CS:GO’s popularity was increasing at a rapid pace in 2015 and several records were broken throughout the year. ESL One Katowice 2015 eclipsed viewing records as 1.1 million viewers tuned in for the grand final between Ninjas in Pyjamas and fnatic and team records were broken as well, such as fnatic achieving what no other team managed before by winning two consecutive Majors.
iBUYPOWER scandal (January)
The CS:GO community was full of optimism and excitement about the season that was about to begin, but the year started with the opposite of a feel-good story. News broke that iBUYPOWER, one of the most promising lineups in the North American region, was involved in a match-fixing scandal. Four players were involved: Sam “DaZeD” Marine, Joshua “steel” Nissan, Braxton “swag” Pierce and Keven “AZK” Lariviere. They all received indefinite bans from all Valve-affiliated tournaments, and every other tournament organizer soon followed suit.
The players remain banned by Valve to this day, a harsh sentence by the game’s developer that remains a stark reminder that such actions will not be tolerated, although ESL lifted their bans in June 2017 following the Esports Integrity Coalition’s suggestions.
iBUYPOWER were found at the center of a match-fixing scandal
iBUYPOWER’s ban has been one of the most talked about topics in Counter-Strike history, with the righteousness of the bans sparking debate from fans, talent and the players themselves. The four banned individuals involved in the scandal tried making comebacks in the CS:GO scene after their bans were reverted in 2017 by the two largest tournament organizers, but none returned to former glory. This created a void of talent that set North America back, since the lineup consisted of some of the most exciting talents of the region.
Major qualifiers move to LAN (February)
Majors have long been the most prestigious events of the year, a feat that came about due to Valve making improvements to the way they run. Four Majors preceded ESL One Katowice 2015, the first Major of 2015, and while all three Majors that took place in 2015 had the same $250,000 prize pool as their predecessors, they featured one important and distinct change: offline qualifiers.
For the first time in history eight teams got to make their way to the Major through the LAN qualifier, which featured teams from all around the world fighting for their spot at the most prestigious event on the calendar in an offline setting.
Before the change, teams qualified straight to the Major through single-elimination brackets held online or even by invite. This time, however, that only got them a spot at the LAN qualifier — the final qualification stage before the Major. The event was held in a double-elimination GSL format with eight rosters advancing to the Major as Challengers. Once there, they were met by the eight DreamHack Winter 2014 Legends.
It is almost impossible to envisage a Major cycle without LAN events in the qualification stage in 2022 — even if PGL Major Stockholm 2021, the first Major after the pandemic, featured online qualifiers due to the state of the world at that point. The qualification process for the most recent Major in Antwerp featured four regional offline qualifiers in Bucharest before the teams and players set foot in Belgium. ESL One Katowice 2015 has to be mentioned as the origin of that very process to find the teams worthy of a Major attendance, with their names forever engraved in the game in the form of stickers.
The emergence of the first international roster (May)
International teams have become a mainstay in CS:GO, helped by the emergence of PUG platforms, where players from lesser-known regions get the chance to interact with and play against the best in the world. In the early days of CS:GO few players left the confines of their countries or regions, although some did if they far outgrew their scene. Early on, international teams were also made up of players that were on the wrong side of a roster shuffle among the top teams in their nation.
Kinguin was a mix of both, and pioneered the international roster with the brave decision to make the first step into the unknown world of international team building in CS:GO. The organization signed the first top international side in the game in May 2015, comprised of Håvard “rain” Nygaard, Ricardo “fox” Pacheco, Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom, Mikail “Maikelele” Bill and Alexander “SKYTTEN” Carlsson, who was replaced by Dennis “dennis” Edman not long after the roster’s founding.
Kinguin found instant success with an international lineup
The head-turning lineup was a solid top 10 team in the ranking, and it wasn’t long before G2 swooped in and signed the entire roster after seeing the displayed potential of the project with a top eight placing at ESL One Cologne 2015 and a title run at the ill-fated Gaming Paradise. The international squad finished the year strong at the DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 Major, a highlight after narrowly losing to the tournament’s winners, Envy, in the semi-final.
Kinguin‘s gamble paid off and paved the way for other similar projects. A look at the current world rankings reveals the fact that five international teams reside in the top 10. The biggest proof of concept resides in reigning Major champions, FaZe — a descendant of that original Kinguin via G2 —, who spent the last 17 weeks in the No. 1 spot of HLTV’s world ranking with a roster consisting of players from five different nations and two different regions.
Cloud9’s dream summer (July)
Cloud9 provided a memorable summer season in 2015, going on a three-tournament run during which they reached three consecutive finals after not making a single one all year up to that point.
The astonishing run started with the ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 Finals, where Cloud9 suddenly found themselves in the finals of a $250,000 tournament against the best team in the world after a long series of lackluster showings. The best-of-five series was exceedingly close, but fnatic ended up justifying their favorite tag and lifted the trophy in Cologne.
