With Astralis’ shock elimination at the ECS Season 7 finals after a long, potentially BLAST-enforced absence, there are only a few people left who still consider their era unbroken, regardless of whether they’ll be capable of bouncing back in the long run. They weren’t beaten in a gruelling duel or superseded by a plucky newcomer: they abdicated in absentia, thinking they are so good they can always just jump back into the circuit, ready to roll at the same pace regardless of how long they stayed away. Hubris – and there’s a good argument to be made that every other CS:GO dominant team lost their crown due to the very same thing.

NiP were considered the runaway favorites for DreamHack Winter 2013, the first major in CS:GO’s history. With their epic 87-0 streak still lingering in the memory, GeT_RiGhT and co. were widely expected to take down the title, unless VeryGames were somehow able to stop them. Once they were eliminated, the path seemed clear to the trophy.

It’s not as often discussed nowadays as it was back then, but the Ninjas greatly disrupted their own preparation by agreeing to film a documentary about themselves at the time, with the crew following them around the Jönköping event. In a way, it signified how differently they were ought to be treated than the rest of the field, and this fact infused the reactions to their loss in the final to Fnatic with a lot of schadenfreude. They remained close to the top but could never quite stick there the way they used to, appearing in five major finals in a row but only managing to win ESL One Cologne 2014 before falling off the face of the earth. That event should have marked Fifflaren’s retirement but he stuck around for a few months longer, and the story of the Ninjas were marked by clinging onto aging stars ever since.