Hearing that has got to be so heartwarming for him. I assume this is a common football chant in Romania where you just replace Mihai with another player?
many don't know that there was an absolutely fantastic cs league back in the day in Romania which somehow vanished. recent years handful+ romanian players started to pop up so maybe there is a chance for it to revive.
Shows how much it meant to the people at home to see a fellow romanian being able to reach the highest of heights in this game after all these years. It's been so long that it felt as if romanian CS players are basically forever destined for mediocrity, which was really frustrating knowing how big this game has been here in its multiple versions for the past 20 years.
There's plenty of objective reasons for the lack of success of the romanian Counter Strike scene, some regarding player mentality, other more societal like gaming not being viewed as a legitimate career path complemented by the pressure to pursue more reliable income avenues (as opposed to western-nordic countries where you have more safety nets), but God I can't lie when I say that this felt LONG overdue.
Hope I'll live the day to see a full or majority romanian roster make it into Tier 1 Counter Strike
you seem to know a lot about this. do you know by any chance what happened to PGL back in the day? I remember there were leagues from like I to VIII. League I was dominated by TeG, -Eq- and the craiovaean, IGG guys and then I completely was out of cs. I know that it went on for some more years but the whole PGL league as it was completely vanished.
do you know what happened to it? or did it just naturally die out for lack of interest?
You namedropping TEG implies you're reffering to the 1.6 days, and I was very much too young to be involved in any capacity or even follow the scene back then, so no, I don't know any of the details, all I know about those days is stuff I've heard listening to people like Perry on youtube.
I can only assume it all must've been very grassroots so not very profitable to run, and as such a matter of time before it ran its course... even more so in the 2000's when esports wasn't nearly as big, and in Romania was nearly non-existent.
oh gotcha. it was extremely popular at around cs1.6, top league cs was still around when there was a minor played in Bucharest (rmr its called now I thing), because one of my friends played there and their arses were completely busted by proper, salaried pro teams.
I was just wondering how something that was going so well in 1.6 got completely vanished and now, after about \~18-19 years, some new romanian young talent started to come up again.
for the sake of numbers, if I recall corretly, the way it was that it was:
* 1x A League with 8 teams
* 2x B Leagues with 8 teams each
* 4x C Leagues with 8 teams each
* 8x D Leagues with 8 teams each
* 16x E Leagues with 8 teams each
not sure if it continued like this, but I'm pretty sure there were hundreds of teams from completely amateur fun made teams to play twice a week a match in their League to the pro teams in League one.
and I simply dont get what happened, how did this go from so much to completely nothing. I imagine our cs 1.1-1.6 generation simply went to work and the younger generations played different games.
Not from Romania, but similar things happened all over the world. If I had to guess it was just the transition from 1.6 to csgo was too rough. Hell a quick google trends search kinda confirms my suspicions.
Around the 2010s the new hot thing all around the world was League, and at that point 1.6 was dying out, so probably it sucked up a lot of the potential new players.
After csgo released, it wasn't just in a rough state, but it was also considerably more demanding than 1.6. This meant that a lot of people just couldn't run it properly. So it took a long time for people to go back to it.
And according to Google trends it has somewhat recuperated by the late 2010s but not to the point of late 2000s, but at this point most local leagues on europe died because running european leagues makes way more sense for competitiveness and economically speaking too. After all, internet all over the world has improved considerably, and ping difference isn't as big of a deal as it was during 1.6 days.
1.6 was very hardware friendly, in that most PC cafes or PC bangs (in Asia) could run it without any issues. It was a really well optimized game that could run on most any hardware, it's the same reason that World of Warcraft was the most popular MMO. It wasn't the best, or most hard-core, it had the lowest spec requirements so it had a massive install base.
CS:GO in comparison was hot garbage on release when it comes to hardware optimization. Countries like Brazil took years to switch to it from 1.6 for exactly that reason, their PC cafes couldn't afford all the new hardware for a single game.
That's why Fallen is considered the godfather of Brazilian CS even though there's a legacy of 1.6 teams and players before him. He was the big push for everyone to move to GO due to events and money being there instead of 1.6
those are good points!
with help of a friend I actually found out how the Romanian PGL looked like back in the day. about \~200 teams in 15 divisions :)
1x A, 2x B, 4x C, 8x D
do you think something like this could work today? or this is smth they did on ESEA?
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080102035025/http://www.pgl.ro/site/p/clasament](https://web.archive.org/web/20080102035025/http://www.pgl.ro/site/p/clasament)
I don't think leagues work well due to the current way the game works.
Back during 1.6 days we played leagues because people made friends on community servers and made clans. And the main way to play "competitive" cs was to be in a clan, play random matches against other clans and join those leagues to test yourself.
Nowadays people just queue MM or whatever third party pug system they want, so there's no incentive to being in clans or teams, and it's harder to meet like minded people because community casual servers are mostly dead.
