Goodbye 2023!
This year has certainly been an eventful year for Counter-Strike. We at GamerPay would like to look back on the year with you and relive the most memorable, but also the challenging moments.
Enjoy our short review of the year!
IEM Tournaments
G2 vs. ENCE: Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2023, Picture taken by Thorben
The year started quite well for G2 after they won first place at the IEM in Katowice. G2 only lost one map on their way to 1st place (Inferno against Heroic in the Finals). “jks” performed as a stand-in for FaZe in 2022, when the team won the Katowice Tournament. This made him the first player to win the title twice in a row since 2016, and the first player in CS history to do so with two different teams. Rio and Dallas, they were unable to claim victory. These were won by Team Vitality (Rio) and ENCE (Dallas). The last IEM in CS:GO took place on 26. July to 6. Aug 2023 in Cologne and brought G2 back to the top with a 3:1 victory against ENCE (decision map Nuke).
The last IEM Tournament for 2023 was also our first big CS2 tournament in Sidney.
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023
After CS legends like "S1mple" (Stockholm 2021) and "karrigan" (Antwerp 2022) finally took home their long overdue Major Titles. The BLAST.tv Paris Major was the last chance for some players to win a Major and make CS:GO history. These included veteran superstars like “NiKo” or Intel Grand Slam winners like “ELiGE”. Even “ZywOo”, who only really established himself in 2019, but became a living legend thanks to his inhuman skills, had not yet managed to lift the trophy.
The BLAST.tv Paris Major was the 19th Major in CS:GO and marked its end. It took place from May 8 to 21 at the Accor Arena. 24 teams took part and the prize money amounted to 1,250,000 US dollars.
Virtus.pro who won the IEM Rio Major 2022 were subsequently defeated by MOUZ in the European Major qualifier and eliminated. This made them the first reigning Major champion to fail to qualify for the next Major.
Surprisingly, one team made it all the way to the final: GamerLegion. On their path to the final, they managed to defeat teams like MOUZ, fnatic and Heroic until they finally stood in front of Vitality. Vitality also had an outstanding run by not losing a single map through the whole tournament. The final was also dominated by Vitality. Especially the comeback on the second map Nuke, where Vitality was behind after the first half (10:5) was impressive. They managed to win the game 13:16 and thus avoided the third map.
With this victory Vitality had not only won the last CS:GO Major and “ZywOo” had finally won his title. At the same time, they also set several records.
"Dupreeh" claimed the title of the CS:GO player with the most major titles with this trophy (5 Major titles) and “ApEX” set the record for the longest period between two major victories. It was seven and a half years between his victory at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 (Team EnVyUs) and Paris.
From CS:GO to CS2
After 11 years CS:GO we had to say goodbye to our favorite game and for many of us that wasn't really easy. After a long period of wild speculation about the new features in CS2 and hardly anyone not wanting a beta access we were finally released from our uncertainty in September 2023.
The responses to the new Counter Strike were initially mixed. Some expressed criticism stating that the game was released prematurely and unfinished. And not entirely without reason.
There were some problems: stuttering bugs and a high ping were not uncommon. Likewise, some skin patterns had not yet been transferred to CS2 and did not look nearly as good as one would have hoped with the new resolution. On the other hand some battle-scarred skins like VICE Gloves looked flawless. Therefore, CS2 received more than one update shortly after its release and the developers are still working to bring us back the usual quality and better of Counter Strike.
But there are also a lot of positive changes. The resolution is significantly better the new weapon system also finds a lot of fans (for more information go to: Counter-Strike 2 is officially released! and CS2: Everything you need to know) . Valve is also working hard to fix the remaining errors.
We're staying positive and looking forward to the new year with new updates and lots of fun!
New Skins
Now let's talk about our favorite topic: Skins
In the course of 2023, a total of 36 new Counter Strike skins were added to the game. The Revolution Case was published in February which contained 17 new skins. Lovers of japanese art in particular got their money's worth here with skins such as AWP | Duality, M4A4 | Temukau and MAC-10 | Sakkaku. But there were also some colorful skins in street art style like the AK-47 | Head Shot and UMP-45 | Wild Child.
The Anubis Collection was added in Mai and contains a total of 19 skins. It's the first collection you can buy a package of in-game and there were rumors that VALVE had revenue of an insane 3.8 million US dollars in just the first 24 hours after release. However. The collection actually contains some new items that have expanded the range of skins, including the M4A4 | Eye of Horus and P250 | Apep's Curse. The new, rather minimalistic AWP | Black Nile has also found some fans.
Conclusion
The year 2023 certainly had its ups and downs, but overall we can look back on an eventful year with many changes.
In March 2024, we can look forward to the first Major in Copenhagen (PGL) and there will definitely be a few more innovations.
We at Gamerpay would like to thank all our users and look forward to a new year with you!
We wish you all a happy new year and lots of fun in 2024!
