Happy’s Deagle Ace is one of the most iconic plays in Counter-Strike history.

To many, it was an against-the-odds play defined by the calls and candor of Auguste "Semmler" Massonnat. But if you think the legendary play was all down to luck, consider the nearly unfathomable amount of exterior factors that had to line up to make it happen.

Let’s break it down:

The first kill was an intelligent play from Happy, who held an off-angle looking towards Sandbags, the T’s sole entry point into the B-site on Inferno. cajunb peeked the Porch corner expecting a duel, but thanks to Happy’s positioning he was able to spot cajunb first and took a pure reaction headshot.

One dead.

Chalk that up to his crosshair placement. Happy tried for a second reaction shot as another Team SoloMid player crossed the gap, but he was just off the mark.

The French superstar fell back behind cover, but knew roughly where TSM was, with the Danes taking potshots at the Porch corner. Happy timed a peek in between those shots and fired with a perfect pre-aimed angle, counter-movement and timing to nail dev1ce in the head and took the Dane down.

Two dead.

It was a maneuver that left close to zero room for retaliation and mechanical error to pull off. If his pre-aim was off, he would have missed. If he didn’t counter his momentum properly before he fired, the shot would have gone wild. And if he didn’t time everything perfectly he would have maybe glanced the corner of the wall, leading to an non-lethal shot.

Despite everything needing to go right for the second kill, Happy did it again, this time on Xyp9x.

Three dead.

This incredible third kill required more luck than the second, as TSM had a smoke for cover and were not telegraphing their position by firing through it. This was simply CS:GO timing at it’s finest. C’est magnifique.

Happy tried his luck further by spamming the same angle with the rest of his clip and was forced to reload; dupreeh took advantage of this and pushed through the smoke. He would have caught Happy completely off guard, but his eyes were toward the B-site, the opposite angle of Happy. At this point, the adrenaline was pumping through Happy’s veins as he took haphazard shots at dupreeh, but eventually won the duel after six shots.

Four dead.

Finally, with a single bullet left in his clip, Happy fell back to the Porch corner and lined up a shot — seemingly by muscle-memory — and nailed karrigan through the smoke to complete the Ace.

Five dead.

Hindsight is 20/20, and some could blame this iconic moment in CS history partly on TSM’s poor usage of utility to clear Happy’s angle. It’s been said by some that the Danes were too aggressive, while others have brought into question how much “peeker’s advantage” was a factor in the play.

But compartmentalizing the play and looking at each moment in a vacuum has done little to diminish the the skill required by Happy to pull off the impossible. The Deagle Ace remains one of the most iconic moments in esports history.