Counter-Strike guide
Every Counter-Strike Major winner, 2013–2025
Majors are the backbone of the Line-ups quiz: they are the events whose rosters people actually remember, and the ones our elite-event filter uses to decide which players are famous enough to appear in a round. Here is the full champion list, followed by the patterns that keep showing up in quiz answers.
| Year | Event | Champion |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | DreamHack Winter | Fnatic |
| 2014 | EMS One Katowice | Virtus.pro |
| 2014 | ESL One Cologne | Ninjas in Pyjamas |
| 2014 | DreamHack Winter | Team LDLC |
| 2015 | ESL One Katowice | Fnatic |
| 2015 | ESL One Cologne | Fnatic |
| 2015 | DreamHack Cluj-Napoca | Team EnVyUs |
| 2016 | MLG Columbus | Luminosity Gaming |
| 2016 | ESL One Cologne | SK Gaming |
| 2017 | ELEAGUE Atlanta | Astralis |
| 2017 | PGL Kraków | Gambit Esports |
| 2018 | ELEAGUE Boston | Cloud9 |
| 2018 | FACEIT London | Astralis |
| 2019 | IEM Katowice | Astralis |
| 2019 | StarLadder Berlin | Astralis |
| 2021 | PGL Stockholm | Natus Vincere |
| 2022 | PGL Antwerp | FaZe Clan |
| 2022 | IEM Rio | Outsiders |
| 2023 | BLAST.tv Paris | Team Vitality |
| 2024 | PGL Copenhagen | Natus Vincere |
| 2024 | Perfect World Shanghai | Team Spirit |
| 2025 | BLAST.tv Austin | Team Vitality |
Patterns worth memorising
- The Astralis run (2018–2019): three consecutive Majors with the same core, which is why a line-up round showing four Danes plus one is almost always this era — the tell is whether the fifth slot points to the London, Katowice or Berlin roster.
- The 2015 Fnatic double: back to back wins in the same calendar year, so the year hint alone will not separate Katowice from Cologne.
- Brazilian core, two names: the 2016 champions appear as Luminosity in Columbus and SK Gaming in Cologne with essentially the same five players — a classic trap where the correct answer is the organisation, not the players.
- 2020 has no Major: the season was cancelled, so no round will ever ask for a 2020 champion.
- Repeat winners with gaps: Natus Vincere (2021, 2024) and Vitality (2023, 2025) each won with different supporting casts, so the roster board matters more than the logo.
How this feeds the quiz
A player only enters the Who Am I? pool if they appeared at an elite event — a Major or a tournament with a prize pool of at least US$500,000. Major veterans such as karrigan, FalleN and dev1ce sit in the easy tier because their careers are heavily documented, while players with a single elite appearance land in hard. If you can recite the table above, most easy-tier rounds fall in one or two reveals.