swedes who had experience with in the past, the Ninjas set an 87-0 mark on LAN tournaments, a record that has still yet to be broken in any sport or eSport. Even against the team that was seen as the only team that could topple NiP, VeryGames, the Swedes continued to roll before falling to the then-Russian majority Virtus.pro squad at StarLadder StarSeries V in April 2013. Going into the very first Valve-sponsored Global Offensive tournament, NiP were favorites to win the title, given its dominance. Despite being able to overcome VeryGames in three maps, the Swedes were unable to scamper past its fellow compatriots in Fnatic, as another Swedish team entered the fray.[7][8][9]

At EMS One Katowice 2014, NiP entered this one as the favorite again, along with Team LDLC.com. Eyes were also on Fnatic, which was relatively fresh off of its Major win. However, Virtus.pro, now made up of Polish players, had part of the legendary Golden Five from the 1.6 scene. Many people wrote off Virtus.pro in the beginning despite playing in front of its home crowd as the squad never had Legend status after falling in the Winter 2013 and only went to one other big tournament, in which it only placed ninth. However, after being picked up by Virtus.pro, the Poles went on a hot streak, topping its group and running over Team LDLC.com and LGB eSports. In the grand finals, it faced off against NiP, but what the eSports community calls "Virtus.plow" proved too strong for the Swedes to do anything and Virtus.pro put itself on the map as the Major title eluded NiP once more. ESL One Cologne 2014 was a toss up among several teams, as Team LDLC.com and NiP continued its strong form, Fnatic signed the two best LGB eSports players, and nobody knew if Virtus.pro would show up again. Fnatic defeated the rising Natus Vincere and the consistently strong Team Dignitas in the playoffs; on the other side, NiP barely took over Cloud9, who had an unexpectedly good performance and upset Dignitas in the group stage, and its rivals in LDLC. Fnatic was seen as the favorite by this point, as it had a comparatively easy time in the bracket than NiP. After the two rivals split maps, NiP just about took the third map, finally giving the Swedes their first title.

Amidst all this, one powerhouse country from the beginning did not see a title: France. The first French shuffle in Global Offensive took place, as Titan received Team LDLC.com's spot. However, major turmoil took place, as two prominent French players Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian of Titan and Gordon "Sf" Giry of Epsilon eSports were caught cheating, banning them from all Valve-sponsored events. Their respective organizations dropped them from the rosters, but this meant the neither team was fielding a majority of the players from the last Major, meaning the spot had to be vacated and Titan and Epsilon were disqualified. Despite all the obstacles, Team LDLC.com came back into play and fielded a team made from the remnants of the French shuffle. The French topped its group over NiP, defeated Fnatic in a controversial quarterfinals, took down Natus Vincere, and faced off against an old rival in NiP. LDLC prevailed in overtime on the final map to take its first trophy home.[10]

Despite the last two Majors being won by other countries, Sweden continued to show power through good placements at all tournaments. However, there were many potential favorites along with Fnatic and NiP, including Team EnVyUs, which picked up the LDLC players who won Winter 2014; Virtus.pro, which was showing strong placements; and the rising PENTA Sports and Natus Vincere, in which Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács was starting to become the best AWPer on the scene. However, Fnatic was still the strong favorite, winning five of its last seven tournaments. Even with all the threats, it was the same two Swedish teams in the finals once, as they proved Sweden could only be on top during this era. After a close three game series, Fnatic came out on top, edging out NiP. This tournament would also end NiP's five straight finals appearance at the Major. At ESL One Cologne 2015, the scene had a slight change, as it was Team SoloMid (TSM) from Denmark that was the favorite to win. The Danes took home five trophies from premier tournaments and even swept Fnatic 3-0 in the last tournament before the Major. The four favorites topped their groups and won their quarterfinals matchup, including Virtus.pro defeating NiP. In an upset, Team EnVyUs took down TSM to move on to the finals while Fnatic defeated the Polish giants in Virtus.pro. With its kryptonite NiP out of the way, EnVyUs looked to take the tournament for the roster's second title. However, in one of the most memorable series, Fnatic was able to mount a massive comeback in the first map and rode that momentum in the second to take home its second straight title and third overall. At DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015, Fnatic and EnVyUs were the two favorites. However, Luminosity Gaming pulled off the upset of the tournament in the group stage by topping the group over Fnatic. With the playoff seeding rules, this mean EnVyUs had to face off against Fnatic in the quarterfinals. After Fnatic took the first map, EnVyUs rolled in the next two to become the sole favorite to win the tournament. The finals pitted EnVyUs and Natus Vincere; this matchup had the two best AWPers of 2015 in GuardiaN and Kenny "kennyS" Schrub facing off. After a very close first map, EnVyUs took that momentum and easily knocked around Natus Vincere in the second map to take home a second title.

