Streamer Summit1g wins “Worst Play of the Decade” for CSGO

Jaryd “Summit 1g” Lazar now has an unfortunate award to add to his successful streaming career.

A Twitter poll posted by ESL production staff member Don Constantin awarded streamer Summit 1g the top spot for CSGO’s “Worst Play of the Decade” for his infamous gaffe against CLG while playing for Splyce.

At DreamHack Austin 2016, professional streamer Summit 1g was playing for Splyce against CLG on Train in an early matchup. With Splyce up 15-11 over CLG, Summit managed to win a one-versus-one clutch against Jacob “Fugly” Medina on map point, effectively winning Splyce the game.

At least that’s how it would have gone if Summit hadn’t made one of the most memorable mistakes in all of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive history.

Before killing Fugly, Summit threw a Molotov to flush the CLG rifler out from in between the bomb trains. The play had its intended effect, pushing Fugly out into Summit’s waiting M4 spray. Summit confirmed the kill, and as Summit immediately moved towards the bomb for the defuse, he looked up at the crowd and his teammates in celebration.

That didn’t last long.

After the intense firefight, Summit was left with only half of his remaining HP. As he headed towards the bomb, the world watched as a meme was born. Summit ran through his own Molotov in his excitement, incinerating both himself and Splyce’s chance to take the map. CLG eventually came back to win Train in overtime before taking the second map, and the series, away from Splyce.

In an event that is now burned into the collective CSGO unconscious, “1g” has since become the term used for any kind of fire-related death in Counter-Strike. The incident is so famous that Valve included a 1g graffiti with the release of Shattered Web, the game’s ninth operation. The collection is affectionately named the “Trolling Graffiti Collection.”

G2, s1mple, karrigan all make worst CSGO plays list

Summit’s fiery demise narrowly beat out G2 Esports‘ complete lack of brains during a match against Astralis at the 2019 StarLadder Berlin Major. Down 15-7 on the CT side of Nuke, G2 had to make a big play to stay in the game against the Danish squad.

After smashing the Astralis squad in a frenetic B bombsite retake, the four surviving members of G2 simply walked away from the bombsite, forgetting the most important part of a retake: defusing the bomb. By the time anyone on G2 realized what had happened, the bomb had detonated and Astralis won the map.

CSGO caster Jason “moses” O’Toole summed it up nicely.

Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev also made the list for his failed knife against Team Liquid‘s in-game leader Nick “nitr0” Canella. Although the knife wound took nitr0 down to 17 HP, TL’s captain managed to win a one versus two after quickly killing s1mple. This clutch round sent the match into overtime, where Liquid eventually defeated s1mple’s Natus Vincere at ESL One Cologne 2019.

Finn “karrigan” Andersen came in last place in the pole with his infamous whiff against Kenny “kennyS” Schrub at IEM Gamescom 2015. Counter-Strike’s long and storied history is full of moments like these, like the famous “Clear Miss” meme that stemmed from a Valve developer’s comment on a clip of Spencer “Hiko” Martin missing every single bullet during a firefight on stream.

Summit has clearly bailed out of the hot seat, as the streamer’s following has only grown since several other high profile streamers moved away from Twitch to other platforms. While he still occasionally plays Counter-Strike, its good to see that the “1g” hasn’t dulled his sense of humor.