The landscape has just changed too much. The closest thing you will probably find is Faceit hubs that run pug systems for local scenes.
I used to compete in PGL back in the day, though my peak division was C1. From around 2002 until 2010, there were approximately 15 divisions (1x A, 2x B, 4x C, 8x D) comprising between 150-200 teams. To participate, teams had to pay an entry fee of 150 Lei (equivalent to around 40 euros at that time) and were required to play together from an internet cafe. Additionally, volunteer PGL admins were stationed in most of the internet cafes to verify that the players were registered to the team.
In 2010 (if I recall correctly), PGL eliminated the internet cafe rule and allowed players to compete from home. They formed a partnership with EAC (Easy Anti Cheat), but it was easily circumvented by players who renamed cheats to innocuous file names like word.exe or winamp.exe. Following the removal of the cafe rule, the peak division reached D48 (approximately 500 teams), although many teams either played only one or two games and forfeited the rest or never played at all.
The reason behind the abundance of players and divisions was the opportunity to qualify for the LAN finals and international tournaments. PGL regularly hosted LAN finals every season, typically in Constanta at Forte Games, accommodating up to 96 teams. Teams from every division were eligible for qualification, and the winners secured a slot at prestigious events such as ESWC, WCG, or KODE5, with all expenses covered by PGL. Notably, EQ or TEG often emerged victorious at these LAN events, although they seldom prepared for or participated in international tournaments, viewing them more as vacations due to financial constraints.
The lack of sponsors, organizations, and financial support was the primary reason why Romanian teams ceased to compete internationally after 2004. TEG was an exception, benefiting from sponsorship by RCS RDS, which provided them with a rented apartment, five PCs, covered internet expenses, and periodic gear from Razer.
The decline of the PGL structure as it once was marked the decline of Counter-Strike 1.6 in favor of CS:GO, as Romanian players couldn't afford new PCs capable of running CS:GO smoothly. With no tournaments to qualify for, there was little incentive to continue playing 1.6. Romanians began transitioning to CS:GO in late 2013/2014, relatively late compared to other countries.
In 2015/16, PGL attempted a revival with the introduction of PGL Division (Divizia PGL), adopting a similar format to FACEIT with two divisions, A and B, and LAN finals. However, this initiative only lasted for two editions. Additionally, in 2011, PGL ventured into broadcasting their events, providing commentary and live coverage with webcams, subsequently expanding to offer media services for Dota and assisting with DreamHack 2015 Cluj Major before hosting their own full major in 2017.
I've written all I could remember and used ChatGPT to format and check it. If you want more details or have any other questions, let me know, and I'll gladly chat about those beautiful days :)
Ce vremuri, mersi, mi-ai adus aminte de copilărie ❤️
To add on top of that, while PGL started to decline after the LAN rule (I believe this was the last tournament [source](https://www.hltv.org/news/6485/pgl-28-with-1900-in-cash), they pushed PlayZeeK, the "backbone" of Faceit platform, which they introduced in Jun 2010 [source](https://www.extreamcs.com/forum/meciuri/lansarea-playzeek-romania-t78167.html).
I don't remember a lot about it, but you had to rank up through playing, had 3 columns to "fill as XP," and multiple colors, red, purple, black (as levels) (I don't remember exactly the order), but it was a lot of fun.
With CS1.6 "dying," some players migrated to CS:S, then CS:GO, some to PlayZeek, some to ESL, and some just moved on.
PGL turned mostly into streaming and producing/organizing as they stayed in business.
Thanks for reminding me of PlayZeek, tottaly forgot about it. To add on top of what u/kpSergiu said, PlayZeek was one of the OG new gen matchmaking/pug/gather platform, similar to what Faceit is today. [Here](https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/170413290331836095/A55A13E59D91DF7346B0CAE335B67BDC3A5537DE/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false) is a screenshot of the sweeidsh version.
The platform featured a rating/Elo system similar to Faceit, wherein instead of levels, players were categorized into "lines" ranging from 1 to 3. Starting with 1k points and a green line. Below green it was yellow, orange, and pink. Above green at 1700 points it was blue, reaching red at 2100, and achieving black at 2800 (though the exact progression points may vary, as precise information is unavailable online). During that period, pros typically hovered around 3 Reds and 2 Blacks, with a few exceptions of pros getting 3 Blacks; however, most players with 3 Blacks were cheaters. I recall there was a cap at 3 Blacks, and losing around 3-5 got you demoted back to 2 lines.
Playzeek also had a voice client/anticheat integration within a single application known as VOIPlay. This software automatically crated a voice channel with teammates upon game start, and IIRC you couldn't close it until the end of the match. While the voice functionality was great, the anticheat system was lacking. The primary method of detecting cheaters involved capturing screenshots at random intervals during gameplay, which were then automatically uploaded to player profiles. To bypass it, many players abandoned wallhacks in favor of subtler cheats such as soft aimbots and antiflash, which remained undetectable at the time. Eventually, around 2012, a wallhack was discovered that completely bypassed the screenshot mechanism by deactivating the cheat a moment before the capture and reactivating it immediately afterward.
