Today’s Legend has won just one Major in CounterStrike Global Offensive, yet he has won three in just one year in the 1.6 era.
Towards the later stages of his career, he was regarded to be a great strategist, yet a lesser fragger. It is time to showcase one of Ukraine’s biggest Legends: Danylo ‘Zeus’ Teslenko. Being 33 years of age, it is not to weird to see that Zeus has played since Counter-Strike 1.6. He was one of the more successful players of that Era, with many great titles and a kickstart for his later CS:GO career. After 17 years of competing and winning over 60 tournaments, he ended his time as a player in 2019 at the BLAST Pro Series: Moscow 2019.
Pro100
The first team Zeus joined was Pro100, an organisation he is a part of now after his playing career has ended, but as President. During his time with the team he would do very well at local LAN-events in Ukraine, but even more notable win the Asus Open in both the summer and winter editions multiple times. His great play turned into domination and was of course to be noticed by other teams. In 2007 he would be picked up by a team he had beaten many times: Virtus Pro.
With Virtus Pro he would go on and win his first S-Tier event in the form of the Intel Challenge Cup 2007. Beating such an international line-up of teams truly showed the potential Zeus already had at this part of his career and only further showed why he was such a strong addition to the Virtus.Pro roster. This would be his sole S-Tier title with the organisation though, as he would be dropped by Virtus Pro at the end of 2008, despite doing quite well with the team. Some teamhopping ensued until he would find his rightful place at Natus Vincere, an organisation he would play with for seven years straight.
Born to win
When he was picked up by the organisation early 2010, he instantly won once more. With the Intel Extreme Masters IV going his way a golden future was set with the new team. Many more international victories would follow with the legendary organisation and he would even stay as they transitioned into CS:GO. Yet with this transition, great things didn’t really follow, with the team struggling to actually get a win in the first year of CS:GO’s release. In 2014 he would win the StarLadder StarSeries IX though, taking a victory over the then incredibly successful NiP. The Major performances became better throughout the years and some good runner-up finishes were also achieved.
In 2015, Zeus and his team really started to get going, getting multiple victories and wanting to finally win a Major. DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 was within their grasp, yet they fell short of Team EnvyUs, whom they would of course then envy. More titles followed and at the next Major, MLG Major Championship: Columbus 2016 they would have another shot. Yet this time it were the Brazilians of Luminosity Gaming that were victorious, meaning Zeus had two runner up finishes in a row. Na’Vi would sense this struggle and eventually Zeus would move on to Gambit Esports to find a new home.
Finally the win he was hoping for
After trying so many times and now actually leaving the save haven of Na’Vi, Zeus would try once more with his new team. The first Major didn’t go that well at the start of 2017, but at the PGL Major Kwaków 2017 his wildest dreams came true. Topping the Swiss stage and doing really well at the playoffs, the team would be the surprising victors. Of course this was really aided by the incredible In Game Leader skills of our Legend Zeus. He would re-join Na’Vi not to long after, once more getting a second place at a Major with them and slowly descent into inconsistency.
The endgame
This inconsistency would be criticized more and more by the fans, often seeing the legendary player bottom frag. Many would often say Zeus should always give his weapon to Aleksandr ‘S1mple’ Kostyliev, one of the strongest riflers ever seen in the CIS region. Zeus his journey would eventually come to an end as a player late 2019, but he would reboot Pro100. The organisation that had given him so much was now his, and he is building its success day after day, making Ukrainian CS great again.
⚡️@ZeusCSGO is retiring
Details: https://t.co/bjbBmhOvaG#GoodByeZeus #navination pic.twitter.com/6P1why6jkh— NAVI (@natusvincere) September 9, 2019
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Image credit: Natus Vincere