End of an era as NiP’s 30 tournament streak of offline CS:GO finishes is snapped

Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) were eliminated from the ESEA Season 16 offline finals in 5th-6th place, marking the first time in the Swedish team's history that they failed to reach a top four placing in an offline Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament they attended. The streak of top four finishes, amounting to 30, spanned a time span of over 22 months of play. Those statistics include domestic and smaller tournaments, but are staggering nonetheless.

The ESEA elimination also brought to an end NiP's eight tournament streak of placing in the top two, which began at Dreamhack Winter in November of last year. Despite how impressive even the latter streak was, it is still dwarfed by NiP's incredible other collection of streaks, amongst which the 30 offline top four finishes now takes its place. NiP won the first 10 offline tournaments they played in, finished top four in the first 15 and went 87:0 in offline maps played.

No other team in the history of CS:GO can boast records comparable to those established by the Ninjas, whose excellence and consistency have been entirely unrivalled, despite the game's increasing exposure, prize purses and competitive level. Today marked the closing of another chapter in the CS:GO history books which sees NiP's names written large and likely never to be bested, in these regards. They are the most successful team in history and by a large margin.

Having won two of the previous three offline events, Copenhagen Games and Dreamhack Summer, NiP are still widely considered the best CS:GO team in the world.

NiP's 30 offline tournament streak of top four finishes, spanning 22 months

2012-08-26 Steelseries CS:GO (1st)

2012-09-23 DreamHack Valencia (1st)

2012-11-04 Electronic Sports World Cup (1st)

2012-11-24 DreamHack Winter (1st)

2012-12-04 ESH AMD Sapphire Invitational (1st)

2012-12-09 THOR Open (1st)

2012-12-15 NorthCon (1st)

2013-02-24 Mad Catz Invitational Vienna (1st)

2013-03-23 Techlabs Cup (1st)

2013-03-30 Copenhagen Games (1st)

2013-04-07 SLTV StarSeries Season V (2nd)

2013-04-14 ESL Major Series One Spring (1st)

2013-04-21 ESEA Invite Season 13 (1st)

2013-06-16 Swedish Championship (1st)

2013-06-18 DreamHack Summer (1st)

2013-06-30 ESL Major Series One Summer (3rd-4th)

2013-07-07 SLTV StarSeries Season VI (1st)

2013-08-18 ESEA Invite Season 14 (1st)

2013-09-15 DreamHack Bucharest (1st)

2013-10-13 SLTV StarSeries Season VII (3rd)

2013-10-27 ESL Major Series One Fall (2nd)

2013-11-03 Electronic Sports World Cup (4th)

2013-11-30 DreamHack Winter (2nd)

2013-12-14 Svecup (1st)

2014-02-21 Dreamhack Stockholm Invitational (2nd)

2014-03-16 Esl Major Series One Katowice (2nd)

2014-04-20 Copenhagen Games (1st)

2014-05-04 SLTV StarSeries Season IX (2nd)

2014-06-14 ESPORTSM (2nd)

2014-06-17 Dreamhack Summer(1st)

Finishes:

1st: 20/30 (66.67%)

Top 2: 27/30 (90.00%)

Top 4: 30/30 (100.00%)

Photo credit: ESEAnews