With Astralis winning the Intel Grand Slam at ESL Proleague Season 8, they’ve essentially finished out the year as the most dominant team in CS:GO history. In eight months, they’ve won nine titles. In thirteen tournaments, they’ve been in the finals of eleven. The Grand Slam was just the cherry on top and so I thought it would be a fun exercise to see who else would have won the grand slam if it had existed at the beginning of CS:GO.

The Grand Slam started at ESL One Cologne in 2017 and the premise of fairly simple. If a team is able to win four events within ten events between the ESL tournaments and the DreamHack Masters, they’d win an additional 1,000,000 dollars. If a team got to three and were in their fourth finals, a bounty would be initiated where if the team denied them the grand slam, they’d win an additional 100,000 dollars. Finally, as far as I can tell, there aren’t lineup restrictions for the grand slam as FaZe were able to get points with differing lineups. As the ESL ONE and DreamHack Masters event didn’t exist back then, I’ve used tournaments that would be the equivalents, those being the ESL Major One events (which were the predecessor of ESL One) and DreamHack Winter/Cluj-Napoca. The DreamHacks were included in place of the Masters events as they were prestigious LANs back in the day and were Majors.

We start at the beginning with the NiP era. This was the squad that included: Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, Richard “Xizt” Landstrom, Adam “friberg” Friberg, and Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson. The first two events were DreamHack Winter 2012 and ESL Major Spring 2013. At DreamHack Winter 2012, they battled against their French Rivals in VeryGames which had: Kevin “Ex6TenZ” Droolans, Nathan “NBK” Schmitt, Edouard “SmithZz’ Dubourdeaux, Cedric “RpK” Guipouy and Kenny “kennyS” Schrub. The second event had the Ninjas battle against Epsilon eSports in the finals. That was the proto-core of Fnatic among which the two most famous players were Robin “flusha” Ronnquist and Jesper “JW” Wecksell. Both were blowouts as you’d expect of the NiP era.

The third event was EMS Summer where Virtus.Pro came into play. This was before the Polish squad came together and this particular lineup included: Emil “kUcheR” Akhundov, Kirill “ANGE1” Karasov, Mihail “Dosia” Stolyarov, Sergey “Fox” Stolyarov, and Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs. They had recently switched out Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev for GuardiaN and were one of the best teams in the world at the time. They were a dangerous team particularly for NiP as the AdreN lineup were the ones to finally break the Ninjas at StarLadder i-League StarSeries V.

That same storyline continued here as Virtus.Pro beat NiP and VeryGames beat Fnatic. This VeryGames had already undergone changes by then as RpK had quit the game and kennyS was replaced. In their place they had Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and Richard “Shox” Papillon. The finals went 2-0 in VeryGames favor as they proved themselves to be a superior team to Virtus.Pro even though they had yet to get over their NiP demons.

The fourth event was EMS Fall 2013. I’d say this is the point where VeryGames overtook NiP to become the best team in the world. The two teams battled each other in the finals of that tournament and the French side finally got the better of NiP as they won the series 2-1.

The fifth event of this “Grand Slam” was to be the Major at DreamHack Winter. VeryGames, NiP, and Astana Dragons were the favorites for this tournament, but two teams would end up changing the course of history here. The first was the complexity which was led by Sean Gares at the time. They upset VeryGames in the group stages in the bo1 game with a godlike call on the final round of inferno which forced VeryGames into the other side of the bracket where they had to play NiP in the semifinals and lost. As for compLexity, they faced off against Astana Dragons and upset them in the quarterfinals. The other team was Fnatic and this was Markus “Pronax” Wallsten’s breakout tournament. Along with Andreas “znajder” Lindberg and Jonatan “Devilwalk” Lundberg, they’d take the entire tournament with his style of mid-round calls and defeat NiP in the finals.

By this point you may have noticed that NiP have lost twice in finals and failed to get the third event they’d need to be able to win the grand slam. This denial from other teams will be an ongoing story as we go to the 6th event in the Grand Slam would was the ESL Major One Katowice Major in 2014. This was to be the event that put Virtus.Pro as we know them onto the world stage. They destroyed that tournament and were dubbed the Virtus.Plow. The lineup included: Filip “NEO” Kubski, Jaroslaw “Pasha” Jarzabkwowski, Pawel “Byali” Bielinski, Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski, and Wiktor “TaZ’ Wojtas. Their playstyle, their aggression, their legendary status, and their swagger would make them a favorite amongst fans for years to come. This was also to be the third event in a row where NiP lost in the finals.

