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Regardless, online tournaments continued, with ESL Pro League Season 13 hitting viewers' screens in early March.
It was a recurring issue that had been present since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, and one that expedited the need for a return to LAN settings at the earliest, yet safest, opportunity. Similarly, there's little difference for fans seeing Gambit lift the virtual IEM Katowice trophy compared to Natus Vincere claiming their own at BLAST Premier Global Final a few weeks earlier. Chances of a dark horse victory are far more likely when playing from the comfort of a remote location away from the blinding lights and deafening cheers of the stage. IEM Katowice highlighted both the fragility and repetitiveness of the online era. IEM Katowice was HObbit's first Big Event trophy since PGL Major Krakow 2017 This was the Russian organization's first trophy since their Major-winning run at PGL Major Krakow in 2017, and one few saw coming. Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov's men put on a masterclass once in the home straight, deconstructing their foes at every stage with their grand final matchup against Virtus.pro which ended after a 3-1 walkover.
To the surprise of many, it was the lowest-ranked team in attendance, Gambit, who stormed through the lower-bracket on their way to the playoffs. The other front runners, Astralis, were determined to dethrone their CIS counterparts and the Danes could hardly be discounted - their 2018 era was so dominant that resurgence in form was never off the table. Natus Vincere, who had by now become top of the pecking order, were eager to secure back-to-back IEM Katowice titles whilst also enjoying the momentum of a Big Event win just a fortnight prior. There was some debate leading up to the event as to who were favourites. IEM Katowice was the next meeting ground for the world's best just a few short weeks later, but the event was once again forced online, sentencing the Counter-Strike community to yet another year without a sold-out Spodek Arena.
The CIS lineup were gunning to snatch the crown for themselves, however, and their tenacity showed as they thrashed the Danish titans in two straight maps to secure the first Big Event trophy of the new year - a sign of things to come for Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov and company. Astralis defended their title valiantly for much of the event, besting the likes of Evil Geniuses, G2, and Vitality to match up against Natus Vincere in the grand final. The tail end of the online era (January-March)īLAST Premier Global Final welcomed eight teams back from the winter player break - six of them among ten best teams in the world -, all fighting for the lion's share of the $1,000,000 prize pool. Teams began eagerly gearing up to what was going to be one of the biggest tournaments in Counter-Strike history with a whopping $2,000,000 up for grabs.
After the previous plans for a Brazilian Major were scrapped in 2020, there was a sense of optimism for this event to actually go ahead. They awarded the honors to Romanian tournament organizer PGL, who chose to run it in the city of Stockholm, Sweden. This was also the time when Valve announced their intentions to host the first Major since the start of the pandemic. The Danish side sat pretty at the top of the ranking with a clean 1,000 points, but their position as best team in the world was fragile - both Vitality and Natus Vincere were nipping at their heels and it wouldn't take much for the Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander-led lineup to be ousted from their throne. But still, there was a new-found sense of optimism in the air as vaccines began to roll out and societies geared up for a slow but steady return to normalcy in the coming months.Īstralis had returned to the top of the rankings by the time the new year came around after a first-place finish at the final tournament of the previous year, IEM Global Challenge 2020. Tournaments returned to LAN, CIS teams began their near year-long domination, and viewership records continued to be broken.Ĭounter-Strike was still firmly under the grasp of COVID-19 once 2021 came around events continued to merge together as the same few teams faced off time and time again from the comfort of their homes and offices.
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