After three grueling and mind-blowing days of Counter-Strike, the French squad LDLC defeated the Swedish powerhouse Ninjas in Pyjamas two games to one in a nail-biting finals at the MLG X Games in Aspen, Colorado. Dignitas, with their new in game leader, Finn "karrigan" Andersen, swept Fnatic in an entertaining two game series for the bronze medal. With everything that occurred at MLG, from amazing games to excellent production, MLG has set the bar high for the rest of the year.
LDLC posing for a victory photo after winning the gold medal match.
Leading the analysis was the dynamic duo of renowned esports historian, Duncan "Thooorin" Shields, and ex-NiP member Robin "Fifflaren" Johansson, the "Fifflooorin" combo. Excellent commentary was provided by Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett and Daniel "DDK" Kapadia, and Josh “Steel” Nissan provided the in gaming observing. With this stacked group of talent leading the event, MLG was already going to be a good event before it even started.
The best analytical duo in Counter-Strike?
Day 1
Day 1 was the day of upsets. In fact, only three games actually went as expected: NiP versus Dignitas on Dust2 that went to overtime; Dignitas versus KaBuM on Dust2 where the Danes ran over the Brazilians 16-4; Fnatic versus Liquid on Inferno in which Fnatic went on a picnic and stopped for a quick 16-3 victory. While the first day of a tournament is generally known to have some upsets due to the nature of best of ones, nobody expected this many.
The first major upset was secured by the new CLG against LDLC on Dust2 16-14 in an extremely intense game. Defined by clutch plays from both sides and excellent knowledge of opponent positioning by CLG, this match set the mood for the rest of the day. KaBuM dominated Cloud9 on Mirage 16-4 by means of exceptional executions and set plays; LDLC beat out Fnatic on their best map, Inferno, with a convincing 16-9; Cloud9 beat NiP on Nuke 16-7 with a super standout play from shroud and n0thing to close it out.
Mike "shroud" Grezesiek demonstrates why he is one of the best North American players with this one versus three clutch against NiP.
After the dust settled on Day 1, every team had a finished the group stages with a 1-1 record. Every team had an opportunity to advance to the semifinals the next day. All they needed to advance was to win their third and final pool game.
Day 2
Coming into the second day, the remaining games were a bit more predictable compared to the crazy and wild Day 1. The favored teams won their matches and advanced out of the groups. In the semifinals, we had Ninjas in Pyjamas versus Fnatic and Dignitas versus LDLC.
The first semifinal match was between the two Swedish powerhouses of Fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas. Mere words cannot describe exactly how intense this series was. Many are lauding it as the best match in CS:GO's history. We can only provide you a VOD so that you may experience it yourself.
NiP versus Fnatic, the best series of this tournament.
NiP barely edged out Fnatic in the series and secured their spot in the finals.
The second semifinal match between LDLC and Dignitas was another great best of three series where paradigms and established precedents were shattered. LDLC showed their strong T side on Dust2, overwhelming Dignitas and taking the first map 16-10. With Inferno being the second map, LDLC was favoured to close the series after a strong showing against Fnatic earlier in the tournament on the map. Instead, Dignitas surprised the crowd as they narrowly beat out LDLC 16-14, forcing a deciding third map on Cache. Despite the struggle, LDLC rolled over Dignitas which appeared to have run out of steam 16-5, securing them a spot in the gold medal match against NiP and a rematch of Dreamhack Winter 2014 finals.
Day 3
Championship Sunday started out with Dignitas facing off against Fnatic for the bronze medal. The first map, Nuke, ended quickly in favour of Dignitas 16-7 due to Fnatic’s lack of preparation on that map. Moving on to Inferno, Fnatic was favored to take the series to a third deciding map. However, Dignitas displayed a repeat performance to their game against LDLC and again upset another top tier team on Inferno, beating Fnatic in a very close 16-14 game.
The first map for the final match between NiP and LDLC was on Dust2. NiP started off with a respectable 9-6 T side half against LDLC. However, LDLC’s terrorist side proved too strong as they completely demolished NiP's defense, only giving the Swedes two rounds to close out the first map 16-11. Coming into the second map, LDLC were at a huge advantage given their previous performance against Fnatic on Inferno earlier in the tournament. Multiple key clutches by the Ninjas allowed them to claw back for a tie and bring LDLC to overtime. In the first half of overtime, NiP were able to grind out one round on T side before moving into the second half. There, they locked down three straight CT rounds, including a spectacular four kill from friberg, defeating LDLC 19-17 and bringing the series to the third and final map, Cobblestone.
GeT_RiGhT’s one versus three clutch was one of many spectacular plays on Inferno.
Cobblestone started out with LDLC winning the pistol round on the terrorist side and getting an easy three round lead. At the first buy round, NiP closed down the sites, finishing off the half 10-5. The second half featured LDLC taking the pistol round from NiP again. From there, they easily rode the momentum to a 16-10 victory, making LDLC the winners of MLG X Games Aspen.
Post-MLG Thoughts
Looking past MLG, the inclusion of Cobblestone in the official map pool for future tournaments has come under intense scrutiny by the community. A petition to Valve was posted on reddit to remove it from the active duty map pool, reaching the front page in a matter of minutes. The main points of complaint stem from Cobblestone being too large a map, and with too many corners for terrorists to effectively clear with a 1:45 round time. Rotation times between bombsites for terrorists are long, reducing the effectiveness of fakes, or mid round decision changes. These were also the problems that existed in previous iterations of Counter-Strike that resulted in it being removed from competitive play by the community. Valve had attempted to address these issues when it first introduced the map in CS:GO, however the issues remained. On top of that, no team has demonstrated that they have prepared any tactics or set plays for this map, assuming that either they or the other team will ban the map during the pick ban phase. As a result, Cobblestone is almost never played and if it is, it is simply not a good showing of Counter-Strike as the strategies employed by both teams devolve to five man rushing one site and hoping for the best. The introduction of Season and Train in the most recent content patch further adds to the pressure by the community for Valve to replace Cobblestone with one of the two newer additions or even both. As the map pool for the ESL One Katowice 2015 appears to have already been decided (and unchanged from the MLG map pool), fans may have to wait longer for Valve to make changes.
Finally, with MLG hosting Clutch Con in Denver, Colorado this coming weekend, the North American scene looks to be on the rise. Bigger organizations such as Liquid and CLG are picking up promising young rosters while others such as MLG in conjunction with CEVO are hosting high production quality international tournaments. Despite recent setbacks, it's a good time for North America to prove again that the talent is there, and that there are tournaments worth flying over the pond for, just like in the CPL days almost a decade ago.