Virtual shooting god ChrisJ on his way to the top.
He is not (yet) one of the biggest names in the world, but Dutchman Chris ‘ChrisJ’ de Jong is quickly making a name for himself in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. In the past year, the Dutch AWP member and his team Mousesports have entered the sub-tier of Europe, but he will undoubtedly yearn for more. This is the story of the Netherlands’ best virtual sniper.
The beginning
ChrisJ has been a familiar face in the Counter-Strike community for a while. In his younger years, the Dutchman was active in Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source. He was so good that the semi-professional Karont3 eSports team took him on. When Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was released in 2012, he switched to that game. His qualities were clearly visible and the Dutch LowLandLions decided to add Chris to the team.
He was active for a total of nine months at the latter Dutch organization and he even participated in the ESWC, a major tournament at the time, but in May 2013 he decided to switch to N! Faculty. He wouldn’t play there for long and his sessions at Playing Ducks and PartyDaddlers were also short. In October 2013, he finally ended up at Mousesports, a team where he is still active to this day.
At the time, Mousesports was not nearly as big as it is today. Where the team now participates in the largest tournaments every year, this was completely different a few years ago. In 2014 Mousesports mainly played online matches, while in 2015 the team also managed to qualify for fairly large offline tournaments. In 2016, the team broke through to the second tier of Europe and more than $ 300,000 in prize money was won. In 2015, that was about 100,000 dollars and in 2014 it was less than 20,000 dollars. Although eSports in itself is also experiencing a growth spurt, this difference in prices is still enormous.
ELEAGUE Major 2017
Last December was the last qualifying rounds for the ELEAGUE Major taking place this week. A top eight classification was enough to participate in the tournament and a chance to win the top prize of five tons. One of the participating teams was Mousesports, which started off dramatically with a 16-6 loss to Hellraisers. Next, the team got lucky with the draw, beating Team Spirit (16-5), TyLoo (16-3) and Immortals (16-3) without much trouble. In addition to qualifying for the ELEAGUE Major, this achievement also earned $ 50,000.
Despite the success in the past year, 26-year-old ChrisJ is also the record holder, but in a negative sense. He has competed in five Major tournaments, the biggest CS: GO tournaments out there, but never once did he reach a quarter-final. He shares this dubious honor with a lot of other players, four of whom are now also participating in the ELEAGUE Major. Undoubtedly, they will all want to break this curse, although Chris has not made a good start.
Disastrous
Last Sunday, the ELEAGUE Major 2017 started with a deception for Mousesports: they lost 16-3 to title contender Na’Vi. A positive point was perhaps that ChrisJ had the best scores of his team with twelve kills, four assists and seventeen deaths. ELEAGUE Major 2017 lasts until Sunday and can be seen on Twitch.
Want to see more ChrisJ matches? From February 7, Chris will participate in the European version of the ESL Pro League. This competition lasts until June and can be seen live on eSportsTV, a channel in the package of our sponsor CanalDigitaal. More information about eSportsTV can be found here.