2016-2017: The Brazilian Era

Even though many teams from over the world attended the Majors, only Europeans have won Majors, as the closest any other team has gotten was compLexity Gaming with a third place finish at Winter 2013. Going into MLG Major Championship: Columbus, Fnatic was the heavy favorite, as NiP had a small decline in performance, EnVyUs had a massive decline in performance, Virtus.pro was struggling, and Astralis (the former players from Team SoloMid) had not won an event. Fnatic won the last five tournaments and its biggest opponent at Columbus appeared to be Natus Vincere. However, Fnatic suffered a huge upset when it fell to Team Liquid in the group stage, putting the Swedes in the second seed. Fnatic went up against Astralis in the quarterfinals and the Swedes were upset again as Astralis dominated; this would be the first time Astralis defeated Fnatic in a series since February 2015.[11] With Fnatic out of the way, Natus Vincere looked to be the clear favorite. On the other side of the bracket a dark horse in Luminosity Gaming was squeezing past each series after nearly losing two massive leads to Virtus.pro in the quarterfinals and having to make two massive comebacks in the semifinals against Team Liquid. Luminosity had never won a series against Natus Vincere until IEM Katowice 2016, the last event before the Major, in what many are calling the Overpass game as the best game of 2016. However, Natus Vincere was still seen as the favorite considering the experience. However, Luminosity proved everyone wrong. After coming back from an 11-4 deficit on the first map to win in overtime, the Brazilians thrashed Natus Vincere in the second to become the first non-European team to win a Major.

At ESL One Cologne 2016, the Luminosity lineup transferred to SK Gaming. Although SK was the favorite for this Major, a significant foe in G2 Esports emerged out of the blue, starting with ESL Pro League Season 3. G2 gave the Brazilians a run for its money in the final as Luminosity barely won 3-2. At ECS Season 2, G2 took down Luminosity right before the Major. With the group draw, G2 and SK were in the same group. SK would win the matchup between the two and would eventually move on to the playoffs. G2 was upset by Fnatic in the group, so SK was the clear favorite. Aside from a tight series against Virtus.pro, SK took an easy path the a win for its second straight title.

The ELEAGUE Major 2017 was up next, but SK was not the favorite. Although it place no lower than fourth at any LAN tournament, SK could not take home a win in any tournament. Instead, with a new team captain in Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander to replace Finn "karrigan" Andersen, Astralis was the favorite to win it all. Aside from a small hiccup against OpTic Gaming at ELEAGUE Season 2, Astralis was rolling. However, in the group stage, Astralis struggled as it suffered a huge upset to GODSENT, but did get revenge against OpTic in the next round. After defeating G2, it lost to SK Gaming, but was able to pull out alive. After the group stage, Natus Vincere was chosen to be the favorites by many after dominating mousesports, EnVyUs, and SK in the group stage, not allowing the other team to get six rounds in each game. After a close series, however, Natus Vincere fell to Astralis in the quarterfinals and then swept Fnatic to reach the finals against Virtus.pro, which came back from a massive deficit against North and defeated its Major demons in SK. In one of the closest Major finals, Astralis was able to pull through at the last moment to take home its first Major title. At PGL Major Kraków 2017, SK was once again the favorite to win the tournament as it finally found its winning ways again after the addition of João "felps" Vasconcellos by winning six of its last nine tournaments. However, what was supposed to be a potential finals matchup found its way in the quarterfinals. Astralis defeated SK in fairly convincing fashion. With SK out of the way and FaZe Clan bombing out in last place, Astralis was the new favorite. However, a rejuvenated Gambit Esports was lead by Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko to edge out Astralis while Immortals, another Brazilian team, also found its way in the finals as it was the battle of the two underdogs. Zeus achieved his career-long dream of finally winning a Global Offensive Major by taking down Immortals in a close third map.

