Gaming
Esports
We take a look at BIG's amazing ESL Pro League season
BIG’s year so far has been nothing but stellar. This is their 2020 success story.
In January 2020, BIG or (Berlin International Gaming) were ranked as the 46th best Counter Strike team in the world on HLTV.org. In that same month, they climbed all the way to 22nd. However, this was just the start of what would become the organisation’s best year of competitive CS:GO.
Florian 'syrsoN' Rische and Nils 'k1to' Gruhne were brought over from Sprout to BIG at the start of the new year. The two transfers became the backbone of BIG’s team as they started bringing in tournament trophies. While January was a great month for the team, no one could predict what would happen over the next few months.
This is how BIG rose from a good team to one of the best in the world in just six months.
The rise begins
With two new players under their belt, BIG wanted to make a splash in their first big tournament of 2020 – DreamHack Open Leipzig. They did just that, as they smashed through the group stage and the playoff bracket without dropping a single map. Suddenly teams like Natus Vincere and Astralis had to look over their shoulders: there were new kids on the block and they were ready to shake up the established order.
Then it all went quiet in CS:GO world. Multiple tournaments were cancelled and moved to the online stage in a different format. Multiple long-standing top teams had a rough time adapting to online play, while other smaller teams seemed to thrive. BIG were one of those teams that stepped up. Home Sweet Home was a weekly tournament that ran in April and May of this year, and BIG showed that they were still getting better. In just two weeks, BIG brought home US$60,000 by winning the first two editions of the online tournament.
Can Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz win BIG another trophy?
© BIG
To the top
Fans and analysts started to understand that BIG’s run wasn’t just a fluke, they were here to stay. However, while BIG were doing well, they had yet to win an S-Tier tournament. Luckily for them, DreamHack Masters was just around the corner. The group stage was tough for the German team. They won their matches, but the teams in their group fought hard, with narrow wins against MAD Lions and overtime in matches against Complexity Gaming and mousesports. They were placed in the upper bracket and won their first game against FaZe Clan, one of the best teams in the world at the time. However, their biggest test was yet to come – G2 Esports.
G2 Esports were in top form throughout the tournament, and many thought that they would win it all. In the upper-bracket final, they managed to defeat BIG 2-1 which meant that the Germans had to fight through FaZe again for a shot at redemption – which they did. When the finals started, G2 Esports quickly claimed a 2-0 lead, with fans and analysts dreading a quick 3-0. BIG had other plans, however, and came back with two quick maps of their own. With the maps at 2-2, the final map went the distance but in the end, BIG took it with a 19-17 overtime win.
This was it, BIG were now officially the best team in the world. Yet over the years, many teams have stood at the top. Only the best teams maintain that level.
With losses creeping in, inconsistency struck for BIG. They were losing to lesser teams and dropping out of tournaments early. When DreamHack Open Summer rolled around, BIG had to prove to the world once again that they deserved to be on top. BIG dominated their group stage, only dropping a single map against Endpoint, even beating Heroic, who were on their own rise. In the playoffs, it was more of the same. BIG showed that they were still one of the best.
ESL Pro Season
In recent months, BIG have continued to battle, even if results haven’t always been perfect – fighting through qualifiers to be able to get to A and S tier-level events. During the ESL Pro Season, they came all the way through the qualifiers and analysts didn’t think that the German team would do very well against the other stacked contenders.
However, BIG made it out of the group stage and into the playoff bracket with relative ease. Then they beat Spirit to qualify themselves for the upper-bracket semi-final. Unfortunately, BIG did lose against Heroic, the current number-one team in the world.
Thankfully, they still have a chance to fight on and get another trophy for their 2020 collection. To do that, they’ll have to once again come up against the best in the world in the ESL Pro League. While some may doubt them, BIG have proven that they can overcome even the toughest odds and win where it matters most.