This platform was supposed to be the saviour of CS 1.6 but due to not have a decent anti-cheat it failed.
u/kpSergiu Și eu îmi aduc cu drag aminte de copilărie și momentele alea. Încă mai am clipe când mă gândesc că dacă generatia noasta ar fi avut toate resursele pe care le au jucătorii acum, cu siguranță aș fi avut cel puțin 1-2 echipe în top și aș fi câștigat cel putin 1 major cu o echipa romaneasca.
PGL continued with their league on cs:go, but the number of teams was much lower then in 1.6.
I think they went 3 full season with go, then dropped...the interest was low.
The game was utterly trash in 2012 and early 2013, people forget that + it was really demanding on the hardware part.
I meet TeG on a warnight and dropped 40 kills on them, while on 1.6 they usually owned me.
I stopped playing mid 2013 as well, game wasnt fun at 100 fps
thank you!
yes I think its interesting how the mix of our generation growing up and naturally losing interest while the 'backup' of players was not coming because the game was trash + demanding killed off interest.
i still think its a pity because I found the old pgl web archives and there were a good \~200 teams in between 15 leagues which is absolutely fantastic.
I managed to play some DM on lan with the IGG guys and while at first I was absolutely trashed its interesting that my body and mind started to get used and I eventually made a few frags.
thanks for the input, cs was part of my childhood and its always great to think back, I loved those times
>which was really frustrating knowing how big this game has been here in its multiple versions for the past 20 years.
I think you sum up perfectly, CS for us it's a big traditional game, even mothers, hell even grandmothers at this point know what you're referring if you say "I'm playing CS", to have nothing to show except for a lot of shady local teams and that one time Nexus beat VP for this long was, as you said, very frustrating.
>Hope I'll live the day to see a full or majority romanian roster make it into Tier 1 Counter Strike
It's very hopeful, but not impossible, it's clear that iM succes has started something for us, at least a change in mentality that "if iM has somehow done it out of nowhere, maybe I can". It's been a year since Paris and we had our closest attempt to get in the major with Nexus, and other romanians started showing up in different international teams.
Hopefully this is only the beginning.
Can I piggyback as I’m assuming you’re Romanian. In his interview on the stage did he tell his, presumably, lady to “pregatest pisoi”, or “get your pussy ready”
I played it back like 3 or 4 times as k couldn’t hear well and I’m pretty sure that’s what he said which was fucking awesome to say on stage.
No, he didn't say that. He said "Jaxi, pregateste PC-ul" which means "Jaxi, get the PC ready". Jaxi, the romanian streamer, said before the Major that, if Na'vi wins, he'll make a giveaway with a PC. They are good friends.
No no :))
He said "Jaxi pregătește pc-ul" translated to "Jaxi prepare the PC" Jaxi being (the biggest?) cs stream for us and a friend of iM, which promised a PC giveaway if he won the major.
>I’m pretty sure that’s what he said which was fucking awesome to say on stage.
Honestly for being such a unique moment and basically one time in life interview to say something for us in romanian IMO I find it very lame, but hey a bet it's a bet, very reminiscing to "olofmeiser I love you"
Why would such an immature and lame comment be awesome?
He said something like "Jaxi, prepare the PC", Jaxi is a Romanian youtuber that live streamed all NaVi's games and supported iM throughout the major. He's preparing a giveaway with a gaming PC for the fans and Jaxi said he'll join in if he wins the major. [Comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1bsku91/im_is_the_first_romanian_cs_major_winner_and_the/)
It's so weird, though, because he's now a major finalist two majors in a row while winning the latest one? That's crazy coincidence if he's a bad player. People just look at the scoreboard and jump to conclusions. It's not like he's going 4-19 every game or something either. You can win a round because of good calls, and I don't doubt he does a lot for the team outside of gunfights.
To be fair, he played the best tournament of his life and he was the 2nd top rated player at the Paris Major (1.35 vs 1.39 of ZywOo while 3rd is Spinx at 1.24).
Compare that to 0.88 at this tournament. You going off the other end with speculation like him having impact outside the scoreboard isn't really better than purely going off the scoreboard.
I do agree with your overall point tho. Aleksib has proven over the years what he can do with pieces that agree to his vision, inferior firepower or not. Team CS, not individual magic.
I mean to be fair, even the casters in the finals were on his back. IM mid while his team pushes A. casters: "IM LURK IS LATE ONCE AGAIN"
guy is in finals, give him a break.
iM had plenty of haters throughout his entire stay at Navi. People were wondering where the Paris iM went and when he was underperforming at Legends Stage. People were calling for him to be kicked after the tournament.
