MOUZ, formerly mousesports, is a professional esports organisation based in Germany. It fields teams in several games but is particularly known for its CS:GO team. MOUZ was one of the founding members of the G7 Teams. MOUZ's League of Legends team currently competes in the ESL Pro Series, having formerly competed in the European Challenger Series.
Natus Vincere, abbreviated NAVI, is a Ukrainian esports organization based in Kyiv. Founded in 2009, the organization has teams and players competing in various games, such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, FIFA, World of Tanks, Paladins, League of Legends: Wild Rift, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Fortnite, and VALORANT.
The StarCraft II World Championship Series (WCS) was a StarCraft II professional tournament series organized and sanctioned by Blizzard Entertainment that ran from 2012 to 2019. For all but its first year of operation, it was the highest tier of professional StarCraft II competition. Its longest-running iteration featured two regions, World Championship Series Korea and World Championship Series Circuit, with World Championship Series Global events featuring players from both regions. Grand finals were held annually at BlizzCon in Anaheim, California, except for the first year of competition, when the finals were held in Shanghai, China. WCS Circuit events were streamed on Twitch while WCS Korea events were available on Twitch, YouTube, and afreecaTV.
Anders Blume is a Danish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive commentator and co-founder of RoomOnFire. He has been present as a caster at all of the Valve sponsored CS:GO Majors, with the exception of EMS One Katowice 2014. He has worked for a wide variety of tournament organisers including Electronic Sports League (ESL), Dreamhack and Gfinity. He is more often than not paired with Auguste 'Semmler' Massonnat, also a co-founder of RoomOnFire and Jason "Moses" O'Toole, for his casts. He is famous for his energetic casts, including the use of what has become his catchphrase, "Are you kidding me?". In 2015, he won the Golden Joystick award for esports icon of the year.
Astralis is a Danish esports organization. Best known for their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, they also have teams representing other games, such as FIFA and League of Legends. The parent group of Astralis is the Astralis Group, who previously managed Origen and Future F.C. before the merger of all teams under the Astralis brand.
FACEIT is an esports platform founded in London in 2012. The company has administered leagues for games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, Rocket League, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2.
The ESL Pro League is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) professional esports league, produced by ESL. It is based on four regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania, and currently comprises 24 teams each season, including 12 Permanent Partner Teams. The ESL Pro League is considered to be the premier professional CS:GO league in the world and is one of the major professional leagues in esports. The ESL Pro League began as a venture between the Electronic Sports League (ESL) and E-Sports Entertainment Association League (ESEA). Its inaugural season started on May 4, 2015.
ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017, also known as ELEAGUE Major 2017 or Atlanta 2017, was the tenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship. It was organized by ELEAGUE and held in Atlanta, Georgia, United States from January 22 to 29, 2017. It featured sixteen professional teams from around the world. Eight teams directly qualified based on their top eight placement in the last major, ESL One Cologne 2016, while another eight teams qualified through the ELEAGUE Offline Major Qualifier. ELEAGUE Major was the third consecutive Major with a prize pool of $1,000,000.
List of events in 2018 in esports.
Nikola Kovač, better known as NiKo, is a Bosnian professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for G2 Esports.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships, commonly known as the Majors, are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) esports tournaments sponsored by Valve, the game's developer. The first CS:GO Major took place in 2013 in Jönköping, Sweden and was hosted by DreamHack with a total prize pool of US$250,000 split among 16 teams.
The Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019, also known as IEM Katowice Major 2019 or Katowice 2019, was the fourteenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship and the world championship for the thirteenth season of the Intel Extreme Masters. It was held in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland from February 13 – March 3, 2019. Fourteen teams would qualify for the IEM Katowice Major 2019 based on their top fourteen placements from the last Major, the FACEIT Major: London 2018, while another ten teams would qualify from their respective regional qualifiers. The top eight teams from the London Major ("Legends") received a bye to the second phase of the group stage while the other sixteen teams ("Challengers") had to go through the first and second group stages in order to reach the playoffs. It featured a US$1,000,000 prize pool, the seventh consecutive Major with that prize pool. It was hosted by ESL, their first Major since 2016. This event was the start of the second season of the Intel Grand Slam.
Oleksandr Olehovych Kostyliev, better known as s1mple, is a Ukrainian professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for Natus Vincere. He is considered to be one of the best players in Global Offensive history.
Russel David Kevin Van Dulken, better known as Twistzz, is a Canadian professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for FaZe Clan. He has previously played for top teams such as Team SoloMid, Misfits and Team Liquid. Twistzz was named the MVP of ESL One New York 2018 and IEM Sydney 2019 by HLTV.
Professional Counter-Strike competition involves professional gamers competing in the first-person shooter game series Counter-Strike. The original game, released in 1999, is a mod developed by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe of the 1998 video game Half-Life, published by Valve. Currently, the games that have been played competitively include Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (CS:CZ), Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S) and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). Major championships began in 2001 with the Cyberathlete Professional League Winter Championship, won by Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Blast Premier is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) professional esports league launched in 2020. It is primarily based in two regions: North America and Europe. The series is divided into two seasons, the Spring and Fall season. Each season lasts around four months with 12 regular season teams participating in the Group stage, ending with a season finals for the 6 top teams from the group stage. The season finals are also open to two teams from each season's Showdown events, which are open to a much broader array of organizations, including those that did not advance in the regular season. The winner of each season's finals goes on to participate the Global Finals at the end of the year, as well as winners of other prestigious non-BLAST Premier events and those that rank highest in the BLAST Premier Global Leaderboard, a standings of the top events of the year from multiple leagues and tournaments. The Danish esports organisation, RFRSH Entertainment, announced the series as a successor to the BLAST Pro Series in 2019. The 2020 Blast Premier Series experienced disruptions due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, including the transition of all events except the Spring regular season online and reduced prize pools for many of the events. This disruption continued into the 2021 season, with both the Spring Groups and Spring Showdown occurring online, though all other events are currently planned to be held offline. In March 2021, they announced cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase as its latest sponsor for the competition's ongoing Spring Season. They also partnered with Danish gaming chair manufacturer L33T Gaming.
The ESL Pro League Season 14, abbreviated as EPL Season 14 and EPL XIV, was the fourteenth season of the ESL organized Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league, the ESL Pro League. Held between August 16 and September 12, 2021, as an online tournament, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of the ESL Pro Tour, the season's twenty-four teams competed for a US$750,000 prize pool and for 7,400 ESL Pro Tour Points (EPT), used by ESL to determine the participants of its two main events each year, in Katowice and Cologne.
The PGL Major Antwerp 2022, also known as PGL Major 2022 or Antwerp 2022, was the seventeenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championship. It was held in Antwerp, Belgium at the Sportpaleis from May 9 to 22, 2022. Twenty-four teams participated, with most qualifying through regional tournaments. It featured a US$1,000,000 prize pool, half of the previous Major. It was the third Major hosted by the Romanian organization PGL, after PGL Major: Kraków 2017 and PGL Major Stockholm 2021. The Major would be won by FaZe Clan, the first international team in CS:GO history to win a Major.
Heroic is a Norwegian esports organization with teams competing in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Rocket League, and Rainbow Six Siege. The organization was founded in Denmark on 26 August 2016 by Global Offensive players who formerly competed with SK Gaming. They became a part of RFRSH Entertainment before being sold to Seranades Global in 2018. In February 2022, Heroic was acquired by Norwegian organization Omaken Sports.
