We are less than two weeks away from the start of BLAST.tv Major in Paris. To ease the waiting time, we have created a countdown series, where we dive into the history of all the previous 18 Majors.

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MVP: Jarosław "pashaBiceps" Jarząbkowski

Map pool: Dust2, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, and Train.

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The second Major in history took place in March 2014. The venue was the now legendary Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland. Once again 16 teams were gathered to determine, who was the best team in Counter-Strike right now? Since the first Major in Jönköping, VeryGames (Now Titan) had only improved. The roster (Ex6TenZ, NBK, ScreaM, shox, SmithZz) was dubbed tournament favorites going into the Major. The Swedish Ninjas were also among the top favorites while reigning champions from Fnatic were once again considered underdogs compared to Titan and NIP.

Group A delivered the first upset with tournament favorites Titan's exit. A 16-7 loss to Virtus.pro shocked the French/Belgian roster, who had to win the elimination match against HellRaisers to survive. But another loss forced the star-studded roster to be eliminated before the playoffs. Instead the only Polish team in the tournament, Virtus.pro made it through in first place. The roster (TaZ, NEO, pashaBiceps, byali, Snax) had only recently been assembled, but everything seemed to be clicking on home turf.

In the playoffs Virtus.pro annihilated Team LDLC 16-3, 16-8. Now all eyes were on the home crowd's favorites. Fnatic was eliminated in the Quarter-Finals, while Ninjas in Pyjamas once again had qualified for the Grand Final. This time by beating Team Dignitas with three of the legendary Astralis core (Xyp9x, dupreeh, device) on the roster.

Virtus.pro lost their first and only map in the whole event in the Semi-Final against LGB esports (with Olofmeister on the roster), but managed to win the match 2-1 to make it to the Grand Final.

You can watch the entire Grand Final between NIP vs Virtus.pro here.

The Grand Final ended with total Polish domination. The underdogs continued their miracle run in front of an ecstatic crowd. 16-9 and 16-10 were the stone-cold facts for Ninjas in Pyjamas, who lost their second consecutive Major final. Jarosław "pashaBiceps" Jarząbkowski was awarded the tournament MVP with an immense 1.38 HLTV rating.

Virtus.pro continued to dominate CS:GO in the years to come. They earned themselves the nickname of "The Plow". They never won a Major again though.

Highest rated players at EMS One Katowice 2014:

1. {cflag:PL} Jarosław 'pashaBiceps' Jarząbkowski (Virtus.pro) - 1.38 rating

2. {cflag:SE} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/get-right","isNewTab":true,"text":"Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund"}] (Ninjas in Pyjamas) - 1.33 rating

3. {cflag:PL} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/byali","isNewTab":true,"text":"Paweł 'byali' Bieliński"}] (Virtus.pro) - 1.31 rating

4. {cflag:DK} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/cajunb","isNewTab":true,"text":"René 'cajunb' Borg"}] (Dignitas) - 1.27 rating

5. {cflag:FR} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/shox","isNewTab":true,"text":"Richard 'shox' Papillon"}] (Titan) - 1.26 rating

6. {cflag:SE} Andreas 'znajder' Lindberg (Fnatic) - 1.25 rating

7. {cflag:SE} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/flusha","isNewTab":true,"text":"Robin 'flusha' Rönnquist"}] (Fnatic) - 1.25 rating

8. {cflag:PL} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/snax","isNewTab":true,"text":"Janusz 'Snax' Pogorzelski"}] (Virtus.pro) - 1.20 rating

9. {cflag:RU} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/dosia","isNewTab":true,"text":"Mikhail 'Dosia' Stolyarov"}] (HellRaisers) - 1.18 rating

10. {cflag:PL} [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/players/neo","isNewTab":true,"text":"Filip 'NEO' Kubski"}] (Virtus.pro) - 1.16 rating

Tomorrow we will be back with ESL Cologne 2014!

GeT_RiGhT

byali

cajunb

shox

flusha

Dosia

Snax

Virtus.pro

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Team Dignitas

Fnatic

Izako Boars has acquired the 27-year-old former Virtus.pro player Paweł “byali” Bieliński on a transfer, the Polish organization confirms on Twitter. The profiled rifler joins Izako Boars after having played several matches for the team in the last month as a stand-in.

- We reveal the first cards. byali is officially a part of our pack! We believe that we will fight for the best results together. More announcements soon.

The transfer comes after Izako Boars lost two of their players in Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek and Hubert "szejn" Światły on Friday, with the two youngsters heading to mousesports’ academy team. After the farewell and the signing of byali, Izako Boars still need to add one more player to fulfil their roster. 

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{cflag:PL} Michał "⁠mono⁠" Gabszewicz 

{cflag:PL} Mateusz "⁠TOAO⁠" Zawistowski 

{cflag:PL} Daniel "⁠STOMP⁠" Płomiński 

{cflag:PL} Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński

Izako Boars

When looking back in time and discussing the greats of Counter-Strike it would be wrong not to mention Virtus Pro. Besides their impressive ability to perform at the highest of levels they were also beloved by fans, not only in Poland but across the entire world of Counter-Strike fanatics. 

The roster showed great signs of the pending success, even in the early stages, and managed to win their first Major in 2014, the year that they had been established as a roster, on their own home soil at EMS One Katowice 2014. With players such as "pasha" and "TaZ" the Virtus Pro roster became one of if not the most, beloved and charismatic roster the world of Counter-Strike has ever seen. 

However, it wasn't all just a fairytale with a happy ending. Virtus Pro experienced some major slumps but always seemed to bounce back and reassert their dominance when it mattered the most. This was true for many years, but when 2017 came around and the roster had been performing under par for quite some time, people began to question whether or not this was the end of the Polish Giants. The answer was, unfortunately, yes. The iconic five-man roster split up and never reunited. For once they didn't bounce back but instead left the Counter-Strike scene with their names engraved deeply into its foundation.

The longest-serving member of the iconic Virtus Pro roster was the fan-favorite "pashaBiceps" who announced his retirement on Twitter on December 13th. 2018

It has been quite some time since a Polish player has been in contention for the top 20 or has it? Whilst not being 100% Polish both Mateusz "mantuu" Wilczewski and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski have the Polish blood in them and is perhaps one of the reasons for their impressive talent. 

However, all hope is not lost just yet. The Polish roster of PACT has shown to be a stable contender for the top 30 and could perhaps be the roster to bring back some of the glory days for the Polish Counter-Strike scene. They are currently ranked as the best Polish roster at 36th. in the world, with their current best performing player being Kamil "Sobol" Sobolewski. 

You can see more about Virtus Pro's history and greatest achievements right here: 

Sobol

PACT

Kacper "Riczi Maszynka" Benc will be the new fifth player on the Polish team AVEZ.

The organization announced its new player on Twitter today. Benc replaces the former Virtus.pro player Pawel "byali" Bielinski, who stopped working with the team in mid-October.

The first game with the new roster will be tonight in the Polish Championship against AGO.

	30 days	90 days
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byali

Player stats

Articles mentioning byali

EMS One Katowice 2014: The beginning of the Plow

Polish team sign legendary Major winner

Polish CS: How Virtus Pro Defined an Era of Counter-Strike

AVEZ completes lineup with Polish player

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