Foundation, Restructuring, CIS Dominance, Future Plans
Topic: EsportFire Review of the Year
An emotional, eventful and above all beautiful year! Yesterday, 20.12.2021, the tournament break for the pro scene and spectators started. Players and teams get the chance to prepare for the new season in calm, but above all well deserved to spend this beautiful time of the year with their family. On this note, we wish all the players, but also functionaries in all positions, who work the whole year to offer us spectators and fans entertainment, happy holidays and express a big THANK YOU!
For us at EsportFire it was also a special year 2021. As a non-commercial medium we try to find our place in this community for a little more than a year and create enjoyment for people through our articles and other content! Our top priority is to deliver good quality journalism and our plans for the upcoming year are extensive. But first things first.
Start of the Year
On 7/1/2021 we published our first article of the year. Valve banned bots from Matchmaking and Wingman and replaced them with compensation payments to the remaining players. Two days before NAVI won the first big event of the year, the BLAST Premier Global Finals 2020 GeT_RiGhT announced his retirement from CS:GO. After 14 years as an active player the community said goodbye to one of the most defining figures the game has ever seen.
While we published the EsportFire World Ranking for the first time on 24.01.2021 Virtus.Pro secured the tournament victory at cs_summit 7 and prevailed in the final against fnatic. At the end of January Valve published the RMR capsules, as well as new regulations for six-man rosters and coaches. Furthermore, those coaches who exploited the Spectator Bug, were banned for 1-5 Majors.
In early February, the first edition of Snow Sweet Snow took place, an event series that should accompany us throughout the year and is now a fixed part of the Tier 2 Scene. A few days later, however, also the world's top teams competed again. Six teams qualified in the BLAST Fall Groups for the final event, two more via the showdown. At IEM Katowice 2021, Gambit beat Virtus.Pro in the final to win their first event of the year!
March was dominated by the ESL Pro League Season 13. For the first time we published player related analysis, such as age and nationalities on EsportFire. For more than a month 24 of the best teams in the world met one another and competed for the title in one of the most prestigious tournament series in history. In the end, Heroic prevailed over Gambit in an incredible final.
While we published the EsportFire World Ranking for the first time on 24.01.2021 Virtus.Pro secured the tournament victory at cs_summit 7 and prevailed in the final against fnatic. At the end of January Valve published the RMR capsules, as well as new regulations for six-man rosters and coaches. Furthermore, those coaches who exploited the Spectator Bug, were banned for 1-5 Majors.
In early February, the first edition of Snow Sweet Snow took place, an event series that should accompany us throughout the year and is now a fixed part of the Tier 2 Scene. A few days later, however, also the world's top teams competed again. Six teams qualified in the BLAST Fall Groups for the final event, two more via the showdown. At IEM Katowice 2021, Gambit beat Virtus.Pro in the final to win their first event of the year!
March was dominated by the ESL Pro League Season 13. For the first time we published player related analysis, such as age and nationalities on EsportFire. For more than a month 24 of the best teams in the world met one another and competed for the title in one of the most prestigious tournament series in history. In the end, Heroic prevailed over Gambit in an incredible final.
Pre-Summer & Restructuring
At Flashpoint 3 MOUZ secured the victory in the final match with NiP and all participants their first RMR points. For the Swedish top team it was the first event together with the top transfer of 2021, dev1ce.
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In the meantime, Liquid won cs_summit 8 in the NA region, which would remain one of only two RMR events in the region! While at IEM Summer 2021 and BLAST Spring Finals Gambit won over OG and NAVI, it was NAVI who prevailed at IEM Cologne. While the players went on a well-deserved summer break immediately following the event, we at EsportFire decided to take a summer break as well.
We were no longer satisfied with the content we published and recognized this in the lack of reader response. Even though the first six months on EsportFire were only with three average readers, we decided not to give up the dream and to revise our concept.
In the meantime, Liquid won cs_summit 8 in the NA region, which would remain one of only two RMR events in the region! While at IEM Summer 2021 and BLAST Spring Finals Gambit won over OG and NAVI, it was NAVI who prevailed at IEM Cologne. While the players went on a well-deserved summer break immediately following the event, we at EsportFire decided to take a summer break as well.
