We tend to think of esports events as shows of real skill. But sometimes, mistakes happen even at the highest level of the game. CS.MONEY is here to tell you about five epic fails on the pro scene.
Shoot first, think later
Let’s start off with a fail that’s not particularly epic, but very curious nonetheless. Astralis is the best team in the history of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Four-time Major winners, unqualified favs in a whole bunch of tournaments, a team that has remained number 1 in the HLTV rating for two years with but few breaks.
In the match against Gambit at PGL Major Krakow 2017, this perfect winning machine malfunctioned. First of all, Astralis lost this match. Second, the players made annoying mistakes throughout it, one of which was fragging a teammate. It was committed by gla1ve in the fourteenth round of the decisive card.
It’s a 2 vs. 2 situation, and gla1ve is going to flank his opponents. He takes out the first one, then the second. The problem is, this second player turns out to be Xyp9x, who’s a teammate, and not a Gambit player! After that, gla1ve dies as well. The Danish club loses the round. Loses the map. Loses the match. And doesn’t make it into the finals of the Major.
Of course, we can’t say all this happened because of one bad team kill, but the very fact that an Astralis player should make such a mistake is surprising. How is that even possible?!
s1mple’s knife fail
Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. One of the best players in the history of the entire Counter-Strike series. Yet even this legend makes annoying mistakes at times. For example, in the match against Liquid at ESL One Cologne 2019, he tried to frag Nick “nitr0” Cannella with a knife. Doesn’t sound like a big dea, right?
Only it happened when the score was 15-11, and Natus Vicere had three surviving players against one nitr0. The attempt to win the map with a knife frag turned into a disaster. The blow from the Ukrainian player hit the enemy’s side, not the back. After that, nitr0 had 17 xp. This was enough to kill s1mple, take his AWP, and win the round with it.
Doesn’t sound like an epic fail, does it? The best part is that after winning this round, Liquid also won the map in extra rounds as well. And then, they won the entire match too! 2-1 — and all because of an attempt to stab the opponent in a situation where a back frag with a gun was guaranteed.
Jame in the smoke
Another stabbing fail — this time, by Dzhami “Jame” Ali. He made his blunder at IEM Katowice 2019 in the match against Ence. AVANGAR had a score of 2-2 in matches at the time. There was just one last encounter left — the winner would enter the playoffs. Eventually, the CIS team lost it to Mirage by a score of 16-12.
On Train, everything was going to the dogs as well. In the first half, AVANGAR managed to win five rounds, which meant they had to win in the attacking side. Just like CDPR had to release Cyberpunk 2077 previous year. With a score of 7:15, AVANGAR had a chance to change the course of the match.
Dzhami “Jame” Ali plants the C4. The Finnish players begin recapturing B Site on Train. A smoke lands right at the plant spot. Jame pulls a 400 IQ trick and hides in the smoke. Aerial responds with a 401 IQ trick: he goes into the smoke and starts defusing the bomb.
Jame is playing with an AWP and decides to pull his knife and stab his opponent in the smoke. One blow, a second — neither hit the target, and in a few seconds, the C4 is defused. AVANGAR loses the second map, and with it, the chance to see the playoffs. A moment worthy of the best sports dramas.
G2’s sudden amnesia
Remember that Remembrall thingy from the Harry Potter universe? The magic ball that would turn red if the owner forgot something? This device would be of extreme use to the players of G2, who forgot about C4! The bomb just exploded while four surviving G2 players were running around the map.
This fact alone is a true epic fail, but it’s actually even cooler than that. First of all, it happened when the score was 7:15. That is, the team G2 literally lost the match to an empty bomb plant. Second, it was a match at StarLadder Berlin Major 2019! And third, there was plenty of time left — had at least one of the guys remembered about the explosive while running around the map, they would’ve been able to effortlessly defuse the C4.
But no such luck. The G2 players were all gripped by a sudden amnesia, C4 exploded, and up in smokes went the team’s chance of winning the match. It was a second-round match of the New Legends stage, and it was played on just one map.
The hyperactive cajunB
In the previously described cases, players had to do something. Like kill someone in the back, recapture a site where the C4 had been planted, or defuse it. In the case of cajunB, however, they just had to do nothing. No difficult task, right?
In the match of Natus Vincere versus Astralis at the MLG Major Championship: Columbus, this task proved to be not that simple. CajunB is left in a 1-on-1 situation against Edward. Mere seconds are remaining on the timer. Edward simply doesn’t have enough time to plant the C4, and CajunB is sitting perfectly safe at another end of Dust 2.
CajunB seemingly intends to just wait until the time expires, but a second before the end of the round, he pops right into Edward’s crosshairs. Of course, the latter makes a frag and thus wins the round. CajunB should have just done nothing!
In the hundreds of games you’ve played, surely there have been some epic fails. Share the most epic ones with us in the comments!
