The Eleague Major has come to an end and brought with it an amazing start to CS GO in 2018. Cloud9 became the first North American team to win a CS GO Major. While we let that sink in, we bring you some more facts about the Eleague Major.

Highest Number of Viewers on Twitch

Esports has been fuelled by the growth of viewers. One of the top esport titles to fuel this growth has been CS GO. The growth of Twitch and that of CS GO has seen several similarities.

The Eleague Boston Major 2018 saw the highest ever viewership numbers on the live streaming platform Twitch. The event saw 1847643 peak viewership numbers and this includes the Chinese viewers. Twitch alone saw numbers crossing 1 million during the Grand finals.

Counter-Strike has always been a game that is instinctively easy to watch. The shoot to kill concept has been immortalized via previous versions of Counter-Strike along with several arcade games along the way. There are always new players watching the game and trying to understand the game. CS GO majors are big-time advertisements to people who have previously not been introduced to esports.

Esports is just going to grow and events such as the CS GO Majors and The International in Dota2 are landmark showcase events.

There have been only two times a channel on Twitch which has recorded more than a million concurrent viewers. It has been Eleague both the times.

In the history of @Twitch, there have been only two times that a single channel have broached 1M concurrent users. I’m proud to say that our ELEAGUE channel have been both of those times. Still coming down after an incredible day. Thank you and good night. — christina alejandre (@burbunny) January 29, 2018

America Wins a Major !!

The NA CS GO Term has become a meme for underperforming teams and poor gameplay. It’s time for this to stop, cause we have an American team as the best team in the world.

With only a difference of 0.08 in rating between Cloud9’s top and bottom player for the whole major, this has to be the lowest standard deviation in a tournament win, by far. No clear star, supersolid team performance. — Viktor Jendeby (@vuggo) January 29, 2018

The team was bolstered by amazing performances throughout the team. There was no standout performer, no one singular player carrying the team. This team reminds us of how Fnatic of 2015 was filled with a bunch of performers. You would be at a loss to pick one player from amongst all of them.

The Home Crowd Advantage

There are many who feel that the home crowd definitely provided a boost to the Cloud 9 roster. The team has not had several victories in the past LAN tournaments. Indeed Faze has mostly been the team that has managed to defeat them easily in the past. So what changed in this Major finals?

I took a peek in one of the practice rooms at 1am last night. There was one person inside watching demos, Skadoodle. #ELEAGUEMajor — DeKay (@NWDeKay) January 28, 2018

The Huge crowd and the support for the second American team to ever reach the Finals of a CS the GO Major definitely had an impact. The crowd and the casters were firmly behind Cloud9. The player themselves seemed very hype from the support that they received from all around the arena.

Yes, they did have an advantage going into the finals, but that should not take away anything from their skills; their performance and the talent. If anything, they also had the added pressure of playing in front of such a huge crowd that will cheer every kill you get.

Yes they did have an advantage going into the finals. That should not take away anything from their skills; their performance and the talent. If anything, they also had the added pressure of playing in front of such a huge crowd that will cheer every kill you get.

The Ultimate trophy eludes the Faze players

The Faze roster is filled with superstars. But only one of these famous personalities has won CS GO Majors. The remaining members on the team have all been a part of really strong teams, but never Major winners. Karrigan and Guardian, by far the most experienced on the team will still be looking to earn their first Major victory.

The Faze roster is filled with superstars. But only one of these famous personalities has won CS GO Majors. The remaining members on the team have all been a part of really strong teams, but never Major winners. Karrigan and Guardian, by far the most experienced on the team will still be looking to earn their first Major victory.



With Valve rumored to be awarding the next Major to FaceIT, eight months down the line Faze will have to wait the majority of the year. Last year Eleague Finalists, Virtus Pro are on the verge of having a roster change. One cannot truly say how a team will shape up eight months in the future. This Eleague Boston Major was the perfect opportunity for Faze to win a Major. They missed the train, and only time will tell if they are able to keep up the same level of Counter Strike till the next major.

What’s for the future?

C9’s win is reminiscent of FNATIC’s at the first major: Top 5 but underdog team overcomes number 2 team in the world, who are thought to be a shoe-in for the title. Do so with decisive moves and lesser names making key plays. — Thorin (@Thooorin) January 29, 2018

These words aptly describe Cloud9 right now. A bunch of players who have not established themselves in the CS GO scene for the most part. They come together and were able to defeat several of the top teams in the tournament.

Lets take a moment and realize @Cloud9 were down 0-2 in groups, up in an elimination game vs @virtuspro. Crazy stuff — Jesper Wecksell (@jwCSGO) January 28, 2018

The fact that they faced some really tough opponents on their way to the trophy truly adds a feather to their achievement. They were down 0-2 in the Legends stage, on the verge of a knockout from the tournament. They won every match since then and won the Major, a feat that is truly remarkable as it is astonishing.

This is the start of a new era in Counter-Strike. A Cloud9 era. A North American era.

Image Credit:

Reddit user Gotshrimp

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