Weekly CS:GO Esport Recap | October 19th, 2020
(6 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)
Another week of intense CS:GO action is behind us, so let’s dive right into the past week in esports.
We start in Europe, where the first round of DreamHack Open Fall which may have not seen massive upsets, but some results were sure to raise some eyebrows.
In Group A, Vitality and Fnatic advanced to the Upper Bracket. A showdown between OG and Mousesports left the former in the Lower Bracket, while Karrigan and co. probably have to say goodbye to their major hopes.
In Group B, Astralis and G2 emerged victorious, as predicted, with Heroic taking the 3rd spot and Endpoint reaching their tournament’s… end point.
Meanwhile in Group C, Godsent upset FaZe Clan, advancing to the upper bracket along with BIG. FaZe beat sAw, saving their major hopes by reaching the lower bracket.
Finally, in Group D, North and NiP have shown some Scandinavian prowess, eliminating ENCE. Sprout took third place, courtesy of their win against the Fins.
With everything to play for, teams like North, Faze, OG, Sprout and Heroic will be fighting for survival in the Major Picture. Will they manage to keep their spots, or will they fall to the wayside? We will see. There’s still a lot to play for given that the Major has been postponed once again.
We move to North America where FURIA have once again shown their dominance. We know. We had them dropping off 6 months ago. They still haven’t. Winning 3-1 against 100 Thieves, FURIA have cemented their reputation as the best NA-based squad going, beating Liquid, EG and 100 Thieves on their way to the title. It can’t be said that they had it easy.
Meanwhile, 100 Thieves have shown that being put up in the shop window by their organization hasn’t affected them at all. Unfortunately, with the players announcing they’re looking for teams, it seems like this was a swan song for “The Boys.”
100 Thieves’ dissolution leaves Team One in prime position to get the 4th and final NA Major slot, with a lot of questions being raised about the 5th slot. A lot can happen in the next few months as we wait for a Major to be organized.
We move east where IEM New York 2020 CIS is still running. As of right now, Virtus.pro and Spirit are undefeated in the group stage, looking primed to dominate the knockout stages. Due to the disqualification of Hard Legion Esports, it’s all to play for for the likes of Winstrike, Gambit and ForZe, all of within reach of Nemiga, Virtus.Pro and ESPADA who are currently holding on to the last 3 major spots in the Region. The tournament is going to conclude this week, so we’ll have our answers soon enough.
Finally, in roster news: Globoesporte rumours that MIBR have decided on a new roster, retaining Vito “kNgV” Giuseppe and Alencar “trk” Rossato and adding Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles, Vinicius “vsm” Moreira and Leonardo “leo_druNky” Oliveira to the team with Raphael “cogu” Camargo becoming coach.
The twist here is that vsm has a VAC ban on one of his accounts from back when he was 13. Similarly to Elias “Jamppi” Olkkonen, this means that the 21-year-old won’t be able to participate in Valve sanctioned events. However, with Jamppi’s lawsuit against Valve still in progress, it seems like MIBR is hedging their bets on Valve reconsidering the case given vsm’s age. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.
Finally, in Europe, c0ntact has seen some changes with journeyman Owen “smooya” Butterfield and benched IGL Luka “emi” Vuković leaving the team.With no replacements on the horizon, one has to wonder whether c0ntact will ever see Top-Tier Counter-Strike again.
Astralis has also thinned their roster by selling Patrick “es3tag” Hansen to Cloud9. The transfer fee has been reportedly one of the largest in Esports history and would seem to confirm that Cloud9 General Manager Henry “HenryG” Greer isn’t messing around when it comes to recruiting top-tier talent. Cloud9’s roster is now missing only one piece with Alex “ALEX” McMeekin, Özgür “woxic” Eker, Ricky “floppy” Kemery and William “mezii” Merriman making up the team right now.
Finally, being Polish we couldn’t omit the newest update from the Polish scene. HONORIS have announced a brand new lineup with Łukasz “azizz” Kałkowski and Kacper “Grucha” Gruszeczka joining Filip “neo” Kubski, Kamil “reiko” Cegiełko and Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas in their attempt to conquer the Polish Esports League.
That’s all for today! Thanks for reading our recap of a very eventful week of CS:GO action and we hope to see you back next week. Who do you think will win DreamHack Open Fall and IEM New York CIS? Let us know in the comments!