We were no longer satisfied with the content we published and recognized this in the lack of reader response. Even though the first six months on EsportFire were only with three average readers, we decided not to give up the dream and to revise our concept.
Reinvention
Together with the ESL Pro League Season 14 we were back. Back with better content, a team and new goals that we hungrily pursued from now on. The change from three articles a day to four articles a week brought our readers a high quality addition to the already existing media. Quality and exciting topics have been our main focus ever since. Alongside the existing focus on the Esport scene, we launched a completely new category: Skin Talks. Skin-related topics have always played a major role in the CS:GO community and since the launch, our team has published 23 articles on a wide variety of topics and started series such as Inventory Reviews, Craft Talks and Craft Suggestions, which have been extremely well received by our readers!
While NAVI won the next big event after IEM Cologne with ESL Pro League, Valve brought out one of the biggest updates of all time. Along with Operation Riptide came numerous changes like the M4A1 modification, as well as Map Updates for example on Dust2.
While the BLAST Fall Groups were in full swing, another legend of the scene, Xizt, decided to retire out of CS:GO. Later in the year he would take on a coaching role at Heroic, including the Major. At the same time, we at EsportFire had the honor of finding our first partner in GamerPay, with whom we could exchange ideas and work on joint projects. To date, however, we are a non-commercial medium!
While NAVI won the next big event after IEM Cologne with ESL Pro League, Valve brought out one of the biggest updates of all time. Along with Operation Riptide came numerous changes like the M4A1 modification, as well as Map Updates for example on Dust2.
While the BLAST Fall Groups were in full swing, another legend of the scene, Xizt, decided to retire out of CS:GO. Later in the year he would take on a coaching role at Heroic, including the Major. At the same time, we at EsportFire had the honor of finding our first partner in GamerPay, with whom we could exchange ideas and work on joint projects. To date, however, we are a non-commercial medium!
End Of The Year
At the end of October the long awaited PGL Major kicked off in Stockholm. The first Major in over two years. A total of 24 teams managed to qualify for the LAN event. The big winner was more than deservedly NAVI, once again this year. The team around star player s1mple, who also picked up the HLTV MVP Award, showed an incredibly dominant performance and secured the first Major title in the organization's history.
To end the year and as a topper to what was already the biggest accomplishment in history, NAVI also secured the BLAST Fall and BLAST World Finals and is therefore without question THE Team of the Year in 2021. The only event NAVI did not win to end the year was IEM Winter, where they did not compete. Very big congratulations to s1mple and the whole team, it was long overdue!
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Alongside numerous interesting articles on topics such as Fnatic Rebuilding, NA Collegiate Esports, Peacemaker and pita, as well as transfer news, we announced and launched a completely new series at the end of the year, which had been planned for a long time and was especially eagerly awaited "Lets have a Talk with ..." will be our new interview series, in which we try to strengthen the connection between pro players and the community. In a first article we had the honor to talk with Stev0se from EC Brugge, who spent about 50 minutes talking about his career, current transfers and life as a pro player!
To end the year and as a topper to what was already the biggest accomplishment in history, NAVI also secured the BLAST Fall and BLAST World Finals and is therefore without question THE Team of the Year in 2021. The only event NAVI did not win to end the year was IEM Winter, where they did not compete. Very big congratulations to s1mple and the whole team, it was long overdue!
Alongside numerous interesting articles on topics such as Fnatic Rebuilding, NA Collegiate Esports, Peacemaker and pita, as well as transfer news, we announced and launched a completely new series at the end of the year, which had been planned for a long time and was especially eagerly awaited "Lets have a Talk with ..." will be our new interview series, in which we try to strengthen the connection between pro players and the community. In a first article we had the honor to talk with Stev0se from EC Brugge, who spent about 50 minutes talking about his career, current transfers and life as a pro player!
Outlook
But what awaits us in 2021? We have grown as a team over the last few months and are now a unit of around 10 people, to whom I would like to express my sincere thanks at this point. We will try to turn our dreams and plans into reality and bring you readers exciting content. We will see what 2022 brings for all of us! In any case, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and happy holidays and look forward to the upcoming projects and especially your feedback and suggestions!
Thanks and see you soon!
EsportFire, Alex!
Thanks and see you soon!
EsportFire, Alex!
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