The early stories are important. The myths, fables, and folktales all have something to tell about the modern day. Culture, times, and technology have changed, but people have not. Those stories have shaped, informed, and are changed by those experiences humanity has lived through since. In the same sense, the battles of early CS:GO can tell us something about the modern day and there was no more formative rivalry than NiP vs VeryGames.

From 2012 to 2014, the most important battle in the CS:GO world was the rivalry of NiP and VeryGames. They were the two best teams throughout that period and their battles have shaped how we think about skill, teamwork, and tactics.

The NiP lineup was: Patrick “f0rest” Lindberg, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, Richard “Xizt” Landstrom, Adam “Friberg” Friberg, and Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson. Together they made the first dynasty of CS:GO history and their accomplishments are still cited as some of the best in CS:GO history. People to this day still talk about the tournaments they won, the 87-0 streak, and the magic.

But all of that is given meaning because they had a rival, one that chased after them and forced them to battle every step of the way, and eventually overtake them. While NiP won all of the tournament, VeryGames had shown that they could beat everyone except NiP. The first iteration of VeryGames included: Kevin “Ex6TenZ” Droolas, Nathan “NBK” Schmitt, Edouard “SmithZz” Dubourdeaux, Cedric “RpK” Guipouy, and Kenny “kennyS” Schrub. Later on they had Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and Richard “shox” Papillon come into the lineup in 2013. The VeryGames team met NiP four times in 2012: DreamHack Valencia, ESWC, DreamHack Winter, and ESH Prague. Both teams met in the finals of all four tournaments. In all four tournaments, NiP came out victorious.

The system that NiP built was around two fundamental philosophies. The first was the enabling of the two star players in f0rest and GeT_RiGhT. F0rest was an incredibly consistent fragger and could be used to take over aggressive map control like yard on nuke. GeT_RiGhT was the hard lurker who constantly created a threat in the backlines of the enemy camp, who could win impossible 1vX situations. The rest of the team was built around enabling the two of them. Friberg was the entry-fragger who created space and was in his own right an amazing player at the time. The team was rounded out by Xizt and Fifflaren filling out the roles and creating a stable framework from which the rest of the team could launch attacks from.

Philosophically opposed to them was VeryGames. This was a team built around skill and structure. They had skilled players like NBK, RpK and more raw talent in kennyS. SmithZz and Ex6TenZ filled out the roles. What defined the team however was the strict adherence to the Ex6TenZ tactical style. This was a team with set roles for every player. And once every player knew their role, they ran the playbook of Ex6TenZ and it was his mind that set the pace of the entire team.

When the two teams clashed against each other, it was clear that NiP had the upper hand. The tactics and structure were strong on the side of VeryGames, but the natural chemistry and the overall skill of the NiP players were a bad matchup for the French side.

Soon after RpK would retire at the beginning of 2013 and ScreaM came into the lineup. ScreaM had incredible aim, but his style was rigid. He looked for aim duels and was best at those, but the rest of his game wasn’t quite as strong. This led to inconsistent performances that depended on his form on the day. The incredible and volatile ceiling made him an ideal third star, a place he’d occupy in the next iteration with the shox lineup. For now he’d play out as the second star of the team along with NBK and the results were similar.

The roster change wasn’t enough as VeryGames played against NiP multiple times. At CopenHagen Games 2013, EMS Spring and ESEA LAN 13. Among those LANs, the game that exemplifies the dynamic of the two teams is the series at EMS Spring. NiP defeated VeryGames 2-0 with the first map being close. The important game of this series was the inferno game. Specifically the T-side of VeryGames. On their T-side, VeryGames showed strong tactics despite the score being 3-12. They used fakes that worked, they were able to take map control at banana and brackets and then show multiple variations of different types of hits after getting that map control. In one they went for a 4-1 with NBK lurking top mid. In another it was an A split, in a third a B execute. For all that cleverness, they couldn’t get rounds on the board. It was clear that NiP’s skill, teamwork, and cohesion was too much.

ESEA LAN 13 was another great example of the problems of the VeryGames vs. NiP matchup. In this tournament it was a close set between the two and again NiP won 2-0 against VeryGames. NBK had an incredible series, especially on the first map on nuke, yet the same story repeated itself. The VeryGames tactics were enabled by NBK’s skill as he consistently got impact frag after impact frag. It wasn’t enough as the skill, teamwork, and ability to win clutches kept NiP ahead. This series was the closest VeryGames got and they couldn’t take a map. They needed a player who could win those clutch situations against NiP, who could flip the script. They needed shox.

