5 CS: GO Major Winners who faded away

In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the Major Championships are universally considered to be the most prestigious tournaments of the game.

The Majors are big CS: GO tournaments that are sponsored by Valve, and were first introduced all the way back in 2013, in Jönköping, Sweden. It was hosted by DreamHack and had a prize pool of US$250,000; however, only six teams were invited to participate.

The Majors have ever since become a tremendous affair, and the circuit has expanded dramatically ever since. The Majors are now offering a US$1,000,000 prize pool while featuring twenty-four teams from around the world.

The years saw many teams and players rising, and securing themselves a win in the Major finals. However, not all of the winners are still active in CS: GO at a professional level, and some have even faded away entirely.

In this article, we will be mentioning the Major winners, who’re nowhere to be seen in the CS: GO professional scentoday.

5 CS: GO Major Winners who faded away

1. Markus “pronax” Wallsten

Image Courtesy: DotEsports

Pronax was there from the very first inauguration of the CS: GO Major in 2013. He is considered to be one of the most legendary CS: GO players in history but has hung up his professional mantle on the 30th of May 2019.

Pronax was all about his leadership and game sense, which allowed him and his team (Fnatic) to win many titles.

His career with Fnatic from 2013 to 2015, has been some of the most noteworthy periods of his life. He was able to not just win the first CS: GO Major at DreamHack Winter 2013, but also ESL One Katowice and ESL One Cologne in 2015.

Before announcing his retirement, Pronax’s last tournament was at the Copenhagen Games 2019 qualifier, after which he left the professional stage completely. He is now the founder and co-owner of GODSENT, which is slowly gaining the reputation of an upcoming major eSports organization.

2. Andreas "znajder" Lindberg

Image Courtesy: HLTV.ORG

Also known as ‘Schneider’, Andreas was a part of the 2013 Fnatic roster along with Pronax and was also crowned as one of the first winners of the CS: GO Major at DreamHack Winter.

However, unlike Pronax, his career wasn't all that stable, and his declining performance in the professional stage, saw him hopping from one team to the next. He just had a 10-month tenure in Fnatic, after which he was cut, and he had to join the second Swedish ‘FlipSide3 Tactics’ roster.

His stay wasn’t long there as well, and over the years he was hopping into various orgs like in Team Property, Dignitas (replacing Nico), Hellraisers (as a sub), and then finally in Team Ancient where he played under the leadership of Pronax once again.

After Team Ancient, Schneider would join GODSENT, the player-owned eSports org which was co-founded by Pronax. However, his time with the team would only last for 19-months. After an underwhelming performance in both DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016 and ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017, he was released from the team.

3. Abay "Hobbit" Khasenov

Image COurtesy: Win.gg

Back in 2016 and 2017, Hobbit was nothing less than a rockstar in the CS: GO professional scene.

Not only was he hailed as one of the greatest players to have ever touched the game, alongside the likes of ‘s1mple’, ‘KennyS’, and ‘Hiko’, but he even has the silverware to prove that his in-game prowess was not just a fluke.

The Kazakh CS: GO prodigy was even named by ‘s1mple’ and ‘flamie’ as a potential breakout player of 2017. And this was after he and Gambit won the DreamHack Winter of 2016. He was nominated by HLTV.org as the tournament MVP at the time.

In 2017, HLTV.org had also ranked him as the 11th best player of the year, while Thorin gave him a rank of 7th in his own top 10 charts.

Hobbit, along with Gambit was placed 4th in both the consecutive tournaments of DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 and DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018. However, his declining performance made him leave Gambit and join HellRaisers. He has recently played for Winstrike Team on loan.

4. Lincoln "fnx" Lau

EImage Courtesy: Liquipedia.net

Once hailed as one of best CS: GO players back in 2016, Lincoln “fnx” Lau has ever since fallen from grace in the competitive stage, due to a lot of personal issues.

The prodigy turned CS: GO veteran became one of the biggest and youngest celebrities Brazil has ever seen on the global Counter-Strike stage. However, he was also one of the most troublesome Brazilian players, who was kicked from countless organizations due to his toxic nature.

Now, this 'tatted-up Brazilian bad boy might be incredibly talented' but he was difficult to keep in a team. Even though he won both the ESL One: Cologne and MLG Major Championship back in 2016, his professional career kind of ended that very year. He took to streaming full-time and concentrating on creating his clothing line Não Tem Como (NTC). Most recently he was seen playing for a Brazilian roster Red Canids, but failed to make any significant impact on the local scene.

He is also the brand ambassador for MIBR and is doing pretty well for himself.

In 2017 and 2018, there had been a sort of superstition going around him. It was said that whichever roster would give him a boot would never win a major and looking back, it turned out to be true.

Image from Twitter.

The rosters who first hired him and then kicked him off the team never won a major, no matter how star-studded their roster was. And the chant “No fnx, no Major” became quite a trend at the time, and the prodigy himself released an NTC T-Shirt saying that.

5. Rustem "mou" Telepov

Image Courtesy: DotEsports.

Mou’s Counter-Strike career started in 1.6, where he played in teams like k23 and NEXT.kz, but hardly got much recognition there.

It was when he was representing NEXT, that he was noticed and rated as the 5th best AWPer of the WGC 2011 tournament.

Mou was able to bring his years of experience, game sense, and AWPing skills to the roster, and helped Gambit win the DreamHack Winter of 2016. However, Gambit wasn’t the only team he played in during his career in CS: GO. His tenure included playing in squads such as ELTZ!, XPLAYERS, and even Exgaming.

He later joined HellRaisers, where he replaced ‘flamie’ who is now a member of Natus Vincere (NAVI). Mou is on the primary roster of the squad, as an AWPer, after the departure of ‘s1mple’, who too left the squad for NAVI.