The Counter-Strike moment so good even Valve said 'put this play in the Louvre', which someone then literally did

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This is art.

People look at Counter-Strike art in the Louvre.
(Image credit: Mark Piasecki via Getty)

A few days ago at the Blast.TV Major, esports teams G2 and Vitality went head-to-head on Nuke in Counter-Strike Global Offensive. It turned out to be a great match, with Vitality eventually emerging the victors with a 16-13 scoreline, but the highlight came in the fifteenth round after G2 had planted A site and took out four Vitality players. Left on his lonesome with an AWP, Vitality's Zyw0o decided it was time to kick things up a notch.

The clip can be seen below. As this was the last round of the half Zyw0o had nothing to lose, and produces a spectacular clutch retake: First taking out a G2 player hiding up in heaven, before silently dropping down to the site and picking off the G2 players one-by-one with pinpoint shots and utility mindgames.

Plays like this are rare indeed and one of the reasons CS:GO is such a great spectator sport, and the crowd in France clearly loved it. This Major, which will be the last for CS:GO before it's superseded by Counter-Strike 2 this summer, is being hosted in Paris, and the official Counter-Strike account riffed on this with a simple suggestion: "Put this play in the Louvre".

'Put it in the Louvre' is somewhere between an idiom and a meme, used in all sorts of contexts to indicate something is of such exceptional quality it should be on display in one of the world's most iconic museums. In this case, however, the North American Counter-Strike organisation Dust2.us decided to take Valve at its word, and rather brilliantly 'exhibited' the play right in front of the Mona Lisa.

And, y'know, after watching this clip, maybe we've finally worked out why the lady is smiling. The cherry on the cake here is that this is a Paris Major, Vitality is a Parisian team, and Zyw0o is a Frenchman widely regarded as one of if not the best CS:GO players in the world (and in one of those cosmic twists of fate, was born on the same day Counter-Strike released). Vitality have qualified for the next phase of the Paris Major, and there will surely be the sense among this team that the fates are aligning.

Rich Stanton
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."