karrigans Fulfilment, German Shooting Stars and Major Debut – The CS:GO Year in Review

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The anniversary shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive offers surprises and an acclaimed Major debut in 2022. We look back at triumphant victories, bitter defeats and the Major premiere in South America.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has written many stories in 2022 and also celebrated its tenth birthday in August. Veteran Danish pro Finn “karrigan” Andersen fulfilled his dream of winning a Major at the age of 32. In addition, the German players Karim “Krimbo” Moussa and Jon “JDC” de Castro made the breakthrough to the top of the world. And around the end of the year, the South American community celebrated the first Major on their own continent.

But first, let’s look at the start of 2022, which always starts in Katowice in February in the Top Tier. Here, the dominance of the FaZe Clan was already apparent for months to come. Led by ingame leader karrigan, FaZe won the final against G2 Esports. For the defeated team around top star Nikola “NiKo” Kovač, on the other hand, this meant another setback in their hunt for a major title.

War overshadows CS:GO scene

The tournament in Poland was overshadowed by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. This resulted in a difficult situation for both players and organisations from both countries. The consequences were, among others, the exclusion of Virtus.pro and Gambit, the lineups competed with other names from then on.

A bright spot in Katowice, meanwhile, was G2 newcomer Ilya “m0NESY Osipov, who put in an impressive performance at just 16. The Russian youngster followed in the big footsteps of AWP legend Kenny “kennyS” Schrub at his new organisation. Across the board, many young players stepped into the spotlight in 2022.

Krimbo and JDC move up

Among them are the German professionals Krimbo and JDC. Krimbo made it to the BIG Clan main team in March this year, and JDC took the same step at MOUZ in the same month. Both played successfully in the academy teams of their organisations before.  BIG and MOUZ did not hit the big time in the most prestigious tournaments.

That in turn was achieved by FaZe Clan, who in addition to Katowice also won ESL Pro League Season 15 in April and IEM Cologne in July. In the middle of May, the triumph at the Major in Antwerp marked the fulfilment of karrigan’s career, who always formulated this dream. FaZe then ran behind his form in the last third of the year.

The second Major of the year took place in Rio de Janeiro and also meant the premiere of this tournament category in South America. The atmosphere at the Copacabana was magnificent, although the crowd only boiled at the highest level when Brazilian teams played. FURIA was carried by the fans all the way to the semi-finals, where they lost to Heroic.

The title in Brazil was secured in the final by the Outsiders around the charismatic captain Dzhami “Jame” Ali and thus achieved the surprise of the CS:GO year. Nobody had the Russian-Kazakh line-up in mind and only 0.1 percent of the players managed to win the always coveted Diamond Coin in the Pick’Em Challenge integrated in the Valve game.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive itself saw few changes in 2022, with speculation about the tenth anniversary launch of the Source 2 engine turning out to be a pipe dream. Instead, Valve sent the next Operation on its way. The developer did not earn rave reviews for it. In one of the last updates of the year, the community favourite Dust2 disappeared from the active mapping tool; instead, professionals and amateurs are now meticulously learning the newcomer Anubis.