CS:GO Esport Recap – November 2020
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Tournaments, Tournaments, Tournaments
The past 12 weeks saw week-in-week-out action, making November an extremely competition-heavy month, however, the two biggest tournaments had to be the Blast Pro Series Fall, and IEM Beijing-Haidian EU and NA.
The Blast Pro Series saw OG, Vitality, and G2 win their groups and qualify for the Blast Premier Fall Final along with Astralis, Na’vi, and BIG. Two more teams will join the pack through the Fall Showdown which is coming up next week.
In IEM Beijing, with a lot of North American teams travelling to Europe for the tournament, we’ve seen some surprising results across the board. After losing 6 finals in 2020, Team Vitality finally managed to win a tournament, after a magnificent comeback from 0-2 down against Na’vi. In North America, the absence of the FURIA and the dissolution of Renegades were beneficial to the local scene with Chaos and Triumph upsetting Evil Geniuses and Liquid respectively on their way to the finals, which Chaos won 3-1.
With the final month of 2020 CS:GO action coming up next week, we eagerly await to see who emerges as the top team, and player of 2020, after a hectic year of online play caused by the pandemic.
Team News
November has seen one of the biggest moves in CS:GO history with Nikola “NiKo” Kovac moving to G2 Esports. The former second-best player in the world has been resurgent since joining the French-Balkan squad and certainly looks ready to conquer the world along with his cousin Nemanja “huNter-” Kovac.
FaZe being a man down means the return of CS:GO legend Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer, although it is probably a temporary one. Rumour has it that the former architect of FaZe’s success, in-game leader Finn “karrigan” Andersen would be moving from mousesports to rejoin his former team, and taking young sensation Robin “ropz” Kool with him, replacing Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjaerbye, and the aforementioned olofmeister.
In lower tiers, GODSENT have benched in-game leader Kevin “kRYSTAL” Amend, and ENCE rifler Jere “Sergej” Salo has benched himself in order to take a break from the game and complete his mandatory Finnish military service.
Upcoming Events
The next few weeks will see Blast Fall Showdown, Dreamhack Masters Winter EU, as well as the Blast Premier Fall Finals being played before a player break takes place until late January. With 2020 ending, we’re hoping to see the return of offline play, which is sure to shake up the way Counter-Strike is played.
In Other Rumours
One of the voices of Counter-Strike seems to be considering a return to action. Matthew “Sadokist” Trivett has taken a break from casting CS:GO last year, however, after joining in on the fun of the BOT Major, he hinted that he might come back to his craft. With long-time partner Henry “HenryG” Greer leaving the booth to become Cloud9’s GM, it’s interesting to see who will join the Canadian wordsmith on the casting desk when he comes back.