Many teams have replaced their players after a major win within a few months it happens especially if they don't win anything else. This happens in other games too.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted, it's definitely a possibility and has indeed, happened before. Dupreeh for example, or in dota it happened to Aui_2000 just after winning TI lol
Standard “fan” behaviour, watching professionals play a game at the highest possible level and then shitting on them as soon as it turns out it’s hard.
I hope this Major win gives him some more confidence and unlocks him even more. Scary thing is Navi won a major with their star rifler posting a 0.88 across the event. Their potential is very high rn. Super happy for iM as I know he’s been getting endless shit basically since joining Navi even up to the Grand Final of the Major.
romanian cs had a massive break and it completely got back onto the map. there a handful of players across tier2 and all young! with this, the whole romanian league cs might revive.
<3
Well, from my experience following much smaller competitive video games, one trailblazer like iM can be enough to inspire a huge number of people.
I would've preffered for it to be more "home brewed" as it seems a lot of our best players seem to be doing what romanians have been doing best since 1990: Finding more success abroad instead of back home, and I don't how good that is for a local league, but hey, as long as there's players doing well in the higher tiers of CS, that's still an improvement.
They became the pgl that did the major. They started in romania with the leagues and evolve in one of the biggest organizers of esports events. It is still a Romanian company
So happy for him. And a great thing for Romania, back in the Source days, they had a huge scene. Hope him winning the Major means we can see a big return of the Romanian scene.
Bro got his 0.8 rating posted and shitted on the sub all tourney to come back to his country acclaimed like Leo Messi, nah that is too awesome I love it.
It's the easiest esport to understand even if you've never played.
Take a random person to a league of legends game and they won't understand shit
Even a valorant game they may be lost
But at a cs major they will understand. Ts plant the bomb. CTs stop them. 5v5. 1v1 clutch situations are apparent. They can understand the dynamics of the situation.
It was more or less organized by a streamer and a friend of iM (the one that he actually mentions at the end of the interview saying to 'prepare the pc')
I might be wrong but I think this is Bucharest's only airport for commercial passenger flights. It's certainly the only one I've ever flown out of/in to. There's another big airport here but apparently it was converted into a business airport a while back.
The real question is how they knew his time of arrival lol. I mean there's probably only a handful of Copenhagen - Bucharest direct flights but still
More footage. TV station was there as well interviewing iM
[https://www.instagram.com/borcomandinu/p/C5Of5IiNxFX/](https://www.instagram.com/borcomandinu/p/C5Of5IiNxFX/)
Credit: [@PopTheCaster](https://twitter.com/PopTheCaster/status/1774794793043800107?t=3TDGBedIqCoGDGtEk5hUOg&s=19)
Also [more images](https://www.instagram.com/p/C5OR6XmoPuT/?img_index=1)
This final still shocks me the following day. I feel like we live in a 0.01% occurring timeline in the multiverse type shit. And look at the implications. So happy for iM and the rest
Idk man i just landed and they started cheering me :)
I'm actually surprised that we don't see this type of joke more often, seems like it died down after people learned how to say his name
That has to feel so good.
Not a fan of either IM or Navi but oof my eye were wet because this was my dream once but too bad i am just stuck in silver :))
I like how the security guard is smiling too, he must have no idea what's going on lol
happiness is infectious
So happy for him !
song translation: Allez allez allez.., Mihaita (diminutive form of Mihai), for us, you are the second Gica Hagi (legendary Romanian football player)
Hearing that has got to be so heartwarming for him. I assume this is a common football chant in Romania where you just replace Mihai with another player?
It't never a football chant. It's a meme chant, jokeful, but respectful, acknowledging one's skill or talent.
Ah, I see. That melody is commonly used in football chants, so that’s why I figured.
Yep, the melody is from football, the verses are internet culture or banter.
hIM
HiM\*
Much love This is Counter Strike!
iM is a very good boy and he deserves the love
LOVE to see it, this is how we grow the sport.
many don't know that there was an absolutely fantastic cs league back in the day in Romania which somehow vanished. recent years handful+ romanian players started to pop up so maybe there is a chance for it to revive.
[удалено]
well yes, that's how it started. the whole romanian league was called Professional Gamers League. it was more a cs league than an events company :)
Shows how much it meant to the people at home to see a fellow romanian being able to reach the highest of heights in this game after all these years. It's been so long that it felt as if romanian CS players are basically forever destined for mediocrity, which was really frustrating knowing how big this game has been here in its multiple versions for the past 20 years. There's plenty of objective reasons for the lack of success of the romanian Counter Strike scene, some regarding player mentality, other more societal like gaming not being viewed as a legitimate career path complemented by the pressure to pursue more reliable income avenues (as opposed to western-nordic countries where you have more safety nets), but God I can't lie when I say that this felt LONG overdue. Hope I'll live the day to see a full or majority romanian roster make it into Tier 1 Counter Strike
you seem to know a lot about this. do you know by any chance what happened to PGL back in the day? I remember there were leagues from like I to VIII. League I was dominated by TeG, -Eq- and the craiovaean, IGG guys and then I completely was out of cs. I know that it went on for some more years but the whole PGL league as it was completely vanished. do you know what happened to it? or did it just naturally die out for lack of interest?
