Counter Strike: The most remarkable plays from the championships

Counter Strike championships are marked by countless plays you never saw coming, and as the years go by this is further proved, fans have witnessed several unexpected plays and moves live, leaving their mark on this FPS’s competitive scenario. And, when this happens, Valve usually pays homage to its protagonist with graffiti, a painting in the map region in which it happened.

We, at UmGamer, listed all the stories that were immortalized in these sprays. Check it out!

The first time we came across such a remarkable play, which debuted this culture of sprays, was at ESL One Cologne 2014, more specifically in game 2 of the semifinal between Fnatic and Dignitas, on the Overpass map. As if the size and importance of the game were not enough, the match was extremely toe-to-toe, it was in the penultimate round with the score tied 14-14, and the team who’d win the 29th round would have the match point in their hands.

In the context, the Dignitas terrorists managed to plant the C4 on bomb B, even at a numerical disadvantage, and in the very final seconds, they threw a molotov to prevent any chance of the counter-terrorists disarming it. They just didn't count on the fact that “olofmeister” would be extremely agile, and very, very brave, to risk defusing the bomb a thousandth of a second before the molotov started to burn him, and he succeeded, dying at the same moment he completed the disarming, but being successful.

The community adopted “hot defuse” as the name for this play, remembered by fans with great ecstasy, not only because of the tiny, or even non-existent, difference in time between the disarm and Olof's death, but also because it was decisive and symbolized victory for Fnatic in that semi-final.

Another moment protagonized by Fnatic, but now not just by one of the athletes, but four! At the ESL One Cologne 2015 finals, Fnatic lost the first map, Dust II, to EnVyUs, and with a huge difference that reached up to 7 points, with a 10 - 3 against the Europeans. EnVyUs had five match points at one moment, when they were winning 15 to 10, but as fate would have it, the game went into extra time.

After a big turnaround, in a scenario of 17 - 15 for Fnatic, with victory possibly coming in the next round, they decided to start the fight with four AWP snipers, a somewhat unusual event. The plan was for everyone to aim at the middle to guarantee a rapid kill on the adversary CT, without losing any allies. If it's already difficult to get out alive when you appear in the sights of a professional player with the AWP, imagine when you run into four.

And it worked very well, “apEX” didn’t even have an opportunity to react and was easily shot down, giving the Swedes a headstart advantage in the first few seconds. After that, some of them exchanged their snipers for AK-47s and continued the round normally, which was won, bringing the map and, later, the title to Fnatic.

Unfortunately, the spray was removed in the new version of Dust II in 2017, but it’ll always be in the community's memories.

For many, this is the culmination of the entire history of the competitive Counter Strike scenario, which took place on Mirage, the first map of the Luminosity vs Team Liquid semifinal at MLG Columbus 2016. The North Americans were one round away from winning the map, with countless match points given that the match was 15 to 9.

It was then that Liquid came up with a strategy of advancing on the Apartment with all players to make a quick execution on bomb B. They just didn't expect the incredible skills of Marcelo “coldzera” David, he was located close to the van on the map, and eliminated four of the five players in that round without being killed.

The name “Jumping Double” was given to the play because coldzera killed two terrorists in a single no-scope shot while jumping, which is extremely difficult for any player. We still have the addition of two more kills with two other shots, something truly unbelievable.

In addition to all of this agility, the Brazilian athlete's play was the symbol of a beautiful turnaround trajectory for Luminosity, as they still found themselves in a challenging situation, losing 15 to 10, where a defeat in any round would hand the map over to Team Liquid. But they managed to take the game to extra time and win the Mirage match.

With that, Luminosity, who was one step away from losing the first map of the semi-final, eliminated Liquid inside their own home, and then won the grand final over Natus Vincere, both by 2-0. Consecrating Brazil, and South America, winners of a Major for the first time.

In fact, the athlete was awarded the title of best CS:GO player in the world that year by HLTV, an award he also won the following year.

A curiosity is that coldzera tattooed the graffiti on his own skin, in honor of his play.

“S1mple”, one of the victims of coldzera's Jumping Double, was now the one who caused AWP's damage. Team Linquid won Fnatic's second map 9-4, but found themselves in an unfavorable scenario in the 14th round of the fight, S1mple found himself alone against two terrorists, but turned the situation around when he landed a surprising AWP no-scope in the air, while falling from a high position, eliminating one of the players.

The other, without believing that this would be possible, opens his aim, imagining that S1mple would be on the platform above, giving the star plenty of time to hit another no-scope from a huge distance.

With this and the following round, Team Liquid finished the first half with 11 to 4, en route to victory and access to the final.

To finish our list, we have a play which was not characterized by agility or shooting technique, but rather by intelligence. “Dosia”, a Russian who played for Gambit, was facing the Immortals team, composed of Brazilians, in the PLG Major Kraków 2017 finals.

In the last map (Inferno), which would literally define the title, the Brazilians were losing 9 to 1, but executed well on bomb A, planting the C4 and with a numerical advantage at the end of the round. This made it so that Gambit gave up on that specific round, prioritizing putting his weapons away.

Seconds before the bomb exploded, Immortals noticed this behavior and two players cowered on the map's field to survive the damage from C4 and also put away their weapons. But they didn't count on Dosia's intelligence, who, based on a mere assumption, threw a grenade at the same location, even though he had no vision, causing the necessary damage to eliminate the Brazilians with the soon-following activation of C4.

Making opponents lose their weapons in such an economically unfavorable situation, in which Immortals found itself, was fundamental to Gambit's title.

Unfortunately, it's another spray that was removed due to a map change.

The Counter Strike championships really offered us unique moments! I hope you enjoyed this content, I'm open to questions and suggestions in the comments.