Frokat
This year has been a single, massive highlight reel so far. Dubbed as the “Year of CIS Counter-Strike” by analysts and pros, 2021 brought many memorable moments but also some great rivalries. S1mple vs ZyWoo? apEX vs Astralis fans? Unfortunately, none of these seem quite to be the match for the greatest CS:GO rivalry of all time: Dev1ce and his monitor.
apEX asserting dominance over the Astralis home crowd.
Like Ying and Yang, dev1ce and his monitor are truly inseparable. Locked inside a never-ending battle against each other yet still needing one another, this duo invokes the deepest philosophical questions. One of them being: what the hell, dev1ce? You know these things are expensive, right?
Well, the punch(time)line
FaZe Clan vs Astralis at IEM Katowice 2017
In the Grand Finals of IEM Katowice, Device demonstrates his utmost sportsmanship by fist-bumping NiKo through his screen to congratulate him on an impressive headshot against his AWP.
SK Gaming vs Astralis at IEM Katowice 2018
The Polish soil must have some sort of an invigorating effect on the Danish player. The genuinely heartbreaking lost clutch invokes righteous indignation in dev1ce. Who knows what would’ve happened next had zonic not intervened as quickly as he did there?
Astralis vs Furia at ECS Season 7 Finals
After miscalculating KSCERATO’s stance on the “pros don’t fake” motto, dev1ce lets out a slight love tap on his screen. Thankfully, he only used 0.0001% of his power this time.
NiP vs Entropiq at ESL Pro League Season 14
New team, yet same old antics: another almost clutch, another monitor punch. It’s actually impressive how sturdy these things are – dev1ce must have some special edition punch-proof monitors.
NiP vs Furia at ESL Pro League Season 14
This time dev1ce unleashes an entire combo on the poor piece of electronic machinery following a lost round. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if NiP kept an entire F1-style pit-stop crew to replace dev1ce’s screen in case he breaks it.
NiP vs Team Vitality at IEM Winter 2021
Once again, dev1ce makes it look as if there’s an earthquake happening at the studio as his fists of steel collide with the immovable object that is his monitor. Is there any hope for us, mortals?
This is by no means a comprehensive list. And, if dev1ce doesn’t stop this tradition, it will never be one.
“Device is proof to me that God doesn’t exist. How can someone be so good with everything? Pistols, ducking your favorite team, rifles, punching monitors, awping etc. Its just not fair, how can anyone believe in God when Device exists? To top it off he looks like Tom Cruise, is rich as duck and could have been a badminton pro if he wanted. But he just had to go into csgo, dick on everyone and ruin everyones faith in God. Thank you device.” – a doomed man’s eulogy.