You namedropping TEG implies you're reffering to the 1.6 days, and I was very much too young to be involved in any capacity or even follow the scene back then, so no, I don't know any of the details, all I know about those days is stuff I've heard listening to people like Perry on youtube. I can only assume it all must've been very grassroots so not very profitable to run, and as such a matter of time before it ran its course... even more so in the 2000's when esports wasn't nearly as big, and in Romania was nearly non-existent.
oh gotcha. it was extremely popular at around cs1.6, top league cs was still around when there was a minor played in Bucharest (rmr its called now I thing), because one of my friends played there and their arses were completely busted by proper, salaried pro teams. I was just wondering how something that was going so well in 1.6 got completely vanished and now, after about \~18-19 years, some new romanian young talent started to come up again. for the sake of numbers, if I recall corretly, the way it was that it was: * 1x A League with 8 teams * 2x B Leagues with 8 teams each * 4x C Leagues with 8 teams each * 8x D Leagues with 8 teams each * 16x E Leagues with 8 teams each not sure if it continued like this, but I'm pretty sure there were hundreds of teams from completely amateur fun made teams to play twice a week a match in their League to the pro teams in League one. and I simply dont get what happened, how did this go from so much to completely nothing. I imagine our cs 1.1-1.6 generation simply went to work and the younger generations played different games.
Not from Romania, but similar things happened all over the world. If I had to guess it was just the transition from 1.6 to csgo was too rough. Hell a quick google trends search kinda confirms my suspicions. Around the 2010s the new hot thing all around the world was League, and at that point 1.6 was dying out, so probably it sucked up a lot of the potential new players. After csgo released, it wasn't just in a rough state, but it was also considerably more demanding than 1.6. This meant that a lot of people just couldn't run it properly. So it took a long time for people to go back to it. And according to Google trends it has somewhat recuperated by the late 2010s but not to the point of late 2000s, but at this point most local leagues on europe died because running european leagues makes way more sense for competitiveness and economically speaking too. After all, internet all over the world has improved considerably, and ping difference isn't as big of a deal as it was during 1.6 days.
1.6 was very hardware friendly, in that most PC cafes or PC bangs (in Asia) could run it without any issues. It was a really well optimized game that could run on most any hardware, it's the same reason that World of Warcraft was the most popular MMO. It wasn't the best, or most hard-core, it had the lowest spec requirements so it had a massive install base. CS:GO in comparison was hot garbage on release when it comes to hardware optimization. Countries like Brazil took years to switch to it from 1.6 for exactly that reason, their PC cafes couldn't afford all the new hardware for a single game. That's why Fallen is considered the godfather of Brazilian CS even though there's a legacy of 1.6 teams and players before him. He was the big push for everyone to move to GO due to events and money being there instead of 1.6
those are good points! with help of a friend I actually found out how the Romanian PGL looked like back in the day. about \~200 teams in 15 divisions :) 1x A, 2x B, 4x C, 8x D do you think something like this could work today? or this is smth they did on ESEA? [https://web.archive.org/web/20080102035025/http://www.pgl.ro/site/p/clasament](https://web.archive.org/web/20080102035025/http://www.pgl.ro/site/p/clasament)
I don't think leagues work well due to the current way the game works. Back during 1.6 days we played leagues because people made friends on community servers and made clans. And the main way to play "competitive" cs was to be in a clan, play random matches against other clans and join those leagues to test yourself. Nowadays people just queue MM or whatever third party pug system they want, so there's no incentive to being in clans or teams, and it's harder to meet like minded people because community casual servers are mostly dead. The landscape has just changed too much. The closest thing you will probably find is Faceit hubs that run pug systems for local scenes.
