NA CS at the Majors: MLG Colombus 2016

MLG Columbus marked the 8th Major in CS:GO and was the first time that the prestigious Valve-sanctioned tournament departed from Europe. For the first Major on US soil, Liquid, CLG, and Cloud9 made up the North American continent, with all four sides making it through the closed qualifier, while notorious Brazilian side Luminosity was the sole South American side in attendance after getting a direct invite as a result of their playoffs appearance at the previous Major.

In the run-up to the BLAST.tv Paris Major which will be the 19th and final Major of CS:GO, we here at Dust2.us have decided to take a look back at just how well NA teams have done over the years.

In 2016, the Major still adopted a different setup than the Swiss system used today. Opting for four GSL groups with four teams in each, we start our trip down memory lane with Group A, and the Brazilian side Luminosity. Playing their third Major under the Luminosity banner with top 8 finishes at ESL One Cologne 2015 and Dreamhack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015, the team had an altered roster for MLG Colombus 2016. Replacing Lucas "steel" Lopes and Ricardo "boltz" Prass with Epitácio "TACO" de Melo and Lincoln "fnx" Lau, Luminosity had their sights set on bigger and better things.

Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo's squad made light work of their group. Beating a mousesports team that revolved around a young Nikola “NiKo” Kovač in their opening map 16-11, the Brazilians would go on to decimate Swedish behemoth Ninjas in Pyjamas 16-5 to secure the top spot in the group and continue their streak of Major playoffs appearances.

Group B consisted of two NA contenders, with Liquid and Splyce both being joined by the world's number one team at the time Fnatic, and European stalwart FaZe. Splyce struggled to compete at the illustrious tournament, with this run in Columbus being the only time any of the five players in attendance would ever play at a Major. Being the lowest-ranked team in attendance at number 27 in the world, the NA side accumulated merely 8 rounds in BO1 action losing 16-3 to Fnatic and 16-5 to FaZe as they finished last place in the group.

Liquid fared much better than their compatriots, led by their superstar Ukrainian import Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. Beating out FaZe 16-11 on Cache, overtime would be required to separate Fnatic and Liquid on Dust2, where the NA side would eventually prevail 22-19 and secure the top spot in the group.

CLG took their place as the sole NA representative in Group C alongside two future Major winning organizations in Astralis and Gambit, as well as the defending Major champions at the time, EnVyUs. Taking on the French giants in their opening game, CLG dispatched Kenny "kennyS" Schrub and co. 16-8 on cobblestone before falling to 1-1 as Astralis claimed the top spot in the group over the Americans 16-9 on Overpass. In the decisive BO3 against Gambit, Josh "jdm64" Marzano led the way with a 1.42 rating, giving CLG the victory as well as a spot in the playoffs.

After two of the NA teams progressed to the playoffs, all eyes were on American darling Cloud9 in Group D. It was a disastrous affair for the team who had replaced long-time IGL Sean "seang@res" Gares with the youthful smoke criminal Jake "Stewie2k" Yip since Cluj-Napoca. Losing their opening bout against NAVI 16-9 on Train before being outclassed 16-3 on Dust2 against G2. This last-place exit extended Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham's streak of failing to make it out of the Major group stages to 7 in a row.

When it came time for playoffs, at least one NA team was guaranteed to make it into the last four as CLG squared off against Liquid in the quarterfinals. Liquid's teenage starlet s1mple led the way with a 1.50 rating, decimating CLG on both Cache and Mirage with the latter map featuring a highlight knife kill that got the crowd on their feet. Liquid's reward for reaching the semifinals was a date with the Brazilian's Luminosity who took down Virtus.pro.

Liquid vs Luminosity would go down in history as one of the most legendary series in Counter-Strike for all the wrong reasons for the North Americans. Down 15-9 on Mirage, Luminosity's Marcelo "coldzera" David pulled off one of the most iconic plays in CS:GO history, halting Liquid's B push with a jumping no scope AWP 4k. Sparking the comeback, Luminosity would go on to force overtime where they closed out the map 19-15 and thus created the infamous "Chokequid" meme.

Mirage would not be the only map that Liquid would go on to choke. Cache would result in an even more monumental collapse, albeit the comeback did not spawn from a tremendous solo play. Reaching map point yet again at 15-6, the mentality of Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski and co. was visibly shot by the time Luminosity forced overtime. One round in the additional phase of play was all Liquid could muster, losing 16-19 as Luminosity marched on to face NAVI in the final.

Luminosity went on to beat NAVI and claimed the first Major won by a team from the Americas. Despite the infamous choke, Liquid's semifinal finish was a solid improvement from their group-stage exit in Cluj-Napoca, whilst CLG's playoff run would be their one and only playoff appearance in the orgs five attempts. Cloud9's underperformance came as the only major downside to NA hosting its first Major.

Tomorrow, we take a look at another competitive Major appearance for NA CS with ESL One Cologne 2016!