Shox had always had a tumultuous working relationship with Ex6TenZ dating back to CS:Source, but the two of them needed to team up to take down the Swedish powerhouse. On May 2013, shox joined VeryGames and kennyS was removed after internal disputes in the team. KennyS was just too inexperienced. He fell under pressure too often and he’d go quiet in the big games. The pressure got to him in the big moments and so this left an opening for shox to be brought to the team. Shox brought a few critical elements that elevated this team to become the best team in the world, but to understand that we have to take a detour to another matchup at the time. NiP vs Virtus.Pro.

Back then Virtus.Pro wasn’t the all Polish roster we know now. The roster was: Emil “kUcheR” Akhundov, Kiril “ANGE1” Karasiow, Mihail “Dosia” Stolyarov, Sergey “Fox” Stolyarov, and Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev. The reason this team is important to this particular rivalry is that it gives context as to how to defeat NiP. Virtus.Pro was the team that ended the 87-0 streak of NiP. They did it at Starladder Starseries Season V and how they do explains a weakness in the NiP side and what it was that shox brings to VeryGames.

In that tournament Virtus.Pro play NiP twice. Once in the Upper Bracket Final and once again in the Grand Finals. Virtus.Pro wins both series 2-0. Both series were epic struggles that took everything Virtus.Pro had to overtake NiP. Despite it’s close nature where either side could have won, Virtus.Pro showed some aspects of the NiP style that were exploitable. The first was that the Virtus.Pro players were able to out skill the NiP contingent and win those critical 1vX situations. Dosia could match any player on the NiP side. Fox, kUcheR and ANGE1 could each have impact rounds or big sides. The other important aspect was the role that ANGE1 played on Mirage Ct-side in the first set. In that game he constantly pushed forward on Ct-side and got information that could then be relayed to the rest of the team or put him into position to backstab whatever NiP was doing.

Shox represented both of these aspects in one player. He was a player who could win any late round situation, who could match the skill and beat any of the NiP players, and was also a lurker who could make those instinctive aggressive pushes that either broke open the game or got critical information to the team. In short he was a superstar player that could outplay anyone in the world.

The next time NiP and VeryGames are at the same tournament is at EMS Summer 2013. Unfortunately they don’t get to play against each other as they were on the opposite sides of the bracket and Virtus.Pro eliminate NiP in the semifinals. The finals had VeryGames defeat Virtus.Pro to take the title. They don’t get the chance to meet again in a tournament until September of 2013 at DreamHack Bucharest.

This tournament once again had NiP defeating VeryGames, this time in a more decisive manner. Dust 2 was close, but the Swedish T-side prevailed against VeryGames aggressive Ct-side approach. In the second game, it was a resounding victory for NiP as they won 16-2. The second map was an important loss for the VeryGames side as they had put the players in the wrong configuration. The team still had NBK playing the lurk in apartments and shox going with the pack. The loss here may have been the critical key moment as the next time they’d meet the rivalry would turn.

SLTV Starladder VII was when the VeryGames team finally defeated NiP. The loss at DreamHack Bucharest set VeryGames on the right path as they shifted the roles of NBK and shox. It immediately paid off when NiP and VeryGames played in the upper bracket. In the third round, VeryGames found themselves in a tough 2v4 situation, but now shox was in position. The bomb had dropped at the bottom of banana so NiP rotated a third man over. This left f0rest alone in library. At the same time shox started to lurk into long and got the opening kill on f0rest. ScreaM secured the bomb and they were able to win out the ensuing 2v3 situation. The play making of shox allowed VeryGames to win a round they probably shouldn’t have won.

Part of what defined the pre-shox VeryGames rivalry to NiP was NiP’s ability to win those kinds of rounds against VeryGames, but it rarely happened in reverse. With shox on the lineup, he gave them that aggressive space that put pressure on the NiP side and he gave them that ability to win these rounds against NiP. Later on in the same game, Shox would win a 2v4 retake situation on the B-site on Ct-side. Both rounds were critical as VeryGames barely edge out NiP 16-14.

Where the first map showed the brilliance of shox, the second showed the brilliance of the new Ct-side default of VeryGames. It was an A-retake setup that was designed for NiP to waste their utility in the execute and then have the team retake the site at their leisure. It stumped the NiP T-side and when they tried to hit the B-site they ran into multiple bait setups between SmithZz, shox, and NBK. Shox had injected VeryGames with an aggressive space and playmaker who could win those critical rounds that turned the game.

In the following two tournaments, NiP met VeryGames twice more. Once in the finals of EMS Fall and once again in the semifinals of ESWC 2013. In both encounters it was VeryGames winning the series. At EMS Fall, VeryGames won 2-1. The first map was on nuke where they played a good T-side getting 5 rounds, but were unable to get the Ct-side running in time. Cache was the most interesting map in the series as it exemplifies the shox-Ex6TenZ combination. Shox once again won a clutch in a critical moment to push the team forward in the 24th round. As for Ex6TenZ, he called an excellent T-side that was predicated on getting mid map control with a smoke wall. The third map was a convincing victory for VeryGames and NiP looked lost as to how to break VeryGames CT-side or how to stop their T-side.

