Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team VeryGames roundly beat fnatic at Gadget Show Live’s Mad Catz tournament this weekend. Their solid 2-0 victory was secured across two maps, and the French team left with a sizeable chunk of the £10,000 prize pool.
Despite an early lead from fnatic as CTs on de_mirage_go, VeryGames managed to wrestle back control by the fifth round and had pushed their way to a 9-6 lead by the time sides were switched. After that, HLTV report that VeryGames “took control of proceedings” and won the following seven rounds.
On second map de_dust2_se, Danish visitors fnatic again started out well on the Terrorist side, and after a number of close rounds maintained a 7-3 lead. However, the gap had closed by the time sides switched, and VeryGames won all but one of their rounds as Terrorists. The French team managed to twist the score six points in their favour, and consequently won their first international CS:GO trophy.
I passed the Mad Catz tournament more than a couple of times on the Gadget Show floor this weekend, usually on my way to the Make Something Unreal stand. Once or twice, I stopped and watched over the skinny shoulders of the professionals. One of these guys had a tic – he’d stab the Tab key compulsively, updating himself on the state of the game by the half-second.
As I watched him guard a building entrance, this teen player shifted nervously back and forth between the doorway and the house interior. But every time he strafed back toward the door, he’d leave a perfect pixel’s width between the wooden frames for him to shoot through, as if it was nothing. Every time, one pixel wide, with all the precision of a top snooker player cueing up the black.
I don’t think this guy was wearing fnatic colours. Nor was he VG. In fact, the kind of practiced focus he so casually demonstrated seemed totally commonplace among all the teams competing in Birmingham.
Have any of you had the privilege of watching CS pros play at international tournaments?
Be sure to visit HLTV for a full match report.