2018: A mixed bag

After the PGL Major, no one team appeared to be on top. However, once ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 arrived, there was a clear favorite. Astralis had been struggling (especially with Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz out sick before the tournament), the defending champions Gambit were on a severe decline once Zeus left the team, and Natus Vincere was starting from the bottom despite acquiring star player Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev. SK Gaming was certainly the best team coming into the tournament after replacing João "felps" Vasconcellos with Ricardo "boltz" Prass, but SK was forced to play with felps due to ELEAGUE rules. Coming into the tournament, FaZe Clan was the new favorite, looking to jump back from a disastrous Kraków finish; with GuardiaN and Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer joining the team, FaZe looked take the Major. In the group stage, G2 Esports dominated with its new French superteam and FaZe went undefeated in the New Legends stage to move on. FaZe took down mousesports after a crucial mistake from Miikka "suNny" Kemppi in the first map gave FaZe a way into the quarterfinals; FaZe followed up by taking down Natus Vincere in convincing fashion. On the other side, G2 fell easily to Cloud9 while SK just about took down Fnatic. Cloud9 pulled off an upset against SK in the semifinals to get a chance to face off against FaZe in the finals in front of its home crowd. With SK out of the way, FaZe seemed to be in control. In a memorable finals, Cloud9 took down FaZe on a map that only SK seemingly took FaZe down on and then won the Major in double overtime, securing the first time a North American team won the Major.

The FACEIT Major: London 2018 had a clear favorite in Astralis, as the Danes surged back into the top spot after acquiring Emil "Magisk" Reif. FaZe Clan had regressed and Natus Vincere could not find a way to beat Astralis despite improving massively since the last Major. Defending champions Cloud9 struggled massively after the departures of Jake "Stewie2K" Yip and Tarik "tarik" Celik to MIBR; meanwhile, MIBR was only starting to find its stride after hiring its new coach in Janko "YNk" Paunović. The only other team that could potentially put up a fight against Astralis, Team Liquid, did well against everyone else, but Astralis proved to be too strong for the North Americans. North was the team that defeated Astralis in the tournament before the Major, DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018, but North was knocked out in the New Challengers stage, leaving Astralis to be the clear favorites. Astralis passed the New Challengers stage with just one loss in a quadruple overtime affair against Ninjas in Pyjamas and then cleared the New Legends stage with one loss against Team Liquid in a game Astralis came back from a 13-2 deficit only to lose in overtime, but the Danes made up for it by shutting out MIBR in the first ever 16-0 in Major history. In the playoffs, Astralis cruised through the semifinals and finals to cement itself as the most dominant team of 2018.

Format

After the 2013 Major, the top eight teams would earn automatic berths to the next Major. These teams would be called "Legends." The other eight teams would be decided by regional qualifiers, mainly from Europe and North America. These teams would be called "Challengers." Few other teams were invited or came from a last chance qualifier. Starting with DreamHack Open Stockholm 2015, the qualifier to DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015, the bottom eight teams from the Major would earn automatic berths to the newly formed Major qualifier. The DreamHack Stockholm qualifier featured five teams from Europe, two teams from North America, and one team from Asia.