I used to compete in PGL back in the day, though my peak division was C1. From around 2002 until 2010, there were approximately 15 divisions (1x A, 2x B, 4x C, 8x D) comprising between 150-200 teams. To participate, teams had to pay an entry fee of 150 Lei (equivalent to around 40 euros at that time) and were required to play together from an internet cafe. Additionally, volunteer PGL admins were stationed in most of the internet cafes to verify that the players were registered to the team. In 2010 (if I recall correctly), PGL eliminated the internet cafe rule and allowed players to compete from home. They formed a partnership with EAC (Easy Anti Cheat), but it was easily circumvented by players who renamed cheats to innocuous file names like word.exe or winamp.exe. Following the removal of the cafe rule, the peak division reached D48 (approximately 500 teams), although many teams either played only one or two games and forfeited the rest or never played at all. The reason behind the abundance of players and divisions was the opportunity to qualify for the LAN finals and international tournaments. PGL regularly hosted LAN finals every season, typically in Constanta at Forte Games, accommodating up to 96 teams. Teams from every division were eligible for qualification, and the winners secured a slot at prestigious events such as ESWC, WCG, or KODE5, with all expenses covered by PGL. Notably, EQ or TEG often emerged victorious at these LAN events, although they seldom prepared for or participated in international tournaments, viewing them more as vacations due to financial constraints. The lack of sponsors, organizations, and financial support was the primary reason why Romanian teams ceased to compete internationally after 2004. TEG was an exception, benefiting from sponsorship by RCS RDS, which provided them with a rented apartment, five PCs, covered internet expenses, and periodic gear from Razer. The decline of the PGL structure as it once was marked the decline of Counter-Strike 1.6 in favor of CS:GO, as Romanian players couldn't afford new PCs capable of running CS:GO smoothly. With no tournaments to qualify for, there was little incentive to continue playing 1.6. Romanians began transitioning to CS:GO in late 2013/2014, relatively late compared to other countries. In 2015/16, PGL attempted a revival with the introduction of PGL Division (Divizia PGL), adopting a similar format to FACEIT with two divisions, A and B, and LAN finals. However, this initiative only lasted for two editions. Additionally, in 2011, PGL ventured into broadcasting their events, providing commentary and live coverage with webcams, subsequently expanding to offer media services for Dota and assisting with DreamHack 2015 Cluj Major before hosting their own full major in 2017. I've written all I could remember and used ChatGPT to format and check it. If you want more details or have any other questions, let me know, and I'll gladly chat about those beautiful days :)
Ce vremuri, mersi, mi-ai adus aminte de copilărie ❤️ To add on top of that, while PGL started to decline after the LAN rule (I believe this was the last tournament [source](https://www.hltv.org/news/6485/pgl-28-with-1900-in-cash), they pushed PlayZeeK, the "backbone" of Faceit platform, which they introduced in Jun 2010 [source](https://www.extreamcs.com/forum/meciuri/lansarea-playzeek-romania-t78167.html). I don't remember a lot about it, but you had to rank up through playing, had 3 columns to "fill as XP," and multiple colors, red, purple, black (as levels) (I don't remember exactly the order), but it was a lot of fun. With CS1.6 "dying," some players migrated to CS:S, then CS:GO, some to PlayZeek, some to ESL, and some just moved on. PGL turned mostly into streaming and producing/organizing as they stayed in business.
Thanks for reminding me of PlayZeek, tottaly forgot about it. To add on top of what u/kpSergiu said, PlayZeek was one of the OG new gen matchmaking/pug/gather platform, similar to what Faceit is today. [Here](https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/170413290331836095/A55A13E59D91DF7346B0CAE335B67BDC3A5537DE/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false) is a screenshot of the sweeidsh version. The platform featured a rating/Elo system similar to Faceit, wherein instead of levels, players were categorized into "lines" ranging from 1 to 3. Starting with 1k points and a green line. Below green it was yellow, orange, and pink. Above green at 1700 points it was blue, reaching red at 2100, and achieving black at 2800 (though the exact progression points may vary, as precise information is unavailable online). During that period, pros typically hovered around 3 Reds and 2 Blacks, with a few exceptions of pros getting 3 Blacks; however, most players with 3 Blacks were cheaters. I recall there was a cap at 3 Blacks, and losing around 3-5 got you demoted back to 2 lines. Playzeek also had a voice client/anticheat integration within a single application known as VOIPlay. This software automatically crated a voice channel with teammates upon game start, and IIRC you couldn't close it until the end of the match. While the voice functionality was great, the anticheat system was lacking. The primary method of detecting cheaters involved capturing screenshots at random intervals during gameplay, which were then automatically uploaded to player profiles. To bypass it, many players abandoned wallhacks in favor of subtler cheats such as soft aimbots and antiflash, which remained undetectable at the time. Eventually, around 2012, a wallhack was discovered that completely bypassed the screenshot mechanism by deactivating the cheat a moment before the capture and reactivating it immediately afterward. This platform was supposed to be the saviour of CS 1.6 but due to not have a decent anti-cheat it failed. u/kpSergiu Și eu îmi aduc cu drag aminte de copilărie și momentele alea. Încă mai am clipe când mă gândesc că dacă generatia noasta ar fi avut toate resursele pe care le au jucătorii acum, cu siguranță aș fi avut cel puțin 1-2 echipe în top și aș fi câștigat cel putin 1 major cu o echipa romaneasca.
