CLG Red celebrate a close victory at Katowice © Kirill Bashkirov / ESL

The most intense Counter-Strike match of IEM Katowice wasn't the final between Luminosity Gaming and Fnatic , where Fnatic marched back from 13-3 on Overpass in order to win the round before going on to sweep Luminosity. It wasn't even Na'Vi's tooth-and-nail fight with Luminosity the day before in the semifinal.

Instead, surprisingly, the most hard-fought Counter-Strike match of IEM championship weekend happened on Sunday, a full day after Fnatic had been crowned the night before. It was in the little-watched Intel Challenge women's Counter-Strike tournament, where the North American teams of CLG Red and Team Karma went back-and-forth across three maps and four overtimes. It was a series that had everything: dramatic comebacks, miracle headshots, and ice-cold clutch rounds. It was some of the most exciting play of the weekend, for those lucky enough to be paying attention.

Huge IEM crowds gathered outside Spodek Arena © Kirill Bashkirov / ESL

A Meaningful NA Rivalry

While the women's scene is overshadowed by the legendary rivalries and the huge amount of talent and money in mainstream CS:GO, it features an impressive history of its own, with quite a few veteran stars. In fact, the CLG Red traces its roster back to one of the all-time great Counter-Strike stories of the past five years: the UBINITED team's championship victory at the Electronic Sports World Cup in 2012.

UBINITED's final against Team ALTERNATE arguably salvaged that tournament, which took place during the height of Ninjas in Pyjamas' dominance among men's teams. While the main CS:GO tournament was a foregone conclusion (NiP would win easily), the women's final was an instant-classic as UBINITED staged one of the most memorable comebacks in Counter-Strike history as they won the deciding map from a 13-2 deficit.

The remaining UBINITED team moved over to CLG last summer, but their recent results haven't been great and their position in NA is threatened by the rise of Team Karma (which another former UBINITED member helped establish). The stakes were high when the two NA organizations met in the semifinals on Sunday, with CLG out to prove that they're still the varsity squad of North American women's Counter-Strike.

From the start, however, Team Karma seemed like they had the better for CLG in terms of teamwork. They went up 13-5 on the first map, Inferno, and took control of a lot of rounds by catching CLG players out of position. Karma had better reads than CLG, and in their AWPer EMUHLEET they had one of the day's most dominant specialists.

CLG, however, had the the composure and experience of longtime veterans going for them. Team captain Christine "potter" Chi, in particular, seemed to get better the worse things got for her team. She helped inaugurate a comeback on Inferno with a brilliant CT-side defense, and would repeatedly save rounds for when CLG looked like they were beaten. CLG managed to tie the map, and then took Karma into triple overtime… where Karma eventually won.

Christine "potter" Chi put in a great performance © Helena Kristiansson / ESL

The Comeback Masters

Oftentimes after heartbreaking loss, where a team gives everything it has to extend a game and still comes up short, the losing team collapses. It's tough to have the mental and emotional fortitude to recover from those losses, and it looked like CLG were absolutely shaken on the following map as they went down 8-1 against Karma. Then, once again, they together another huge comeback to win the map and force a Game 3.

By then, the series was at a fever pitch. Once again Karma went ahead early, and once again CLG clawed their way back into the game. This time, both squads were neck-and-neck for almost the entire map on Cache, until Karma grabbed another narrow lead and CLG had to win four rounds in a row to force a final overtime where they finally put an end to Karma.

It was the perfect ending to an heroic battle between two great teams, and probably the emotional high-point of the entire weekend's Counter-Strike play. Sadly, the final couldn't possibly live up to the bar that CLG and Karma had set, especially because CLG's final opponent seemed to be the Fnatic of women's CS:GO.

Calling themselves "We Run This Place" the former Games4u team lived up to their cocky name by delivering sound defeats to CLG on two consecutive maps. Like Karma, they seemed to have better in-game coordination and strategy than CLG did, but with an even higher level individual skill than CLG or Karma could match. It wasn't a massacre, but the outcome never looked like it was in doubt and We Run This Place took the $15,000 grand prize.

Still, on a weekend where a Fnatic victory sometimes seemed like a foregone conclusion in the main tournament, the suspense and emotion of the Intel Challenge was an unexpected gift. With rivalries as intense as anything you'll find between Fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas, and dedicated pros with years of tournament experience, the women of CLG, Karma, and WRTP made an argument that women's CS:GO deserves to be more than an afterthought to the main event.