Starting with MLG Major Championship: Columbus, a Minor system took place. The Columbus Minor system originally featured one Americas team, two Asian teams, one CIS team, one European team, and three last chance qualifier teams. It was until ESL One Cologne 2016 in which a neater format was introduced. Four Minors – Asia, CIS, Europe, Americas – were introduced. Two teams from each qualifier would go on to join the bottom eight teams from the last Major to the Major qualifier. The top eight teams would move on. Starting with the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, the Major qualifier was scrapped and was instead combined with the actual Major itself, expanding the number of teams in a Major to 24. This would also mean that the top sixteen teams from the Major would earn automatic invites to the next Major, with the Legends getting automatic seeds in the second phase of the Major and the next eight teams earning automatic berths to the first phase of the Major.[12] On August 28, 2018, about a week before the start of the FACEIT Major: London 2018, Valve announced that only the top fourteen teams from the London 2018 Major and on would earn direct invites to the next Major, meaning the two teams that go winless in the first phase would not get an invitation. The two spots would instead be filled in via a playoff stage featuring the four third place teams at the Minors.[13]

Unlike traditional sports or other eSports leagues, Valve's policy on a spot in a Major is based on whichever the majority of the players are on rather than the team itself. For instance, at the ELEAGUE Major 2017, Team EnVyUs placed ninth, meaning it would have an automatic berth at the next Major qualifier. However, before the next Major, three of EnVyUs's players transferred to G2 Esports, meaning G2 Esports would take EnVyUs's spot at the qualifier.

Tournament Stages

From 2013 to 2016, Majors used a four group GSL format for the group stage. The highest seed (the semifinalists and finalists from the last Major) in each group would play the lowest seed in each group and the other two teams would play. The two winners would then play to determine which team gets the top seed. The two losers then play to decide which team would go home. The remaining two teams play to determine which team takes the final playoff spot. All games were best of ones. The last Major of 2015 and both Majors in 2016 featured a best of three decider match to make it more fair and to have a more guarantee that the better team would come out on top.

Starting in 2017, the group stage would feature a Swiss group stage. This would mean teams would be divided into four pots, in which pot one had the four highest seeds, pot two had the next four highest seeds, and so on. A randomly selected team from pot one would face off against a randomly selected team from pot four. The same process is done with the pots two and three. After initial matches are done, teams with the same record would play, so that teams with a 1-0 record would only play another team with a 1-0 record. If a team gets three wins, then that team moves on to the next stage. If a team has three losses, that team is eliminated. All games were best of one up until the FACEIT Major: London 2018.[14] The Boston 2018 Major featured two Swiss group stages; the stage formerly known as the offline qualifier was now known as the New Challengers stage and the group stage was now known as the New Legends stage. The Swiss system also guarantees no team would face each other twice unless necessary. The FACEIT Major: London 2018 revealed a slightly different form of the Swiss system called the Buchholz system, in which matchups would now be seeded instead of random and the last round would feature best of three sets.[15]

A controversial form of the group stage came from ESL One Cologne 2015. Initially, the first three matches started out the same way as the GSL format intended, so that the winner of the group was determined. However, teams were then reassigned afterwards so that the two losers played from different groups and then the decider match would also be teams from different groups.

The playoffs, now known as the New Champions stage, have featured eight teams since the Major's inception. All games are best of three series. With the GSL format, the group winners would earn top seeds and the group runner-ups would earn the bottom seeds. Each top seed plays a bottom seed in quarterfinals and teams play until a winner is decided. For the Swiss format seeding, the two teams that came out on top in the group stage earn the highest seeds. Two randomly selected teams from the bottom three teams would be pitted against the top seeds. Two randomly selected teams from the third to fifth place teams would be put together and then the last two teams would finalize the bracket.