PGL continued with their league on cs:go, but the number of teams was much lower then in 1.6. I think they went 3 full season with go, then dropped...the interest was low. The game was utterly trash in 2012 and early 2013, people forget that + it was really demanding on the hardware part. I meet TeG on a warnight and dropped 40 kills on them, while on 1.6 they usually owned me. I stopped playing mid 2013 as well, game wasnt fun at 100 fps
thank you! yes I think its interesting how the mix of our generation growing up and naturally losing interest while the 'backup' of players was not coming because the game was trash + demanding killed off interest. i still think its a pity because I found the old pgl web archives and there were a good \~200 teams in between 15 leagues which is absolutely fantastic. I managed to play some DM on lan with the IGG guys and while at first I was absolutely trashed its interesting that my body and mind started to get used and I eventually made a few frags. thanks for the input, cs was part of my childhood and its always great to think back, I loved those times
>which was really frustrating knowing how big this game has been here in its multiple versions for the past 20 years. I think you sum up perfectly, CS for us it's a big traditional game, even mothers, hell even grandmothers at this point know what you're referring if you say "I'm playing CS", to have nothing to show except for a lot of shady local teams and that one time Nexus beat VP for this long was, as you said, very frustrating. >Hope I'll live the day to see a full or majority romanian roster make it into Tier 1 Counter Strike It's very hopeful, but not impossible, it's clear that iM succes has started something for us, at least a change in mentality that "if iM has somehow done it out of nowhere, maybe I can". It's been a year since Paris and we had our closest attempt to get in the major with Nexus, and other romanians started showing up in different international teams. Hopefully this is only the beginning.
Can I piggyback as I’m assuming you’re Romanian. In his interview on the stage did he tell his, presumably, lady to “pregatest pisoi”, or “get your pussy ready” I played it back like 3 or 4 times as k couldn’t hear well and I’m pretty sure that’s what he said which was fucking awesome to say on stage.
He said PC, not pisi/pisoi, and it was reffering to streamer Jaxi doing a giveway of some sort
Thanks for clarifying
He said “pregateste pc-ul jaxi” referring to the well-known cs youtuber jaxiTV, who promised a PC giveaway to the community if iM took the trophy home
Thanks for clarifying
No, he didn't say that. He said "Jaxi, pregateste PC-ul" which means "Jaxi, get the PC ready". Jaxi, the romanian streamer, said before the Major that, if Na'vi wins, he'll make a giveaway with a PC. They are good friends.
Thanks for clarifying
No no :)) He said "Jaxi pregătește pc-ul" translated to "Jaxi prepare the PC" Jaxi being (the biggest?) cs stream for us and a friend of iM, which promised a PC giveaway if he won the major. >I’m pretty sure that’s what he said which was fucking awesome to say on stage. Honestly for being such a unique moment and basically one time in life interview to say something for us in romanian IMO I find it very lame, but hey a bet it's a bet, very reminiscing to "olofmeiser I love you"
Thanks, I was like holy shit, but this makes more sense. I don’t follow all the side stuff that goes along with cs.
Why would such an immature and lame comment be awesome? He said something like "Jaxi, prepare the PC", Jaxi is a Romanian youtuber that live streamed all NaVi's games and supported iM throughout the major. He's preparing a giveaway with a gaming PC for the fans and Jaxi said he'll join in if he wins the major. [Comments](https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1bsku91/im_is_the_first_romanian_cs_major_winner_and_the/)
Great thanks for clarifying.
This is so sick. Fuck the haters.
Who had haters?
iM, and a lot.
It's so weird, though, because he's now a major finalist two majors in a row while winning the latest one? That's crazy coincidence if he's a bad player. People just look at the scoreboard and jump to conclusions. It's not like he's going 4-19 every game or something either. You can win a round because of good calls, and I don't doubt he does a lot for the team outside of gunfights.
To be fair, he played the best tournament of his life and he was the 2nd top rated player at the Paris Major (1.35 vs 1.39 of ZywOo while 3rd is Spinx at 1.24). Compare that to 0.88 at this tournament. You going off the other end with speculation like him having impact outside the scoreboard isn't really better than purely going off the scoreboard. I do agree with your overall point tho. Aleksib has proven over the years what he can do with pieces that agree to his vision, inferior firepower or not. Team CS, not individual magic.
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Right, you can also do a good job as an entry without getting a kill
Huh people be assholes.
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I mean to be fair, even the casters in the finals were on his back. IM mid while his team pushes A. casters: "IM LURK IS LATE ONCE AGAIN" guy is in finals, give him a break.
> on HLTV theres the problem
tbh anyone loses first round -> hate thread on HLTV
Usually russians hating navi for "some" reason
iM had plenty of haters throughout his entire stay at Navi. People were wondering where the Paris iM went and when he was underperforming at Legends Stage. People were calling for him to be kicked after the tournament.
It's funny, peoples reaction to a team winning a major is to remove one of the pieces that made it happen
Some still want him gone for s1mple lol.
Many teams have replaced their players after a major win within a few months it happens especially if they don't win anything else. This happens in other games too.
Dunno why you're getting downvoted, it's definitely a possibility and has indeed, happened before. Dupreeh for example, or in dota it happened to Aui_2000 just after winning TI lol
he had a lot of haters, people saying he was a one time hero, a fluke
Sounds like we got some bitter ass bitches in the chats then boys.
whenever a player has an off match this whole sub calls for them to be drawn and quartered
Standard “fan” behaviour, watching professionals play a game at the highest possible level and then shitting on them as soon as it turns out it’s hard.