By the time ESWC rolled around a month later, NiP started trying to figure out the VeryGames problem in earnest. We start seeing adaptations and counters from the team. The first map was cache and this time NiP’s Ct-side have setups to deal with the walls of smoke in mid. The skill of the team carries through for VeryGames anyway as ScreaM consistently kept winning duels when he was on boost and shox won godlike rounds nearing the end of the match to close it out for VeryGames. The second map was much like the first with NiP pushing VeryGames to the limit as the two teams try to adjust and react to what the other was doing in the game. The game goes into overtime where VeryGames managed to win it 19-16.

One of the final times these two rosters met was at the first Major, DreamHack Winter 2013. The constant losses to VeryGames had forced NiP to change and those failures became lessons that let NiP used to turn the tides on VeryGames . In the first map on Dust 2, NiP started to use more counter-aggression and bait-setups on the Ct-side. In the 9th round, they did a double b push after f0rest got picked off early on in reaction to VeryGames. They had come to the conclusion that in this scenario they couldn’t allow VeryGames to prepare and make a split, they had to disrupt it. The general VeryGames default at the time was to push three through mid doors before splitting on the site so NiP assumed correctly that there was likely only one in B halls and they won the 2v1 putting the game back into a 4v4 situation. It wasn’t enough as VeryGames still closed the round.

The message however was clear. NiP had put there all into the matchup. Another example of NiP’s preparation on the Ct-side was a double bait setup where they put GeT_RiGhT in side pit to bait for Xizt in pit. The Ct-side had changed in response to VeryGames and so had the T-side. In their previous default, NiP had only used GeT_RiGhT to take control of long. In this matchup they, when the executed an A split, they put three players there to clear out the entire area so that they could make sure that a retake wasn’t possible. These adjustments allowed NiP to take the first game. The second was another crushing victory by VeryGames on inferno.

The third was played on nuke and had all the makings of a close game. Despite the score being 16-5 in NiP’s favor, VeryGames had gotten four of those rounds on T-side. If they could have stabilized the economy of the Ct-side we could have seen a closely contested third map between the two teams. On this map, just like Dust 2, NiP showed a case of adapting to what VeryGames liked to do. Their Ct-side setups had a stronger focus on controlling lower and having faster rotations to punish the map movements of VeryGames T-side on Nuke. On top of that they made more aggressive plays and bait setups. Fifflaren tried jumping through a smoke at ramp to surprise the Ts, GeT_RiGhT sometimes played more forward positions than usual, they’d bait the Ts by going down secret where f0rest was waiting to get a triple kill. It was an incredible victory for NiP as they defeated their rivals in the biggest event of the year.

That was their biggest showdown in their rivalry. Soon after VeryGames closed and the team was picked up by Titan. Titan and NiP faced off one more time at at DreamHack 2014 Invitational where VeryGames defeated NiP twice in the bracket to take the title. Titan had setup a team house to go with the team, but the idea backfired as shox couldn’t stand it and soon left. Soon after shox left Titan and the lineup never rose to the world’s number one spot again. NiP went on to be an aging beast. Still fearsome, but slowly bypassed by the subsequent best teams in the world.

Thus ended the first great rivalry of CS:GO history. It lasted from the origins of CS:GO and into the Major era. In a way the showdown at DreamHack Winter 2013 crystallizes the apex of their rivalry. By that point their rivalry against each other had been battle tested for a year and a half. There can be no NiP without VeryGames just as there can be no VeryGames without NiP. Their rivalry against each other forged both teams to become something greater.

A common saying is that history is written by the victor. Nowhere is this more true than in competitive esports. The greatest champions are studied, broken down, and imitated by those who wish to defeat them. It is remarkable then that the two best teams in early CS:GO history had such opposing philosophical approaches to the game. VeryGames were the tactical ones, NiP were the skilled ones. Through their experiences fighting each other they were both forced to admit on some level the other was right. VeryGames got shox to increase their firepower and battle NiP. NiP were forced to adapt and change their tactics to deal with VeryGames. The tactical team got skill, the skilled team got tactics. This battle, exchange, and evolution of both teams and their ideals has continued to reverberate in CS:GO history as both sides have inspired a new generation of teams and players. Every culture, every nation has their own myth. For America it is the founding fathers, for the Greek City-states it was the battle between the Titans and the Gods, and for CS:GO it is the rivalry of NiP and VeryGames. Two teams that once battled for the soul and dominion of CS:GO.

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