The next event on the Grand Slam Tour was ESL One Cologne 2014. By this time Fnatic had completed exodia as they were able to recruit Olof “olofmeister” Kjabjer and Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson. While Fnatic had won the Major in 2013, this was to be the best lineup they ever had. For NiP this was a date with destiny as they finally won the Majors they missed out on because the Major system didn’t exist back when CS:GO started. This victory also set NiP at three victories in the “Grand Slam”.

By this point we are seven events in and the trophy count was as follows:

NiP: 3

VeryGames: 2

Fnatic: 1

Virtus.Pro: 1

The next event was to be the DreamHack Winter 2014. In the interim between the last Major and this Major, two teams became the powerhouses of the scene: Fnatic and LDLC. The LDLC lineup consisted of: NBK, Shox, SmithZz, Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey and Vincent “Happy” Cervoni. After boostgate happened, LDLC moved on to the finals of the event where the beat NiP in the finals in a close 3 map series where the third map went to overtime. By doing this, LDLC would get the Major, deny NiP the grand slam achievement and win the bounty.

As you may have noticed, each grand slam event was essentially a Major and that’s reflective of the fact that the scene was smaller back then and thus there were less of these prestigious LANs per year. Once we hit 2015 and onward, CS:GO as a game would explode in popularity and the amount of LANs would go up as well.

The next event on the tour was ESL One Katowice. At this point we are 8 events in and NiP is a three victories. They were denied in the last event by LDLC. Once again NiP would make the finals though they’d have a change in players. The fifth at the time was Aleksi “allu” Jalli. As for their opponent, it was Fnatic. At this point we are knee deep into the Fnatic era and even though NiP played them close, Fnatic were just a step above as they took down NiP in the finals and secured their second victory in this grand slam, win the bounty, and deny NiP the achievement for a second time.

The next event was to be ESL ESEA Proleague Season 1 Finals as ESEA had merged with ESL. At this event the two finalists were Fnatic and Cloud9. Cloud9 were the tank tops of summer and would quickly become one of the most beloved teams in the circuit. This iteration had: Sean Gares, Michael “shroud” Grzesiek, Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert, Ryan “fREAKAZOiD” Abadir, and Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham. Fnatic won the series 3-1, though Cloud9 had acquitted themselves well in the process.

At this point the grand slam has reached ten events, so NiP’s victory at DreamHack Winter 2012 is taken off the tally. This also means that they have been put back to two victories, while Fnatic are now the ones that are set to win the grand prize as they are at three victories.

The eleventh event was to be the ESL One Cologne 2015 Major. If the grand slam had existed, the fever pitch would have been insane. This was the Major where Fnatic pulled off miracle plays to win. They played against a VP in plow mode and against EnVyUs in the finals. This was after Shox and SmithZz had been removed for the team for kennyS and Dan “apEX’ Madesclaire. They were on matchpoint on the first map of the finals, but Fnatic rallied back and by doing so seemed to break KennyS will in that series. With this victory, Fnatic instantly snatch up the grand slam with their second Major victory and the title of being the greatest of all time up to that point.

At this point the grand slam is reset as everyone starts again at zero. In the second iteration of the Grand Slam, EnVyUs win DreamHack Cluj-Napoca over Na`Vi. This was the Na`Vi that had: Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko, GuardiaN, Denis “seized” Kostin, Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev, and Egor “flamie” Vasilyev. You’ll be seeing Na`Vi for quite a bit as while this one of the best teams in CS:GO at this time, they were infamous for losing a bunch of grand finals during this period.

The next season of EPL rolled around at the end of 2015 and once again Na`Vi made it to the finals. This time they faced off against a slightly new Fnatic as they had changed Pronax for Dennis “Dennis” Edman. This iteration of Fnatic was even more individually based than the last and even more liable to pull out bullshit victories from the seeming jaws of defeat. That’s what they did here as the first two maps in the series went 16-14 in Fnatic’s favor.

