ESL One Cologne 2015 was the sixth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major and the second of 2015. Fnatic won it by beating Team EnVyUs 2-0 in the final and became the first team to win two Majors in a row. For collectors it is the Major where player autograph stickers first went on sale, and where Souvenir weapons started carrying a gold autograph of the round's MVP.
The tournament
ESL ran the event in Cologne, Germany, from August 20 to 23, 2015. The 16 teams played the group stage over the first two days at ESL's studio in the city, which HLTV identified as the MMC Studios. The last eight then moved to the LANXESS Arena for the playoffs on August 22 and 23, and ESL said more than 11,000 visitors came to the arena each day.
- Group stage: four GSL groups of four teams, every match best-of-one. The winner of each group's winners' match went straight to the playoffs. The other teams were reshuffled into new groups that decided the remaining four places.
- Playoffs: a single-elimination bracket of best-of-three series.
- Maps: Cache, Cobblestone, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Overpass and Train. Nuke was out of the pool.
The prize pool was $250,000, with $100,000 for the winners and $50,000 for the runners-up. It was also ESL's first event with randomised drug tests for players, and IGN reported that every test came back negative.
Fnatic's run and the final
Fnatic arrived as the reigning champions from ESL One Katowice 2015. They won both of their group matches 16-2, beat Luminosity Gaming 2-0 in the quarterfinals and came from a map down against Virtus.pro in the semifinal, losing Mirage 6-16 before taking Inferno 16-14 and Cobblestone 16-7.
| Player | Real name |
|---|---|
| olofmeister | Olof Kajbjer |
| flusha | Robin Rönnquist |
| JW | Jesper Wecksell |
| KRIMZ | Freddy Johansson |
| pronax | Markus Wallstén |
| vuggo (coach) | Viktor Jendeby |
EnVyUs reached the final by beating Natus Vincere 2-0 and Team SoloMid 2-1. The grand final was played on August 23:
| Map | Fnatic | Team EnVyUs |
|---|---|---|
| Dust II | 19 | 15 |
| Cobblestone | 16 | 7 |
HLTV's report describes EnVyUs leading Dust II 10-5 at half-time before Fnatic dragged the map to 15-15 and won all four overtime rounds. Cobblestone was one-sided: Fnatic led 9-6 at the half and closed it out 16-7. It was the organisation's third CS:GO Major after DreamHack Winter 2013 and Katowice 2015, which ESL called a record at the time.
HLTV named flusha the MVP of the event. In its 2015 player ranking, HLTV said his 1.38 rating in Cologne was the best tournament performance of the year, and he went 51-33 in kills and deaths in the final.
Records away from the server
ESL said more than 27 million unique viewers watched on Twitch, with a peak of over 1.3 million at the same time, a record for the game. A few days after the final, HLTV reported Valve's figure that the teams had received $4.2 million from prize money, team stickers and player autographs combined, against $1.5 million from prize money and team stickers at Katowice 2015.
Not everyone was happy with how that money was shared. Virtus.pro's Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas pointed out that sticker income depended on a team's brand and popularity rather than its results, and HLTV noted that players and fans wanted more of the money to go into the $250,000 prize pool.
Stickers: the first autographs
Valve added the stickers on August 14, 2015, six days before the event. Its announcement introduced "the all new ESL One Cologne 2015 Player Autograph Stickers", with 50% of the proceeds going to players and organisations, and said that half of team sticker sales went to the organisations, as with all earlier team stickers. Our guide to Major sticker capsules explains how that system developed.
| Item | What it held |
|---|---|
| Team stickers | Paper team logos, bought one at a time in the in-game store |
| ESL One Cologne 2015 Legends (Foil) | Foil logos of the eight Legends plus a foil ESL sticker |
| ESL One Cologne 2015 Challengers (Foil) | Foil logos of the eight Challengers plus a foil ESL sticker |
| 16 team autograph capsules | Paper autographs of one team's five players |
| Four group autograph capsules, A to D | Foil autographs of the 20 players in that group |
The two team capsules held no paper or holo stickers at all, only foil. Gold team logos and gold autographs never came in capsules; they exist only on Souvenirs. The champions' foil autographs are in Autograph Capsule | Group C (Foil) | Cologne 2015, alongside Natus Vincere, Titan and Team eBettle.
Two naming quirks are worth knowing. Cloud9 played under the sponsored name Cloud9 G2A, so its logo and autograph capsule carry that name. And Sean "sgares" Gares's autograph is listed as "seang@res", not under his handle.
Souvenir packages
Viewers could receive Souvenir packages by watching matches in-game, or on Twitch with a linked Steam account, according to Valve. Seven maps had packages: Cache, Cobblestone, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Overpass and Train. Each package contained a skin from that map's collection, so a Cobblestone package drew from the Cobblestone Collection.
Valve's pre-event post said each Souvenir would carry gold stickers of the event and both teams, plus "a golden signature from the MVP of the round where the souvenir dropped". Gold round-MVP autographs stayed on Souvenirs until StarLadder Berlin 2019; our souvenir packages guide has the full timeline. The final was played on Dust II and Cobblestone, so only those two packages include final drops. A Cobblestone package could hold the AWP | Dragon Lore, as our Dragon Lore history explains.
Two months later EnVyUs went one better at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015.
Collecting Cologne 2015 items today
- Read the full name. Cologne also hosted Majors in 2014, 2016 and 2026. The item name must end in "Cologne 2015".
- Know the finishes. Team logos from this event exist in paper, foil and gold, with no holo. Autographs come in paper from team capsules, foil from group capsules and gold only on Souvenirs.
- Check the Souvenir details. The gold stickers tell you which teams played and who was MVP of the round. Inspect each one in game, since scraped gold stickers change the look of a Souvenir.
- Search the quirky names. Use "Cloud9 G2A" and "seang@res" when you look for those items.
- Find guns that carry them. The sticker filter on Buy lets you search listings for a specific Cologne 2015 sticker.
Sources
- ESL One: Cologne 2015 — Liquipedia
- fnatic triumphant at ESL One Cologne — HLTV.org
- Cologne 2015 Pick'Em Challenge — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- Cologne 2015: Linking with Twitch — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- Major funding racks up $4,2 million — HLTV.org
- ESL One Cologne 2015, the biggest and most watched CS:GO event to date — ESL
- Top 20 players of 2015: flusha (5) — HLTV.org
- ESL One Cologne 2015 Autograph Capsules — Counter-Strike Wiki
