The Counter-Strike wing of French pro-gaming force Team LDLC claimed the top spot in the 2014 DreamHack CS:GO Championship this weekend – and with it, $100,000 of the tournament’s $250,000 community-funded prize pool.
It’s a surprising result – not because LDLC aren’t capable, but because they were briefly knocked out of the championship a day earlier.
The finals ran into overtime, but Team LDLC eventually won the best of three against homecoming fan-favourites Ninjas in Pyjamas.
“We’d like to thank all the teams, everyone at DreamHack, and most of all the Counter-Strike community for making this tournament possible,” said Valve after the event.
It almost didn’t happen for LDLC. The team had lost their quarter final match after opponents Fnatic used an exploit which allowed them a view over large swathes of the map. The boost made use of a ‘pixel-walking’ technique which, while not expressly forbidden under the championship’s rules, has previously been banned at DreamHack events.
DreamHack officials found that both teams had used similar boosts and decreed that the rounds should be replayed – but Fnatic soon forfeited the rematch in the face of community uproar.
You can download that and less controversial matches from the DreamHack 2014 tab in CS:GO’s Watch menu. Did any of you lot catch much of it the first time around?