WinOut

Exactly one year ago, the future of North-American Counter-Strike looked rather grim. The latest events had nothing to inspire confidence, the CGS had just fallen and we were looking straight at a recession. The competitive scene was in a poor state and some of the giants of our community were back to looking for server sponsorships, a stark contrast for those who celebrated at the Playboy mansion just eighteen months earlier. If 2008 closed down on a fairly sad note, 2009 will leave us with a much different picture of the American eSports scene. Follow us today for the first of three parts, as we take a look at 2009: A year in Counter-Strike.

January
November 18th, 2008, the Championship Gaming Series, then the most ambitious eSports league ever created, has shut down its operations. The North-American community is in shock, as professional gamers wake up to find themselves without work. Within the next six weeks, many of the now jobless gamers would run right back into the competitive Counter-Strike 1.6 scene, leading to some inevitable drama, on which was built the foundation of a new rivalry in North-American eSport, one that would replace the famous back and forth matches played between Team 3D and compLexity during what is still considered to be the golden age of this game. Without the financial backing of the CGS and the rights to his own team's name, Jason ''1'' Lake found himself in a though spot. He secured his former 1.6 team, but, having seemingly no means to put them on payroll, he would shortly after see them leaving his side, as they signed with Evil Geniuses, owned by compLexity's former Assistant-Manager, Alex ''chibsquad'' Garfield. The transaction led to much controversy and sparked a public war of words between the two, with Lake accusing Garfield of ''backstabbing'' him in a very emotionally-charged post on compLexity's website:

A few days later, Lake announced that he would keep compLexity alive and would do everything in his power to bring the team back to its former status as a North-American powerhouse. No announcements were made yet and fans had to wait until the 17th, when Lake finally answered all the questions, by bringing in two new co-owners: Jason Bass and Alex Conroy. Alongside the management overhaul, compLexity acquired the former Jax Money Crew CS lineup, who had just won the finals of ESEA's inaugural season a week prior. They had taken down x3o in the process, an impressive performance against a team which had dominated the 1.6 scene during the CGS days.

While Lake and Garfield raced to get their respective organizations back into the top tier of American CS, the rest of the field strengthened their squads, adding talent from the pool of pros returning from source. January 2009 also brought us two of the first post-CGS tournaments in America: firstly the X3O Winter Classic 2008 on the East coast, then the KODE5 USA Qualifier at Lethal Gamers in Dallas.

x3o Winter 2008
Finals demo: Link
1st. x3o (drew, ninespot, savior, hero, mehler) - $1,500 + Product Prizes
2nd. Gravitas Gaming (goodfornothing, impulsivE, ben, thoMz, hostile) - $750 + Product Prizes
3rd. eMg - (cbz, m4gic, aZn, dee[st], iOnZ) $250 + Product Prizes
4th. SurKaDuRk (evolution, sfx, rockyte, sunman, Lim) - Product Prizes

KODE5 USA Qualifier
1st. Evil Geniuses (Warden, n0thing, hanes, fr0d, Storm ) - Qualified for the KODE5 USA Finals
2nd. Texas Allstars (tuBBy, Zid, Punkville, sinyster, bzrk)
3rd. Team 34 (millipede, thetoy, nolimit, truls, tigerz)

Other notable events for January:
- mTw loses AMD sponsorship
- Team aAa drops CS 1.6
- WeMade FOX acquires the former e-STRO team
- Lunatic-Hai shuts down it's operations