Here are the best CS: GO moments of 2017

After winning ELEAGUE Season 2 and placing 2nd at ECS Season 2 Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz’s OpTic Gaming were reaching new heights for American sides in CS:GO. Going into the ELEAGUE Atlanta major hopes were high for a deep run from the Green Wall, but with a though group draw featuring close losses to Astralis and Virtus.pro they fell to a 12th-14th placing. Shortly after this stanislaw announced his departure from the lineup, cutting short what could’ve been an impressive tenure heading OpTic.

Stanislaw’s Team Liquid and the current Cloud9 roster have both shown promise, but neither have achieved what OpTic did at the end of 2016. Who knows what they could’ve accomplished had “stanislaw” not elected to move to pastures new.

After just shy of 5 years together, NiP took the decision to drop Adam “friberg” Friberg from their main roster. The Swedish side signed Fredrik “REZ” Sterner to take his place, and since then the Ninjas have won DreamHack Open Valencia and, more prestigiously, defended their IEM Oakland title with a dramatic 3-2 victory over FaZe Clan.

Unfortunately for the many NiP fans they yet again failed to qualify for the upcoming major, something they will hope to rectify following ELEAGE Boston in 2018. Although this roster change may not have been the flashiest or even particularly surprising, it marks the end of an era in CS:GO.

ESL became the first organisation to unban the iBUYPOWER roster, along with other match fixers, and adopt the Esports Integrity Coalition’s (ESIC) rules for cheating, match-fixing, doping and bribery. DreamHack followed suit a couple of months later, leaving a wide range of competitions for previously banned players to compete in.

Although their return hasn’t exactly been triumphant, the move marks a big step forward in the scenes attitudes towards various offenses towards the integrity of the game. It remains to be seen if other organisations such as ELEAGUE or even Valve will also take action, but for now it seems unlikely.

Just listen. I mean what more can you ask for from a home crowd. From Cologne to Columbus CS:GO has seen some passionate crowds, but nothing compares to the entirety of the Tauron Arena roaring in support of the home favourites. There is no better example of what the game can mean to the fans and supporters of the game.

When you consider the noise on the video pales in comparison to the real thing, I can only encourage people to attend a stadium event at some point.

After months of rumours the fabled French shuffle finally happened, with the supposed “superteam” landing under the G2 banner. Although they haven’t hit the lofty heights some expected of them, they did take titles at Pro League Season 5 and DreamHack Malmö.

The transfer of Nathan “NBK-” Schmit, Kenny “kennyS” Schrub and Dan “apEX” Madesclaire from Team EnVyUs to G2 is the most high profile transfer of the year, but having been in the works for so long it lacked the shock factor of the next entry on this list.

Sydney was, all things considered, a relatively small event. With just $200,000 on offer it’s somewhat surprising to see SK, FaZe and Astralis all make the journey to Sydney, but I’m sure glad they did.

After a relatively slow group stage the tournament quickly reached boiling point, with an explosive best of 5 final between SK and FaZe. As well as being immensely entertaining there and then, it was also the first showcase of the SK/FaZe rivalry that has dominated the latter half of 2017.