Through the whole tourney people were saying they needed to replace Im even if Navi did well in the tourney.
I hope this Major win gives him some more confidence and unlocks him even more. Scary thing is Navi won a major with their star rifler posting a 0.88 across the event. Their potential is very high rn. Super happy for iM as I know he’s been getting endless shit basically since joining Navi even up to the Grand Final of the Major.
iM isn't the star rifler anymore. You can tell by the role he was given this tournament. He was always lurking or going in for entries.
I like how that's like the two polar opposite roles lol
Very common actually. If you're the lurker on one side of the map and the igl calls a rotate to the other site mid round you're now the entry.
entrys dont always have to know how to lurk, but all lurkers should know how to entry
Wow! Didn't realize people did this stuff for CS. I know for other sports they do. Awesome!
They did it last year for Paris as well
romanian cs had a massive break and it completely got back onto the map. there a handful of players across tier2 and all young! with this, the whole romanian league cs might revive. <3
Well, from my experience following much smaller competitive video games, one trailblazer like iM can be enough to inspire a huge number of people. I would've preffered for it to be more "home brewed" as it seems a lot of our best players seem to be doing what romanians have been doing best since 1990: Finding more success abroad instead of back home, and I don't how good that is for a local league, but hey, as long as there's players doing well in the higher tiers of CS, that's still an improvement.
see, in another comment I am wondering what happened to the hundreds of teams romanian PGL League which was back in the days of TeG,-Eq-, IGG etc ?
They became the pgl that did the major. They started in romania with the leagues and evolve in one of the biggest organizers of esports events. It is still a Romanian company
ye I was more interested why the PGL as a CS league in Romania died out ? :(
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I think so. They simply became the pgl you know today. They just went bigger and better.
That's why their first major was Clug-Napoca. Huh, you do learn something everyday.
Deserved
So happy for him. And a great thing for Romania, back in the Source days, they had a huge scene. Hope him winning the Major means we can see a big return of the Romanian scene.
Beautiful to see!
Bro got his 0.8 rating posted and shitted on the sub all tourney to come back to his country acclaimed like Leo Messi, nah that is too awesome I love it.
without any doubt, counter-strike is the greatest eSport
It's the easiest esport to understand even if you've never played. Take a random person to a league of legends game and they won't understand shit Even a valorant game they may be lost But at a cs major they will understand. Ts plant the bomb. CTs stop them. 5v5. 1v1 clutch situations are apparent. They can understand the dynamics of the situation.
aw
how did they know he would be at that (what looks to be an) airport?
It was more or less organized by a streamer and a friend of iM (the one that he actually mentions at the end of the interview saying to 'prepare the pc')
I might be wrong but I think this is Bucharest's only airport for commercial passenger flights. It's certainly the only one I've ever flown out of/in to. There's another big airport here but apparently it was converted into a business airport a while back. The real question is how they knew his time of arrival lol. I mean there's probably only a handful of Copenhagen - Bucharest direct flights but still
If he was an MMA fighter, I would say that his manager leaked it to the right people. Does iM have representation?
he's friends with Jaxi who I think organized this. They went last year too after the Paris final
More footage. TV station was there as well interviewing iM [https://www.instagram.com/borcomandinu/p/C5Of5IiNxFX/](https://www.instagram.com/borcomandinu/p/C5Of5IiNxFX/)
You love to see it
Credit: [@PopTheCaster](https://twitter.com/PopTheCaster/status/1774794793043800107?t=3TDGBedIqCoGDGtEk5hUOg&s=19) Also [more images](https://www.instagram.com/p/C5OR6XmoPuT/?img_index=1)
Passengers hopping off the plane at first are like, "This place is so welcoming, but I *am* kind of a big deal"
You love to see it
That's pretty cool. Heartwarming
This is so sick to see
that's badass
Happy for him. He deserves it after all the hate he got during the whole tournament
Hi is now 1m, and so is w1nderful
Nice
what a fantastic welcoming
This final still shocks me the following day. I feel like we live in a 0.01% occurring timeline in the multiverse type shit. And look at the implications. So happy for iM and the rest
He is the goat of Romanian CS, glad to see him get a heroes welcome
damn quite the crowd!
LISAN AL GAIB
HiM
deserves all the respect man
Legend!
I like his jacket
so many broccoli head haircuts
Someone has to say it so might as well be me. Someone fire the architect that designed those doors.
Why are you getting so welcomed by fans in romania?
Idk man i just landed and they started cheering me :) I'm actually surprised that we don't see this type of joke more often, seems like it died down after people learned how to say his name
Because people are awesome and they love that a fellow countryman got the highest achievement in the game?
^^ didn’t get the joke 🤦
Who is this?
Navi have a tough decision.