Then we head into 2016, where the Fnatic era continues. This time though they face off against a team that would eventually become the world’s number one, Luminosity Gaming. This was the first Brazilian Squad to become the best in CS:GO. They had: Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Marcelo “Coldzera” David, Epitacio “TACO” de Melo, Fernando “fer” Alvarenga, and Lincoln “fnx” Lau. This was a close finals, but the LG side had yet to develop that killer instinct that would characterize them going forward and Fnatic won the finals 3-0.

The fourth event of the new Grand Slam was the newly branded DreamHack Masters series at DreamHack Malmo. NiP at this event had a different fifth in Jacob “pyth” Mourujarvi. As for this particular event though, the most memorable thing about the run was their coach Bjorn “THREAT” Pers as this was his masterpiece. He essentially punished every team at that tournament for playing undisciplined CS with their economy. Once again, Na`Vi ended up second. For those counting, they have ended up second in three of the last four events.

EPL 3 was to be the fifth event and by this time we are in the Luminosity/SK era. In this tournament Luminosity faced off against G2. This was the squad that had: Alexandre “bodyy” Piarnaro, Shox, ScreaM, SmithZz, and RpK. By this point, the old EnVyUs squad had hit terminal mass and were breaking apart internally, while this French squad had an incredible duo between Shox and Scream. G2 had a surprisingly good matchup against Luminosity, but at this event LG won the finals 3-2.

The sixth event was to be the ESL One Cologne Major in 2016. At this event the LG players had switched over to the SK brand and so I’m pretty certain that would reset their counter. Whatever the case, this was the Major that showcased that particular Brazilian lineup at its greatest strength. It was also the first Major where an NA team got to the finals. The squad that did it was: Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski, Spencer “Hiko” Martin, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, and Joshua “JDM64” Marzano. This was the event that convinced Na`Vi that they had to get s1mple. As for SK, they cemented their era status with this second Major victory.

ESL One New York was a spectacular event with some interesting ramifications. The finals of that event were between Na`Vi and Virtus.Pro. Na`Vi had removed Zeus and put in s1mple. So the squad was stacked on paper and their victory here likely convinced them that the raw potential of the team could have been absolutely amazing. This was also the only event where they ever reached that ceiling as they’d never do this well again. As for Virtus.Pro, this was to be another rise of form from them as they had fallen off from their title contender status in 2015.

IEM Oakland was the following event where Magic reigned supreme. This time it wasn’t any spectacular masterplan from THREAT, but rather raw NiP magic that let them reach championship form and beat SK in the finals of the tournament.

Eight events into the new Grand Slam and these were the results as follows:

EnVyUs: 1

Fnatic: 2

NiP: 2

LG: 1

SK: 1

No one was close unlike the previous period as the LG/SK era was far shorter than NiP or Fnatic’s periods of dominance. We are also heading into the uncertainty era and 2017 where Astralis, FaZe, and SK battled for the top.

The first event of the new year was DreamHack Master Las Vegas. This was after the Major where Astralis had won with: Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander, Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, Peter “Dupreeh” Rasmussen, Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjaerbye, and Andreas “Xyp9x” Hojsleth. What was memorable about this event was that TaZ swore that they’d beat Astralis the next time they met them and they did in the semifinals of this tournament. This caused the CEO of Virtus.Pro to give him a Mercedes. Virturs.Pro then went on to battle against SK in the finals. This SK had made a player change as they removed fnx for Joao “Felps” Vasconcellos.

IEM Katowice was the tenth event and basically spelled the beginning of the end for Virtus.Pro. They didn’t get out of the groups here due to strange map veto choices and we’d never see a title contention Virtus.Pro again until EPICENTER later in the year. This was also the rise of FaZe as Finn “Karrigan” Andersen had done his work. During this entire period, FaZe had been collecting a bunch of skilled players, misfits, and mercenaries that had nowhere to go. Once Karrigan was removed from Astralis, he joined this squad and made them a top ten team. Then before this event happened, they recruited superstar player Nikola “NiKo” Kovac. So the total lineup included: Karrigan, NiKo, Havard “rain” Nygaard, allu, and KioShiMa. Among all of the lineups that Karrigan has led over the years, I consider this one to be his masterpiece as I think he overachieved with what he had in this particular group of players. They faced off against Astralis in the finals of this event, but were unable to beat them. However as time went on, Karrigan would prove to be a thorn in Astralis’ side as his FaZe squad beat them at critical tournaments that could have established an Astralis era.