Banned players

Valve Corporation has permanently banned players in the past for a couple of reasons. Linus "b0bbzki" Lundqvist was the first known professional player to be banned in Global Offensive. Perhaps the most infamous VAC ban on a professional player was Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian's ban. KQLY was banned along with several other professional players, such as Gordon "Sf" Giry, while KQLY was playing for France's best team, Titan.[16] A player by the name of LEo from China who was most recently playing for the team Fierce Tiger was the latest player to be VAC banned and controversy ensued before the FACEIT Major: London 2018 LEo and his team tried to cover up the fact that he was banned by playing under a different alias.[17]

The only other way in which players are banned thus far is due to match fixing. The first case of Valve banning players because of match fixing was the iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides.com match fixing scandal after a leak from eSports journalist Richard Lewis found that one of North America's best team at the time was involved in a match fixing scandal. After Casey "caseyfoster" Foster – co-owner of NetcodeGuides.com – and Sam "DaZeD" Marine – the captain of the iBUYPOWER team – were found to have a joint venture, it eventually came out that the most of the iBUYPOWER roster and the owners of NetcodeGuides.com fixed the a best of three series at the CEVO Season 5: Professional tournaments; the deal was the iBUYPOWER would lose the game and in exchange the NetcodeGuides.com owners would give them skins. Valve indefinitely banned seven players who were involved in the scandal. Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham was the only iBUYPOWER not banned as Valve deemed that it did not have enough evidence that Skadoodle threw the game. Valve would later make the bans permanent, causing some controversy in the Counter-Strike community as Valve did not permanently ban Dota 2 players for the same reason. These bans would effectively ban two of North America's best in-game leaders (DaZeD and Joshua "steel" Nissan) and young talents such as Braxton "swag" Pierce.[18] Afterwards, only two other cases of match fixing would take place that would ban nine other players.

Stickers

Stickers are virtual items in the game in which players can buy or open from capsules. There are four types of stickers: normal, holo, foil, and gold. Every player would get their autograph put into the game as a sticker, which fans put on their in game weapon skins to show support. If a fan buys a sticker of a player or organization, then that player or organization earns half of the proceeds.

The older a sticker gets, the more expensive it tends becomes as that stickers become rarer to buy and with Valve not releasing any capsules for old tournaments, with an iBUYPOWER holo sticker from Katowice 2014 going for an average of US$4,500.[19]

List of Major Championships

Tournament Date P# Prize pool Location Winner MVP[Note 1]
2013 DreamHack Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Championship November 28–30, 2013 16 US$250,000 Sweden Jönköping Sweden Fnatic (1) Sweden JW
ESL Major Series One Katowice 2014 March 13–16, 2014 16 US$250,000 Poland Katowice Poland Virtus.pro Poland pashaBiceps
ESL One Cologne 2014 August 14–17, 2014 16 US$250,000 Germany Cologne Sweden Ninjas in Pyjamas Sweden friberg
DreamHack Winter 2014 November 27–29, 2014 16 US$250,000 Sweden Jönköping France Team LDLC.com (1) France Happy
ESL One Katowice 2015 March 12–15, 2015 16 US$250,000 Poland Katowice Sweden Fnatic (2) Sweden olofmeister
ESL One Cologne 2015 August 20-23, 2015 16 US$250,000 Germany Cologne Sweden Fnatic (3) Sweden flusha
DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 October 28–November 1, 2015 16 US$250,000 Romania Cluj-Napoca France Team EnVyUs (2) France kennyS
MLG Major Championship: Columbus March 29–April 3, 2016 16 US$1,000,000 United States Columbus Brazil Luminosity Gaming (1) Brazil coldzera (1)
ESL One Cologne 2016 July 5–10, 2016 16 US$1,000,000 Germany Cologne Brazil SK Gaming (2) Brazil coldzera (2)
ELEAGUE Major 2017 January 22–29, 2017 16 US$1,000,000 United States Atlanta Denmark Astralis (1) Denmark Kjaerbye
PGL Major Kraków 2017 July 16–23, 2017 16 US$1,000,000 Poland Kraków Kazakhstan Gambit Esports Kazakhstan HObbit
ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 January 12–28, 2018 23 US$1,000,000 United States Atlanta
United States Boston		 United States Cloud9 United States Skadoodle
FACEIT Major: London 2018 September 5–23, 2018 24 US$1,000,000 United Kingdom London Denmark Astralis (2) Denmark dev1ce
Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – World Championship February 14 – March 3, 2019 24 US$1,000,000 Poland Katowice TBD TBD
Notes
  1. ↑ Until the Columbus 2016 Major, official MVPs were not named; therefore, the HLTV.org MVPs for the most of the Majors were used.

