1v1's are the closest thing you get to determine pure individual skill. With one player facing a single other player it is all down to who can hit their shots and play mind games with their opponent. At the BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2019, we saw perhaps one of the most iconic 1v1's in the history of Counter-Strike. With "device" being unable to participate Astralis' Head Coach Danny "zonic" Sørensen replaced his spot. 

What he didn't know was that he was going to face, at the time, the worlds undoubtedly best player in Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev. However, "zonic" showed no respect towards "s1mple" and with him posting 5 rounds against "s1mple's" 7 rounds it was closer than one would have imagined. 

Take a look at the legendary stand-off between Astralis and NAVI from 2019, where "zonic" almost beat the worlds best player in "s1mple": 

Sonic

s1mple

Astralis

Natus Vincere

The South African player Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek will not continue his career in competitive CS:GO. The 23-year-old announced his retirement on Twitter today.

Sonic has been benched on Extra Salt since October last year. His career started on the South African team Bravado Gaming in 2015 before he moved to the United States, where he joined Cloud9 before transitioning to Extra Salt. Here he was part of the team that won two consecutive DreamHack Open North America tournaments in March and June 2021.

You can see some of the best highlights from Sonic in the video below.

Extra Salt

Cloud9

It started on Train, where Extra Salt despite losing the pistol round was dominating. A 9-6 lead at the break was converted to an unbreakable CT side, where Extra Salt won 7-0 to claim the first map. It was worth noting, that it was not only their starplayer Josh 'oSee' Ohm, who was performing, but the entire roster.

The match continued on BIG's map pick, Dust2. Here the Germans felt a lot more comfortable. BIG had only played once on Train during the last three months, while Dust2 had been a battleground nine times. A map that favors good AWP'ers like Florian 'syrsoN' Rische, who made it an uphill battle for Extra Salt, who was trailing all the way through the map.

The decider map was another surprise. BIG had lost the last four times on Nuke, while Extra Salt has 13 victories of their last 14 matches on the map. All of the matches though against tier two opponents. Extra Salt started strong by taking the first six rounds before BIG finally joined the server. The Germans quickly recovered, and by the end of the first half, they were only trailing by one round.

In the second half, BIG was again gone missing. Extra Salt kept adding points to the scoreboard, while Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş was having an off-day not able to help his team. BIG lost the match 16-8 and has now lost four out of their five latest matches against opponents as Renegades, HAVU, FunPlus Phoenix, and Extra Salt.

{cflag:DE} BIG – {cflag:US} Extra Salt (1-2) | Funspark ULTI Europe

6-16 (Train) | {cflag:CA} FaNg – 1.77 Rating / 23-13 K-D / 108.4 ADR

16-10 (Dust2) | {cflag:DE} syrsoN – 1.37 Rating / 22-14 K-D / 89.2 ADR

8-16 (Nuke) | {cflag:ZA} Sonic - 1.44 Rating / 23-15 K-D / 99.5 ADR

MVP: {cflag:ZA} Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek - 1.27 Rating / 59-46 K-D / 83.7 ADR

With the victory Extra Salt won their first match against an European opponent. They now advance to the upper semi-final, where they will face the winner of Evil Geniuses vs Dignitas, while BIG will have to make a run through the lower brackets.

syrsoN

FaNg

The first Grand Finalist was found in paiN. They managed to take down the North American giants of Liquid 2-1 with victories on Dust2 and Inferno. The biggest factor in their upset against Liquid proved to be the 26-year-old AWP'er Raffael "saffee" Costa. Despite being his first time to have ever competed against a tier-one opponent he showed no signs of inexperience and provided his team with an impressive showing of individual skill. With a K/D of 33/11 and a stellar rating of 2.07 the Brazilian AWP'er made sure that Dust2 belonged to paiN. 

The second Grand Finalist showed out to be Extra Salt. With the help of Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek they managed to take down their opponents of High Coast with a 2-0 victory. Extra Salt currently ranks at 24th. in the world, according to official HLTV-rankings, but will presumably climb the rankings even more if they manage to best paiN in the Grand Finals. 

With the two Grand Finalists found we can now just look forward to a great battle between the two. And if you ask "Sonic" it is indeed going to be a great series: 

"As for paiN I know they've been prepping pretty hard, especially to beat us, so I think it's going to be a good match."

The two rosters are going to be battling it out in the Grand Finals of DreamHack Open March 2021. The show starts at 22:00 (CET) and will feature a Bo5-series format. The teams are fighting for a prize pool of $70.000 and, of course, the honor. Stay tuned to hear more about the Grand Final today. 

saffee

paiN

Team Liquid

The newly established CS:GO team Extra Salt, who announced its entry on the CS:GO scene back in mid-December, has allegedly found their fifth and last player. According to HLTVorg, the promising NA team will round off its roster with the acquisition of Justin “FaNg” Coakley.

Read more. “ex-Cloud9 members join new American organization" 

[link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/news/ex-cloud9-members-joins-new-north-american-organization/"}]

The 18-year old player has represented numerous smaller teams in the past, until he signed with the bigger American team of Rugratz in October 2020. In his time at Rugratz, the Canadian rifler displayed some strong CS and showed high potential by averaging a 1.09 rating and an 80.3 ADR.

Watch FaNg in action for Rugratz at IEM Beijing NA.

[twitchClip:TriumphantShinyWaterBrainSlug]

If the signing goes through, Extra Salt hold the following players:

oSee

motm

Rugratz

Four of the five former Cloud9 players have joined the new North American team Extra Salt.

Tiaan "T.c" Coertzen will also join the team as their new head coach. The South African was also the coach of Cloud9.

Tiaan "T.c" Coertzen - Coach (South Africa)

	30 days	90 days
Fixture count	0	0
Maps count	0	0

Sonic

Player stats

Articles mentioning Sonic

Video: When zonic almost beat s1mple

Former Cloud9 player retires from CS:GO

Extra Salt takes their first European scalp

paiN and Extra Salt in Grand Final!

Extra Salt set eyes on young Canadian

Ex-Cloud9 members joins new North American organization

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