REWIND: flusha's Magnum Opus - IEM Katowice 2018

Imagine this.

You’re now supposedly ‘washed’, having previously been one of the best players in the world, and by the grace of God have dragged your flailing, half-dead roster to a grand final they quite simply don’t belong in against the best team in the world at their peak.

If you thought about a 39 year old Lionel Messi this summer, that’s a pretty fair comparison; except Argentina, as one would imagine, couldn’t lay a glove on their competition.

flusha, on the other hand, grabbed his team by the scruff of the neck and forced them to win. They had no say in the matter. flusha was winning the IEM Katowice 2018 final with or without his teammates.

This is one of the wildest top rights we’ve ever seen. Maybe the hardest carry ever.

Fair enough, Lekro and JW contributed to round swing even if they were losing their duels, but flusha was far and away the best player on the server. In a five-map grand final in one of the biggest tournaments of the year against the best team in the world? This might be, genuinely, the best series performance ever, factoring in all of that context.

It’s without a doubt flusha’s magnum opus, and the moment that, to me, cemented him as a proper legend of the game. The old-school hackusations flusha was a phenomenal player, don’t get me wrong, but one that time might have eroded the aura of. This was an undeniable moment, including two (two!) incredible aces to turn unwinnable rounds into montage clips. The 2v5 to 2v0 on Train is not only one of my favourite clips ever (and fundamentally changed the way I view and play the game) but also one of the most impressive from a in-game IQ point of view.

Oh go on then, I'll watch it again.

He had three teammates in the red, against the best team in the world, and won a BO5 grand final. He won Train on his own - that game was over until the 2v5, and fnatic only got that far because of him - and dragged fnatic over a line they shouldn’t have been anywhere near. The narrative has always been about FaZe’s grand final woes, and not unfairly, but it should be remembered as the flusha final.

It was a pretty big step down for a few members of fnatic, who for the rest of the tournament had at least been participants in the flusha show - but there was one constant throughout.

KRIMZ had big showings in the group stage against G2 and, indeed, FaZe to make it to the semi-final, where both he and flusha were excellent in a win over Liquid - but flusha soars ahead of him because of his elite grand final performance.

Five maps in the grand final is only three fewer maps than fnatic played in the rest of the tournament combined. flusha was beyond elite during the seven maps of the playoffs, and perfectly decent in the group stage, while KRIMZ fell off in the final.

Remarkably, flusha wasn’t even the most top-right player at the event, but in the grand final, in the big moment when the lights were brightest, he was unbelievable.

We’ve talked enough about flusha, so we’ll mention some other notable stuff about IEM Katowice 2018. There’s some very interesting stuff going on here - NiKo, obviously is up there, but seeing RUBINO and valde up there with HEROIC and North once more doing little of interest was a bit of a shock. BnTeT, too, showing why he was once revered and feared before his horrendous decision-making - mostly out of game, but also within - turned his career into the veritable lolcow it eventually became.

It’s a small sample size, but you can see the potential.

Perhaps most astounding is how ridiculously good coldzera was on a team that went out in the group stage. He was superb in the opening win over AVANGAR, and generally good even in the wins, but without the data I wouldn’t have put him as better than flusha at this event.

I mean, obviously with context, he wasn’t better than flusha. But you know what I mean.

cold’s style lends itself to high duel swing, but to consistently have high round impact while playing so passive is remarkable. There’s a reason he was so feared. He was so passive the model thinks he was a hard support, and yet he was also a bona fide superstar.

Small sample size, but we’ve never seen Jame anywhere near this bad. Only three maps, with losses to SK and Renegades, so it obviously wasn’t predictive of anything (as time has proven), but interesting nonetheless. Also in that bottom left quartet is MSL, who is listed as a star rifler.

Hmm. That might be why North went out early.

IEM Katowice 2018 was one of the wildest events in CSGO history, no matter how you slice it. It was the nail in the coffin for FaZe after the Boston Major; while that was embarrassing, it could be excused with another simple win in Katowice. fnatic were easy pickings; this team was falling apart, Golden was on his way out and flusha and JW had had their heyday already. The final was supposed to be a formality. fnatic had done brilliantly to get there, well above expectation, but they weren’t meant to win.

It was an absolutely superhuman performance from flusha, mindblowing stuff. A harder carry has never been seen, in my opinion. He gave Golden another shot at IGLing this team when realistically he shouldn’t have gotten it - this was not Golden’s trophy.

There was no great outcalling, no genius mid-rounding. This win was purely based off of the most legendary performance from one of the true greats of early CSGO rolling back the years.

Man, I miss CSGO.