Cloud9 surprised everyone with their sudden upturn in form
Next on the calendar was ESWC 2015, where Cloud9 once again made the grand final on the back of strong performances by Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert and Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham. The North Americans got crushed on the first map of the grand final against Natus Vincere, with a one-sided 16-3 scoreline, but made it incredibly close on the next two. The series ended with two 16-14 maps, as Cloud9 took Dust2 before Natus Vincere won Overpass to lift the trophy.
The last event of the run was FACEIT Stage 2 Finals at DreamHack Valencia, with Cloud9 achieving their third straight grand final appearance. They were once again the bridesmaids, however, as TSM proved too strong for them to overcome, faltering 0-2 in the grand final.
The North American team returned to their previous form as the summer neared its end, failing to reach the CEVO Season 7 final and exiting ESL One Cologne 2015 in 9-12th place, not achieving the highs of their summer spike at any event of stature. Nonetheless, the story remains well and alive as one of the most endearing North American tales in Counter-Strike folklore.
First consecutive Major winners (August)
fnatic is one of the most successful organizations in the entirety of CS:GO, with much of that success coming in the first few years of the game’s life. The British structure won the first CS:GO Major back at DreamHack Winter 2013, but the bulk of its triumphs came in 2015.
The Markus “pronax” Wallsten-led squad changed two players in June 2014, when Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer and Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson signed for the organization in which they were about to make history, and once the first Major of the year in Katowice rolled around the team was in hot form. They steamrolled their opposition in the group stage and didn’t lose a single map on the way to the grand final, where they beat Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1.
olofmeister claimed the MVP medal averaging an incredible 1.31 rating in the tournament. It was his first ever MVP award and the first of four he would earn in 2015, the year he was crowned the best player in the world and his name was engraved in one of the most dominant eras to date.
That was not the end of the fnatic domination, however. Once August came around it was time for another Major: ESL One Cologne 2015. The Swedish squad once again blitzed the group stage, losing just four rounds in the process and continued their good form in the playoffs to win a consecutive Major title by beating Envy.
This time around it was Robin “flusha” Rönnquist who dominated the competition and won the MVP award, but olofmeister was not far behind. The record of two consecutive Major wins had never occurred up to then, and only the legendary Astralis core would manage to match the feat it in the future before going on to better the record with three in a row.
Four fnatic players ended the year in the top 10, a testament to their dominance
The end of a legendary lineup (November)
pronax had been a member of fnatic during its most fruitful era spanning over two years, but a disappointing 5-8th place finish at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca, where a loss against Luminosity in the group stage put them up against Envy in the quarter-final stage, pushed the team into making a roster change. The player fnatic chose to remove was their IGL, pronax, with dennis coming into the team from G2 as calling duties fell on flusha, who picked up the reins.
While the fnatic team certainly found success without their legendary IGL, like the six-event winning streak they went on straight after signing dennis, the core would never reach another Major final again. Even when they were deemed favorites, like at the first Major of 2016, MLG Columbus, they floundered and lost to Astralis in the quarter-final.
The core eventually fell apart in 2016, when fnatic and GODSENT made several trades. Jesper “JW” Wecksell, flusha and KRIMZ left fnatic to join pronax on GODSENT. The roster changes were eventually reverted at the start of 2017 when the lineup featuring dennis combined forces once again, but they never lived up to their former glory.
The Brazilian fairytale begins (November)
While CS:GO’s early years were dominated by teams from countries in Europe, the end of 2015 was the beginning of the emergence of successful rosters from other regions that had not yet found success in the franchise’s newest title. By the end of 2015, Sweden was the powerhouse country that won four Majors, France had two titles and Poland one, courtesy of Virtus.pro.
A new contender emerged at the FACEIT 2015 Stage 3 Finals at DreamHack Open Winter 2015, where Luminosity showed up after changing roster just three days before the tournament. They added Lincoln “fnx” Lau, Epitacio “TACO” de Melo and coach Wilton “zews” Prado from Games Academy to replace Ricardo “boltz” Prass, Lucas “steel” Lopes and Renato “nak” Nakano.
The team had attended three Majors with different lineups up to that point, finishing in respectable 5-8th places every time, but had never gone deeper. Their tactical play was akin to the one shown by the top teams, with their mastermind Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo positioning his troops on the map like chess pieces on the board. Their beautiful tactical play immediately turned many heads and got them the support of the neutral fans, while their trademark Brazilian supporters were as wild as ever.
Fallen’s Luminosity showed impressive tactical nous
Expectations at the FACEIT 2015 Stage 3 Finals were unsurprisingly low due to recent roster changes and looked very much justified after a 0-16 drubbing they received from fnatic in the opening game. Their never-say-die attitude shined through, however, as they beat two behemoths of the scene in Envy and Ninjas in Pyjamas to qualify for the playoffs. They met TSM in their first match in the bracket, defeating them to set up a rematch against fnatic, but it wasn’t to be, in the end. Even after going 1-0 up in the series with a win on Train the Swedes simply proved too much for Luminosity to handle. Given what this exact lineup achieved in the future, this was just the start of their journey to the pinnacle of CS:GO.
A year that began with fnatic‘s black-and-orange on top of the world ended with them making a roster change to find their way back to glory. The North American scene provided one of the worst and one of the best moments of the year, and another era was just around the corner as the calendar turned over to 2016.