The Best Counter-Strike Clutches of All-Time

The Most Iconic Clutches in Counter-Strike History - Header Image — The Best Counter-Strike Clutches of All-Time

Clutches. One of the most thrilling aspects of Counter-Strike, where the round comes down to the wire, and a player goes wild in a 1vX situation, single-handedly winning against a group of enemies. In this list, we’ll count down the most iconic moments of clutch madness in Counter-Strike history.

ChrisJ: The Wolf of Wall Street

This isn’t a one-on-one clutch, but with Miika “SuNNy” Kempii being out of the play, Chris “ChrisJ” De Jong managed to secure an AWP ace for the ages during ESL One New York 2019. Facing off against Team Liquid in a Grand Final on American soil was bound to be a tough task for the mercurial Mousesports team. As the fifth map of a grueling series was winding down to a close, Mouz held a 14-7 lead on Mirage. However, Liquid managed to get a round back and, having gotten into a 5v2, they looked good for another round and potentially breaking the Mouz economy as they looked to make a comeback.

The Mouz IGL had other plans, though, blasting 5 quick AWP kills on A-Site and cementing Mouz’s win while also breaking Liquid’s momentum.

Snax is Hungry

We remain in the Big Apple for an iconic pistol round moment. Left 1v4 vs. Na’Vi in the first round of the second half on Cobblestone in the Grand Final of ESL One New York 2016, Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski from Virtus.Pro was left in a 1v4, having to retake a B-Site with the bomb already planted. Nobody expected anything to come out of it. However, Snax proved them wrong, hitting a couple of headshots and finishing it off with a tense duel against Egor “flamie” Vasilyev.

Xyp9x 1 HP and a Dream

Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth is the king of clutches, and we had to pick one of them for this list. In this case, it’s his 1v2 against Virtus.Pro in the final of ELEAGUE Atlanta. In a tight game on Overpass, Astralis was facing off against the Polish plow in the final of that year’s first Major. With a map-defining round in the balance, Xyp9x was brought down to 1 hp before managing to kill 2 VP players and break their economy. This round turned out to be crucial, as Astralis took the map 16-14, avoiding defeat, and later took Train to win their first-ever Counter-Strike Major.

ropz vs. G2

The ultimate Inferno A-Site anchor, Robin “ropz” Kool, faced off against G2 in the first map of the IEM Katowice 2022 Grand Final. With the score at 15-14 for G2, FaZe were up against a wall, and G2 went all in on the A bombsite, where ropz was isolated against 4 players as Finn “karrigan” Andersen was only starting to rotate. Despite this, ropz took 3 players with insanely accurate shots with his M4 before switching to his Deagle to finish off Nikola “NiKo” Kovac. This sent the game to overtime, where FaZe took 4 straight rounds to win the map, before sweeping G2 in the series and winning the IEM Katowice 2022 crown.

This Isn’t FPL…

Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s first big moment came during IEM Cologne 2016 when Liquid faced off against fnatic in a Major semi-final. While this 1v2 is rather… simple in execution, it’s also iconic due to s1mple’s antics. He went off of Heaven on Cache B-Site and no-scoped two fnatic players into oblivion, earning himself iconic graffiti on the map and a lifetime of highlights.

Hiko Pulling Off the Alamo

We have to go way back to 2015 for this one, as Liquid was playing against Sponsorless (later Conquest) in the CEVO Professional Season 8. Down 15:10 on Cache, Spencer “Hiko” Martin got stuck in a 1v5 post-plant on A-Site against some solid competition, including Keith “NAF-FLY” Markovic, with a full buy no less. Camping out on quad, Hiko managed to give the CTs the runaround and defended the site in a glorious hold dubbed “pulling off the Alamo” by the casters. You can even see the shock of the opposing team in the chat after the round ends. It’s a beautiful clutch… that didn’t lead to much as Sponsorless managed to take the series.

NEO 1v5

Filip “NEO” Kubski is one of the greatest Counter-Strike players of all time, and when he was left alone against 5 Dignitas players in a round that could decide a Zowie DreamHack Open 2016 final spot for VP or an overtime thriller, the pressure was on. As the DIG force-buy decimated the plow, Neo took things into his own hands, managing to plant the bomb and defend it from four Danish players, securing the win that then allowed VP to beat Cloud9 and win the entire tournament.

ZywOo 1v5

A crucial pistol round in a Decider game of the IEM Beijing Final. 1v5 with a P250 in hand and a dream in mind. In a tight spot and limited view of the bomb, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut took on Na’Vi and doled out 5 clean kills to secure the round. The pistol win actually helped Vitality secure the win as well, as they managed to convert their anti-ecos and win the half handily. Who knows what would’ve happened if not for this clutch?

GuardiaN 1v5

We keep going with the 1v5s, as Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs got stuck in a 1v5 against Fnatic in the Grand Finals of IEM Katowice 2018 after FaZe’s B-Rush fell apart. With Fnatic looking to kill FaZe’s economy, they went after the AWPer hard. GuardiaN didn’t falter under pressure though, as he managed to take the fight to the Swedes, killing four before outplaying Freddie “KrimZ” Johansson on his way to a round win. Unfortunately for FaZe, this clutch wasn’t enough to win the map, and Fnatic won the final 3-2 in the end.

CadiaN Can Win Pro League Like This

When Kasper “CadiaN” Møller is on, he’s one of the most fun players to watch in all of Counter-Strike. And in the ESL Pro League Season 13 final… he was on fire. As Heroic held a 15-6 lead on their Mirage T-Side, CadiaN was left in a 1v4 eco against a Gambit full-buy. He saw an opening though, as he crept through Connector to knife Dmitriy “SH1RO” Sokolov, stole his AWP, and with 2 hp and a dream, killed the other three Gambit players, securing Pro League despite Alex “MACHINE” Richardson’s claim that “he cannot win Pro League like this.” Well, he just did.

And that’s all for this one. Did we miss anything? What’s your best clutch ever? Let us know on our socials!

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