Esports
With the ESL One Cologne now done and dusted, we chart some of the best plays to happen in Germany at the cathedral of Counter-Strike.
As was expected, ESL One Cologne showcased one of the most exciting Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitions of 2018 thus far, complete with upsets aplenty. Teams from all over the world competed for the €300,000 prize pool, with Ukraine's Natus Vincere eventually taking the trophy in their third major title this year.
The skill and prowess on display across the five days made for quite a spectacle with all kinds of daring manoeuvres and clever tactics. With the curtain drawn on the big event, here's a selection of the best plays from the contest.
Na'Vi emerged victorious
The final between Na'Vi and BIG was filled with top-tier action, but there's one round in particular that sealed BIG's fate. Playing on the T-side on the fourth map Inferno, Na'Vi's Oleksandr 'S1mple' Kostyliev found himself in a three-on-one predicament in the 21st round. Un-phased, the Ukrainian swiftly took out one opponent under a balcony near Site A before setting the bomb and shrouding the area in smoke with a grenade and tucking himself into a walled-in retreat in the south-east corner of the map. With the bomb ticking, the two remaining BIG players had no choice but to make a move, each picked off one by one once they landed in S1mple's crosshairs, chalking up another round onwards to victory.
BIG set the competition ablaze
Despite finishing second, BIG definitely made good as the fresh-faced hometown heroes. Many of their matches offered something of note, yet none are quite as pleasing as their Molotov-assisted early round T win over FaZe in the semi-finals. Playing on Train, BIG managed to plant down at B with both teams still intact, creating a mass scurry for FaZe to make the defusal as BIG worked to hold them off. Players were coming from all angles in the two-level warehouse, using the empty compartments that litter the space as leverage. Things were getting tight until Owen 'Smooya' Butterfield skillfully lobbed a Molotov, rebounding it around a corner right onto the bombsite and making defusal near-impossible. The move ultimately got BIG the win as the bomb would go off right as a FaZe team-member was the last man standing.
G2 displayed pin-point precision
G2 suffered a bad loss at the hands of Astralis in the quarter-finals, losing in two maps to the Danish team. However, in the 29th round, Kenny 'kennyS' Schrub proved unceremoniously why it is that G2 were there in the first place. During a five-round streak in which G2 managed to push back from 15-10 to force overtime on Dust2, kennyS got a beautiful triplet of frags using the AWP. Hanging back at the north-eastern most point around Site A, kennyS grabbed the three precision headshots as Astralis filtered out from behind the sandstone building of the closest adjoining street. The eliminations were swift and brutal and now serve as a message that next time, things should be different.
RUSH held out for the round
The group stages saw some exciting face-offs, one of which being future champions Na'Vi against stalwarts Cloud9. Of course, Natus Vincere came out on top, but Cloud9 gave them a run for their money across their two maps. The 17th round of Overpass, the second map, had a climax professional CS:GO is tailor made for. At first, the opposing sides whittled each other off in the cover-heavy map before Cloud9’s Will 'RUSH' Wierzba and Tyler 'Skadoodle' Latham found themselves cornered by a high-ground holding S1mple. Stuck in cover among one of the massive pillars from the above highway, they waited for S1mple to make a move with the C4 ticking, which he did, taking out Skadoodle with a USP burst before engaging in a brief cat-and-mouse that gave RUSH the win for C9.
North eliminated Liquid
In what may have been the biggest shock of the whole event, Liquid were eliminated early in the group stage, losing first to BIG, then to North. The match-up was a strong one for both sides, trading rounds and streaks. One crucial point for North on Inferno, though, demonstrated which team was on better form. In a strong showing, Markus 'Kjaerbye' Kjaerbye managed an impressive double kill: on his own towards the middle of the map, Kjaerbye first made his way to Site A and set up the bomb, then hid in one of the houses down the street and waited for his prey. The two Liquid players were blindsided by the North-man as he skulked out and took them down swiftly before any chance of retaliation. Smart, swift and predatory – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive at its finest.
