It has been more than 6 years now since the first major took place in Jönköping, Sweden. It was the Dream Hack Winter event with Valve sponsoring its first ever competition for the game.
A lot has changed since the first major took place. The prize pool was a cool $250,000, something which teams now get from a 3-day competition in the Blast Pro Series. It was NiP’s golden era an era which was later defined by Swedish dominance. NiP were Astralis of then with every team finding hard to displace them from the top. Very Games were considered as the best of the rest, but Fnatic the other Swedish team pulled out the first of many upsets in major history by winning the title.
Teams and groups:-
A total of 16 teams participated to be crowned as the champions of Dream Hack Winter and also as CS:Go’s first ever major winner , with teams 6 teams receiving direct invitation and 10 coming from qualifiers. Very Games, Clan-Mystik, Team iBuypower, Astana Dragons, complexity Gaming and Fnatic were the teams to receive direct invitations for the competition. Ninjas in Pyjamas, the top dog then qualified after placing 1st at DreamHack Summer.
The sixteen teams were divided into 4 groups. Every group stage match was played according to the GSL double elimination format. Group stages matches were conducted in a B01 format, yeah those were the times!
The top two teams from each group progressed to the playoffs. The playoffs were a simple single elimination bracket with matches played in Bo3 format.
Rosters:-
The teams participating at Dream Hack Winter 2013 may seem unknown to some people. But a lot has changed since and the players representing these rosters have continued playing. So for all of you to have a better look at these teams we have listed out the completed rosters for each team that participated in the competition.
| Ninjas in Pyjamas | n!faculty | SK Gaming | Copenhagen Wolves |
| f0rest | gla1ve | twist | dupreeh |
| GeT_RiGht | karrigan | xelos | Xyp9x |
| Xizt | cajunb | MODDII | device |
| friberg | Pimp | Deplan | FeTiSh |
| Fifflaren | raalz | pita | Nico |
| Universal Soldiers | Natus Vincere | Astana Dragons | compLexity Gaming |
| TaZ | Zeus | ANGE1 | Hiko |
| NEO | starix | Dosia | seang@res |
| pashaBiceps | ceh9 | Adren | Semphis |
| Snax | seized | markeloff | swag |
| Byali | kibaken | kUcher | n0thing |
| VeryGames | Clan-Mystik | Fnatic | Team iBUYPOWER |
| Ex6TenZ | HaRts | JW | anger |
| NBK | ioRek | flusha | Skadoodle |
| SmithZz | kioShiMa | schneider | adreN |
| ScreaM | KQLY | Devilwalk | AZK |
| shox | apEX | pronax | DaZeD |
| LGB eSports | Recursive eSports | Xapso | Reason Gaming |
| SKYTTEN | Happy | ultra | MSL |
| eksem | GMX | centeks | coloN |
| KRiMZ | kennyS | cadiaN | smF |
| dennis | Uzzzii | aizy | EXR |
| olofmeister | Maniac | robiin | LOMME |
Main event:-
Group Stages
Fnatic topped Group A winning both their matches followed by LGB esports. NiP expectedly topped Group B with Recursive esports coming in at second. complexity Gaming won Group C with Very Games finishing as runner ups. Cophenhagen Wolves and Astana Dragaons qualified from Group D with former winning the group.
NiP faced off against a very competitive LGB esports who were looking to make a huge upset. They started off in the right manner closely winning Dust II 16-14 but fell off from then. NiP took control winning the other two maps comprehensively 16-9 on Train and 16-7 on Mirage to progress to the semis.
Very Games were up against Copenhagen Wolves in the next match up with the winner booking a semi-final clash with NiP. VG started brilliantly winning 16-6 on Dust II before CW returned the favor winning Inferno 16-5. The third map on Mirage was a close fought affair but VG held their nerve to win 16-12.
Fnatic who looked super good in the group stages were up against Recursive who on their part were super competitive. The series was a closely fought affair with Fnatic winning Inferno 16-9, Recursive took Dust II 16-13. The decider was Train which Fnatic managed to close out winning 16-10.
The last quarterfinal between Astana and compLexity was also a full 3 map affair with coL winning 2-1. Astana managed to take Nuke 16-9 but lost 7:16 on Dust II and 12:16 on Inferno.
Semi finals:-
The semi finals for Dream Hack Winter 2013 after the group stages were lined up as this:
NiP vs VeryGames
Fnatic vs compLexity Gaming
As predicted by many before the major, VeryGames were the real contenders who could defeat NiP in a Bo3, so the match up was expected to a fiery one, and it sure delivered.
The first map was a closely contested affair with NiP winning out narrowly 16:13. VG came back storming in Inferno, absolutely destroying the Swedes winning 16:6. With series locked at 1:1, the game moved on to Nuke. NiP started on the CT side swiftly, winning the first half 11:4 and giving little chance for the French to mount a comeback. They closed out the match 16:5 and progressed to the grand finals.
The second semi-final was a pretty quick affair with Fnatic running riot against the north Americans. The first map was Train, with Fnatic winning the first half 14:1 and eventually defeating coL 16:7. The action then moved to Mirage where too Fnatic proved too hot to handle for the NA side. They posted a 10:5 scoreline on their ‘T’ side and easily won the remaining 6 rounds to win 16:7 and round out a 2:0 sweep.
As history would have it, the first major final turned out be an all Swedish affair, with NiP’s reign as Swedish supreme in danger to their counterparts.
Grand Finals
The Dream Hack Winter 2013 grand finals was an epic battle mainly for these reasons: It was an Swedish derby happening in front of the Swedish people to decide CS:Go’s first ever major winner.
The first map Dust II was a banger, NiP lead 12:3 at the end of first half to be in a commanding position. The second half though was a disaster, as they managed to win just 2 rounds on their CT side to allow Fnatic take the first map 16:14.
Inferno was up next and NiP again lead 11:4 after the first half, this time on the CT side. But they didn’t let the same mistake happen twice and were able to covert the lead this time into a win. They won 16:6
The final map was Train where Fnatic started on the CT side and for a change they managed a huge lead to end the half at 13:2. NiP were on a lot of pressure going into the final half of the Major. They couldn’t replicate what Fnatic did to them on Dust II and crumbled to a 16:2 defeat.
The victory made Fnatic CS:Go first ever major champions and write history in itself. They managed to beat the #1 team then and that too convincingly and would then go on to become one of the most successful teams ever to play Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
Fnatics’s Jesper “JW” Wecksell took home the MVP award for his aggressive and to the front face play style which made many opponents uncomfortable.
Fnatic took tome $100,000 out of $250,000 for being the champions , NiP pocketed $50,000 for their efforts.
To check the detailed events of Dream Hack Winter 2013, click here.
To read about other esports news, click here
