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

The Polish organization HONORIS is ceasing operations from this date on, co-founder Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas announced on Twitter.

This marks an end to a 3-year adventure in professional Counter-Strike which was established by TaZ and his former Virtus.pro teammate Filip "NEO" Kubski back in May 2020. TaZ himself played for HONORIS in the entire time, while NEO stepped down from the active lineup last year. T

In a Twitlonger, TaZ thanks the entire organization for its service through the years but also outlines the decision to close up shop.

- We are closing the HONORIS organization. This ends a certain stage in my life, but there will still be time for a summary, TaZ noted and continued:

- Finally, thank you Filip [NEO]. This time we failed to achieve the goal, but I appreciate that we gave a chance to ourselves and to the young generation of players. We tried to create a project on our terms and I think we have a lot to be proud of.

2-1 vs CPH Flames – ESL Challenger Melbourne Qualifier

2-1 vs forZe - ESL Challenger Melbourne Qualifier

HONORIS

NEO pulled off a crazy highlight play against Team Dignitas at the DreamHack Open Bucharest event in 2016, that sent pasha, Snax, byali, and TaZ through to the Grand final, where they came out on top after taking down Cloud9 for the big prize.

The 1x Major Winner was left all alone against the entirety of Team Dignitas, but somehow still came out on top with one of the biggest brain plays you’ll ever see!

The newly shaped roster of EXTREMUM took on Honoris in their opening round of the Snow Sweet Snow 1 event. Whilst it was far from a perfect performance from the new roster of EXTREMUM, they managed to muster up a solid victory against the Polish legends in "NEO" and "TaZ" from Honoris. They now need two more BO3 victories in order to advance to the playoffs.

The first map between the two rosters took place on Honoris' map pick, Mirage. The two teams went toe to toe in the opening rounds of the map and went to halftime as close as possible with a scoreline of 8-7, favoring the Polish side. The second half, however, was dominated by EXTREMUM as they managed to string together 9 rounds, whilst Honoris only managed a single round in the second half. This, of course, meant that EXTREMUM could walk away with a 16-9 victory on their first-ever official map together.

The second map took place on Inferno. Once again the two rosters refused to give an inch to their opponents and the rounds were as close as possible. In the end, however, it was Honoris, lead by Polish "reiko", to have the slight edge over their opponents and ultimately take home the narrow win on Inferno with a scoreline of 16-14.

This, of course, meant a third and final between the two competitors. They would have to prove themselves the better roster over on Nuke as the match was set to be decided there. The two previous maps had been close, however, this wasn't the case on Nuke. EXTREMUM started their t-sided half with absolute dominance and managed to create a 13-2 lead going into the second half. Despite Honoris' best attempt to make a comeback, EXTREMUM closed Nuke 16-8 and thereby also the series 2-1. 

The win against Honoris marks the first-ever BO3-series, as well as BO3-victory, for the new EXTREMUM roster. In order to advance to the playoffs of the event, they will now only have to win two more matches.

16-9 EXTREMUM (Mirage) | BnTeT 1.46 Rating / 92.7 ADR / 23-15 K-D

16-14 Honoris (Inferno) | reiko 1.27 Rating / 89.8 ADR / 24-19 K-D

16-8 EXTREMUM (Nuke) | Liazz 1.65 Rating / 98.5 ADR / 23-13 K-D

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Joakim "jkaem" Myrbostad | 1.23 Rating - 54-46 K/D - 80.4 ADR - 77.2% KAST

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Gratisfaction

jkaem

reiko

EXTREMUM

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: 

	30 days	90 days
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Neo

Player stats

Articles mentioning Neo

EMS One Katowice 2014: The beginning of the Plow

TaZ and company call it quit: We failed to achieve the goal

Video: Behind NEO’s insane ace clutch

New EXTREMUM roster defeat Polish legends 2-1

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

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