Legends table

The list of Legends across every Major is shown below. A change in the background color indicates that a different roster took over the Legends spot or the Legends roster from before broke up. If the team name changes but does not change color, this indicates that the roster changed teams but did not lose its Legends spot. In some cases, a team may show up multiple times consecutively, but the color has changed; in this case, the organization has simply fielded new players for the majority of the roster. The asterisk next to a team's name indicates the team won the event.

Across the Majors, only fourteen players have attended every Major: Paweł "byali" Bieliński, René "cajunb" Borg, Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth, Jarosław "pashaBiceps" Jarząbkowski, Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson, Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer, Filip "NEO" Kubski, Richard "shox" Papillon, Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski, Peter "dupreeh" Rothmann, Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, Robin "flusha" Rönnquist, Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko, and Jesper "JW" Wecksell. Of those fourteen, only one has been a Legend every single Major: olofmeister, first with LGB eSports, then with Fnatic, then with FaZe Clan.

Winter 2013 Katowice 2014 Cologne 2014 Winter 2014 Katowice 2015 Cologne 2015 Cluj 2015 Columbus 2016 Cologne 2016 Atlanta 2017
Fnatic* (1) Fnatic (2) Fnatic (3) Fnatic (4) Fnatic* (5) Fnatic* (6) Fnatic (7) Fnatic (8) Fnatic (9) Fnatic (10)
Ninjas in Pyjamas (1) Ninjas in Pyjamas (2) Ninjas in Pyjamas* (3) Ninjas in Pyjamas (4) Ninjas in Pyjamas (5) Ninjas in Pyjamas (6) Ninjas in Pyjamas (7) Ninjas in Pyjamas (8) FlipSid3 Tactics (1) North (1)
Copenhagen Wolves (1) Team Dignitas (2) Team Dignitas (3) Team Dignitas (4) Team SoloMid (5) Team SoloMid (6) Team SoloMid (7) Astralis (8) Astralis (9) Astralis* (10)
VeryGames (1) Virtus.pro* (1) Virtus.pro (2) Virtus.pro (3) Virtus.pro (4) Virtus.pro (5) Virtus.pro (6) Virtus.pro (7) Virtus.pro (8) Virtus.pro (9)
LGB eSports (1) LGB eSports (2) Natus Vincere (1) Natus Vincere (2) Natus Vincere (3) Natus Vincere (4) Natus Vincere (5) Natus Vincere (6) Natus Vincere (7) Natus Vincere (8)
compLexity Gaming (1) compLexity Gaming (2) Cloud9 (3) PENTA Sports (1) PENTA Sports (2) Team Kinguin (1) G2 Esports (2) Team Liquid (1) Team Liquid (2) FaZe Clan (1)
Recursive eSports (1) Team LDLC.com (2) Team LDLC.com (3) Team LDLC.com* (1) Team EnVyUs (2) Team EnVyUs (3) Team EnVyUs* (4) Counter Logic Gaming (1) Gambit Gaming (1) Gambit Esports (2)
Astana Dragons (1) HellRaisers (2) Epsilon eSports (1) HellRaisers (3) Keyd Stars (1) Luminosity Gaming (2) Luminosity Gaming (3) Luminosity Gaming* (4) SK Gaming* (5) SK Gaming (6)
Kraków 2017 Boston 2018 London 2018 Katowice 2019
Fnatic (11) Fnatic (12) HellRaisers (1)
North (2) mousesports (1) compLexity Gaming (1)
Astralis (11) Quantum Bellator Fire (1) Astralis* (12)
Virtus.pro (10) Cloud9* (1) Team Liquid (1)
Immortals (1) Natus Vincere (9) Natus Vincere (10)
BIG (1) FaZe Clan (2) FaZe Clan (3)
Gambit Esports* (3) G2 Esports (5) BIG (2)
SK Gaming (7) SK Gaming (8) MIBR (9)
Notes
  • Only one team has a 100 percent success rate when it comes to achieving Legends status since its first attempt at the Major: the core of MIBR, mainly in coldzera, FalleN, and fer starting in Katowice 2015. Fnatic was the last team to reach top eight at every Major before falling in the group stage at the thirteenth Major, FACEIT Major: London 2018.
  • Team LDLC.com sign the core of the Recursive eSports roster that had Legends status from Winter 2013.[20] The roster would get its third Legends status at Cologne 2014. Before Winter 2014, LDLC players Kévin "Uzzziii" Vernel and Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian were caught cheating and were subsequently banned from all Valve-sponsored tournaments. Following this, the old LDLC roster (apEX, Happy, KQLY, Maniac, Uzzziii) turned into a newly formed LDLC roster (Happy, kioShiMa, NBK-, shox, SmithZz).[21][22] After winning Winter 2014, the roster was bought out by Team EnVyUs. After coming in last place at Columbus 2016, the roster struggled and eventually the core of EnVyUs transferred to G2 Esports. Because the core from the EnVyUs and LDLC is now with G2, the roster of G2 acquired its fifth Legends status.[23]

