In many ways, 2021 was the beginning of a return to normalcy in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitive scene. The second half of the year saw tournaments returning to the LAN and even a crowd-packed in-arena event. It was a sigh of relief to leave the online age behind and see great international teams go head-to-head again.
Before we look back to 2022 and highly anticipated events like the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, we need to go back and review all the unexpected, emotional, mind-blowing memories from 2021.
5_ Starry's Incredible 2v1 Clutch Against G5
On October 13, 2021, Chinese CS:GO team Lynn Vision played an incredible bo2 series against G3 Esports. 9-6 behind, Starry played a spectacular second half pistol round for the comeback and reversed the momentum.
Starry is currently losing his career, which may have been shining, due to China's restriction of 18 hours a day to play under the age of 3.
4_ Refrezh 1v5 Clutch
If you're a Heroic (or Team Liquid) fan, you're all too familiar with this moment in ESL Pro League Season 14. Liquid was in great form in the tournament and they looked like the Map 3 winning favourites.
Ismail “refrezh” Ali had other plans. The 23-year-old riffs kept their cool in 1v5 using his Galil to systematically eliminate members of Liquid one after another.
3_ Bat-karrigan
Not every important moment in 2021 was an event. This year also saw the highly anticipated return of the CS:GO arena. BLAST Premier: Fall Final at Copenhagen Royal Arena was one such event. There was something in the air at the tournament as it was filled to the brim with weird, weird, and wonderful little moments.
Finn “karrigan” Andersen takes on the task of becoming the Dark Knight by donning a batman mask that matches the batman branding on FaZe's new jerseys. BLAST production took the opportunity and added the mask to the gamerpic on Karrigan's one-on-one screen.
2_ cadiaN 1v4 Clutch
No, you are not experiencing deja vu. Yep, another highlight clutch event for a Heroic player in the ESL Pro League playoffs. Apart from that, this time Casper “cadiaN” Møller who took the stage in the grand final against Gambit Esports in EPL Season 13.
On the map Mirage, cadiaN performed one of the best CS:GO moments of the year in a bo5 battle between two of the best teams in CS:GO's online era.
1_ Winning S1mple Major
If only a moment from 2021 CS:GO will be remembered, it will be Oleksandr “s2021mple” Kostyliev who won the PGL Major Stockholm 1.
The PGL Major was the first arena event of the year and the first major event in more than two years. Majors are the pinnacle of Counter-Strike, and everything that happens at these events is given additional importance by the history and prestige of those that came before.