The Pinnacle Cup Championship is the flagship esports tournament series created and hosted by Pinnacle. In this series we're putting the spotlight on some of the participating teams - this time it's Heroic.
As of the time of writing, Heroic is ranked as the sixth-best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team in the world on HLTV. The Danish team have slowly but steadily climbed the rankings since the middle of 2021.
The Pinnacle Winter Series #3 (2022) and ESL Pro League Season 13 (2021) winners have established themselves as one of the most daunting forces in Europe as well as on the world stage.
While Heroic did fall to Natus Vincere 1-2 in the quarter-finals of the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, the squad are looking piping hot and eager to take on the next challenge.
A humble beginning
Former members of Team X founded the organisation now known as Heroic in 2016, although the name had already been used by a couple of other Danish rosters previously, including a 2013 roster which included of the greatest Danish players of all time, Nicolai “device” Reedtz.
The first modern Heroic roster consisted of Michael "Friis" Jorgensen, Andreas "MODDII" Fridh, Valdemar "valde" Vangsa, Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer, and Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander. They got their first taste of victory by winning the International Gaming League 2016 against VG.CyberZen of China. However, they did not deliver anything more after that, and that saw the departure of “gla1ve” in the same year.
After the departure of “gla1ve”, the organisation began a period of minor experimentation while retaining a core set of players, including Martin "stavn" Lund, Casper "cadiaN" Moller, Rene "TeSeS" Madsen, Johannes "b0RUP" Borup, and Nikolaj "niko" Kristensen.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, the squad won their first S-Tier tournament, ESL One: Cologne 2020 Online - Europe Division. But they knew they needed something new if they were to become a top CS:GO team.
Heroic Rises
And that is exactly the reason why Heroic acquired Ismail "refrezh" Ali and Rasmus "sjuush" Beck from MAD Lions to replace “niko” and “b0RUP”.
With the addition of the two hot and young Riflers, Heroic shifted gear and started producing consistent results, winning ESL Pro League Season 13, while finishing in the top four in Season 14. They were able to finish in the top four in all of the S-Tier tournaments in 2021, and their form is looking good this year as well.
In the PGL Major Antwerp, “stavn” in particular was performing clutch plays like it was child’s play. He was certainly one of the top performers in the Major with impressive impact rating and top-rated statistics (39.5% headshot, 86.8 average damage per round, and a 1.23 HLTV impact rating).
Road to the Pinnacle Cup Championship
As one of the top teams in the world right now, Heroic are regarded as one of the favourites to clinch the inaugural Pinnacle Cup Championship title. The most important question would be: Can their opponents read their signature methodical plays and overcome them, or can Heroic rise once more to claim an offline tournament win in Sweden?
Be sure to stay tuned to the Pinnacle Cup Championship!
About the Pinnacle Cup Championship
The Pinnacle Cup Championship is the final stage of the Pinnacle Cup series for 2021/2022. Scheduled to commence on June 8, the tournament will feature a total prize pool of $250,000 and will be held in the Sparbanken Skane Arena in Lund, Sweden. The biggest teams in CS:GO will converge and fight for the Championship title!