References

  1. ↑ "2013 DreamHack SteelSeries CS:GO Championship". Counter-Strike: Global Offensive blog. September 16, 2013. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  2. ↑ Mira, Luis (September 16, 2013). "DH Winter with $250k tournament". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  3. ↑ "DreamHack Winter 2013 overview". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  4. ↑ Lahti, Evan (February 23, 2016). "Valve puts in $1 million for all future major CS:GO tournaments". PC Gamer. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  5. ↑ Good, Owen S. (February 24, 2016). "Valve boosts Counter-Strike major tournament prize pool to $1 million". Polygon. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  6. ↑ Alejandre, Christina (December 13, 2017). "christina alejandre on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  7. ↑ "87-0: NiP's untouchable CS:GO map streak". YouTube. April 19, 2018. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  8. ↑ Shields, Duncan (December 5, 2015). "Thorin's Thoughts - How did NiP go 87:0? (CS:GO)". YouTube. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  9. ↑ Åkerblom, André (August 11, 2016). "NiP: The squad that set the tone". Fragbite. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  10. ↑ Mira, Luis (November 20, 2014). "Titan, Epsilon disqualified from DHW". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Astralis vs. fnatic at MLG Columbus 2016". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  12. ↑ "ELEAGUE MAJOR 2018 EXTENDS TO 24 TEAMS BY INCLUDING LAN-QUALIFIERS TO THE MAIN EVENT". GG.bet. December 14, 2017. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Winning is Everything". CSGO Blog. August 28, 2018. Retrieved August 28, 2018.
  14. ↑ "christina alejandre on Twitter".
  15. ↑ Mira, Luis (August 1, 2018). "FACEIT Major to feature Buchholz system, BO3 fifth Swiss round". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  16. ↑ Mira, Luis (November 21, 2014). "KQLY: "BAN WAS JUSTIFIED"". HLTV.org. Retrieved September 11, 2018.
  17. ↑ Mira, Luis (May 26, 2018). "Fierce Tiger disqualified from Asia Minor qualifier". HLTV.org. Retrieved May 26, 2018.
  18. ↑ "Integrity and Fair Play". CS:GO Blog. January 26, 2015. Retrieved September 11, 2018.
  19. ↑ Knoop, Joseph (November 30, 2017). "The most expensive CS:GO skins of 2017". PC Gamer. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  20. ↑ Mira, Luis (February 2, 2014). "Official: LDLC sign new team". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
  21. ↑ Mira, Luis (February 4, 2015). "Episilon release Uzzziii & fnzy0". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
  22. ↑ Milovanovic, Petar (November 20, 2014). "KQLY handed VAC ban". HLTV.org. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
  23. ↑ Wolf, Jacob (February 3, 2017). "G2 announces new CS:GO roster, add three from EnVyUs". ESPN. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
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