The grand slam then went to Sydney for it’s eleventh event. At this event FaZe beat Astralis in the semifinals, but were then beaten in turn by SK in the finals. At this point, SK had reconfigured their style of play as they found out how they wanted to use felps in the lineup. They’d soon become the best team in the world.

EPL’s fifth season was the following event. The finals of this event was between G2 and North. G2 earlier in the year had formed an all-star French team that had KennyS, Shox, NBK, apEX, and bodyy. While they never became a top team, they had some incredible highs and this was one of them. On the other side of the server was North. This was one of their better events and it was back when they had both Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke and Emil “Magisk” Reif.

The following event was ESL One Cologne where SK won the event against Cloud9. That was the Cloud9 that had n0thing, Shroud, Skadoodle, Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip and Timothy “autimatic” Ta. While that Cloud9 never became a top team, this was the first of many incidents where fans overhyped how great the eventual lineup would be. As for SK they’d win again and put themselves at three victories in the grand slam.

That essentially covers the entire period of time through which the Grand Slam would have existed. At this point, SK got to three, but they were unable to get to a fourth finals in time. The next time they’d be in the finals of a grand slam event would be EPL 6 where one of their victories would drop off and they’d be at three again. After that the grand slam would continue to roll on through history as we know it today.

Here were the standings at that particular period of time:

NiP: 2

LG: 1

SK: 3

VP: 1

G2: 1

Astralis: 1

Na`Vi: 1

In essence, the SK team would have won an “unofficial” Grand Slam, but as they played under different orgs, I don’t think they would have been given the prize. While we essentially know what happens from here on out in the grand slam, it’s worth noting going over briefly so that we can put the great teams in historical context.

The next team to get extremely close to winning the grand slam was FaZe. They won ESL New York 2017 after they debuted their all-star line up: Karrigan, NiKo, olofmeister, GuardiaN, and Rain. They’d then get to the final three more times: once to NiP at Oakland, once to SK at EPL 6, and once to Fnatic at IEM Katowice. Funnily enough, they’d eventually get to the three counter after olofmeister took a personal break and they played with Xizt and Jorgen “cromen” Robertsen as stand-ins at IEM Sydney and ESL Belo Horizonte.

Unfortunately for the FaZe clan, they’d never be able to get to a fourth finals to try to get the Grand Slam as they fell off and Astralisi came into full force. Astralis won DreamHack Marseille, lost in the IEM Sydney Finals, won at EPL7, lost in the semifinals of Cologne, lost in the finals of DreamHack Stockholm, then won two back-to-back victories at IEM Chicago and EPL 8. One final team to note during this time period is Liquid. They were in three of the four finals that Astralis won and were also in the finals of ESL New York where they lost to Mouz.

Looking back now in retrospect though, the storyline of the Grand Slam does correlate with a lot of the great teams of each time period. When talking about the greats, teams like NiP, Fnatic, LG/SK, and Astralis all stand out. NiP were incredibly close to winning it early on and activated the bounty twice. The bounty was the won by LDLC and Fnatic (and this would have likely created even more hate towards Fnatic back in the day). Fnatic in turn took over the world and won the Grand Slam at ESL Cologne Major. Quite fitting considering that Cologne was the event where we started to call them the GOATs. LG/SK essentially won an unofficial one*, so while they wouldn’t get the prize, their level of greatness would have been recognized as close to Fnatic and likely greater than NiP. FaZe were incredibly close, but were never able to activate the bounty. Behind FaZe, the two teams that were potentially the closet were VeryGames and Liquid. VeryGames were in the finals of DreamHack Winter 2012, won EMS Summer and Fall, and were favorites to win DreamHack Winter 2013. As for Liquid, they got into the four finals of this year. Finally, Astralis as the team people are now calling the greatest have just completed the Grand Slam and reset the entire thing. Looking back through history and contextualizing how the Grand Slam would have shaped the narrative, we can see that it adds an extra element of greatness, storytelling, and structure to the entire circuit. So kudos to ESL and DreamHack for putting it together.

*After publishing this article, Carmac confirmed that the rules go by majority rule rather than organization, thus making LG/SK the official second winners of this theoretical Grand Slam.

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