Sulfur
With the Danish trio infiltrating the Vitality camp and m0NESY and Aleksib ending any France monopoly in G2 all in a single transfer window, the French scene in Counter-Strike is finally and completely dead.
To commemorate the rise and fall of the grandest scene in the history of the game, here’s a short walk down memory lane as to how we’ve reached where we’ve reached.
The Birth
The French scene in Counter-Strike was by far the most stubborn in the CS world. From the very dawn of Counter-Strike, there was a formidable presence of France and Belgium, a package of doom wrapped up for whoever dared to stand against them.
Teams like LDLC and 3DMAX were a visible part of the 1.6 scene, but what really birthed the legendary French dynasty was the VeryGames’ CS Source squad. Over many iterations, the roster employed young to-be legends like Ex6TenZ, NBK, shox, RpK, Happy, SmithZz, ScreaM, etc. The count only increased, with kennyS joining VeryGames’ Source roster just before the release of CS:GO.
France was undoubtedly at the top of the world in Source, but one by one, teams started migrating to CS:GO. NiP was one of the first to do so and hence remained the strongest team for a while. Though VeryGames switched to CS:GO too, they found it a little difficult to adjust. Regardless, they remained NiP’s greatest rivals over the years.
Coming through the 1.6 side was the squad of Clan Mystik, housing players like kioShiMa, KQLY, and apeX. They were another major powerhouse that built up a CS:GO scene riddled with French and Swedish teams.
The Peak Years
In 2014, LDLC, mostly the ex-Source squad, won the final Major of the year, bringing the mighty fnatic and NiP to their knees. It was the highest point for the French scene in quite a while. In 2015, fnatic grew in power, but the Frenchmen were shuffling and adjusting in the background to adapt to the meta.
EnVyUs created a mega team, but since NBK- and shox didn’t like each other, the squad didn’t really last. Eventually, a kennyS-led EnVyUs downed the Swedes late in the year, as they won the final Major of 2015.
The French and Swedish dominance would come to an end at this point, with Brazil and later Denmark burying their flag in CS:GO soil.
But why the early mega teams fell apart is more than just a cycle of life and death. NiP and fnatic naturally grew older, hence waning in strength, but it was a different story for the young and explosive French scene.
Something was truly messed up in France.
The Downfall
With the immense raw talent and success France had experienced since the Source days, these youngsters started developing huge egos. They soon became exclusive, as they refused to play with foreign players. There were deep relationship problems among the French players themselves, a tumor of dislike continuously growing without bounds.
From KQLY being VAC-banned to kennyS publicly bashing apeX for his “selfishness” and “opportunistic” tendencies, the French scene was always embroiled in some or the other controversy. The next few years passed with the Frenchmen entangled amongst themselves through petty drama.
But by 2017, the elite player list had filtered down to 5 names. Five, final names on the G2 roster marked the birth of France’s greatest superteam. What made it truly special was the fact that France’s two most talented players yet, kennyS and shox, were finally on the same team. NBK- and shox had set aside their differences as well.
G2 missed out on players like ScreaM and Happy, but in itself had more than enough talent to conquer and rule over the CS:GO world one final time. The stars in shox, bodyy, NBK, kennyS, and apeX, led by their coach SmithZz, had aligned together. Whether they would form a coordinated constellation of beauty or an overlapping mess of photons was yet to be seen.
The problem with G2 was that success at the highest level was the floor of expectations, and anything below it was destined to rebirth the forcefully sunken animosity they had previously buried. And that’s exactly what happened. With G2 able to win nothing more than a few discrete tournaments, the instability of the G2 camp started to grow. In PGL Major of 2017, they couldn’t even make it out of the group stage. They won just 2 S-Tier tournaments in 2017, a far cry from what was expected from them.
Boston Major in 2018 was a better affair initially, but they famously faltered against eventual winners, Cloud9. Failing to make it to ESL Pro League Season 7 in February was the breaking point, as bit by bit, the squad kept getting replaced.
The superteam, France’s last hope, had disastrously faltered. The countdown to their final breaths had begun.
The Solitary Hope Of A Rebirth
In late 2018, a certain Frenchman joined Vitality, the only pure S-Tier French team to exist at that point apart from G2. Within just a year, the chubby French went from new to the pro CS scene to being awarded the Best Player Of 2019 ahead of the mighty s1mple.
zywOo had emerged.
Today, zywOo is the only superstar from France. The yesteryears were filled with prodigies like kennyS, shox, Happy, NBK, kioshima, etc., but today, one single guy holds up the torch. And that is as close to a death statement as it can get.
The Official Death
In 2021, Vitality was the only pure French team, because G2 had Bosnian brothers NiKo and huNter. But that ended, when the recently parted Danish trio of Magisk, dupreeh and coach zonic joined Vitality in 2022. shox, misutaa, and coach XTQZZZ were replaced, and with that, the great hopes of France conquering the world, with the help of zywOo, was over.
They can still become great and win a Major of course, but it will be a Vitality Major. Not a France Major.
If any part of you still believed in G2 being French, with a mere spice of Bosnia, then even that ended. The Frenchmen Amanek and nexa were replaced by NaVi Junior’s prodigious Russian AWPer m0NESY and OG’s Finnish IGL Aleksib. Vitality’s old French coach also replaced G2’s interim one.
There are only 2/6 Frenchmen in G2 now, 3/6 in Vitality. Just like that, any part of the dying soul of France that lived through G2 and Vitality has perished.
It’s an end of a prestigious era. Many more talented Frenchmen may come and go, but for a long while now, there will be no Blue, White, and Red. Yet, the colors of Europe and beyond are mixing together to shine a bright light of white. Shall CS:GO remain as glorious as ever.
