Counter Strike CS:GO – Twistzz – Russel Van Dulken

Biography

Twistzz was born on November 14, 1999. He began playing with his dad and his FPS game was Quake. After his father moved away, Twistzz started playing games for longer periods of time. Twistzz and his mom eventually moved in with her boyfriend and Twistzz started playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (). His mom’s boyfriend started verbally abusing Twistzz which stalled his progress in CS:GO. In 2014 his mom chose to leave her boyfriend and Twistzz was able to make progress in CS:GO once again. His mom was supportive of him playing CS:GO because she was aware of where he was at all times.

2015
Twistzz joined his first professional team Tectonic in October 2015. In December 2015, Twistzz joined SapphireKelownaDotCom along with veteran In-Game Leader Kyle “OCEAN” O’Brien. SapphireKelownaDotCom were signed by AGG in February 2016. Even at this early stage people would start seeing that he is a promising up-and-comer.

2016
In March, team AGG released their roster and Twistzz joined team KKona with his ex-AGG teammates for 1 week before receiving a stand-in offer from his first large organization, Team SoloMid (TSM), along with another veteran In-Game Leader Sean Gares. Eventually, Twistzz was signed by TSM on a permanent basis.

2017
In January, TSM released Twistzz along with his teammates allowing Misfits to pick up the roster. In April, Twistzz joined Team Liquid (Liquid) after the departure of Jacob “Pimp” Winneche.[8] On Liquid, Twistzz and Liquid placed 2nd at two big events, ESL One New York 2017[9] and ESG Tour Mykonos.[10] In November Twistzz’s Liquid won the Americas Minor Championship for ELEAGUE Boston 2017.

2018
In January, Twistzz’s Liquid placed 14th at the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 with their coach Wilton “zews” Prado standing in for Lucas “steel” Lopes, due to roster-lock rules at the time. In February Twistzz’s Liquid beat Cloud9 in the finals to win cs_summit 2, which would be their first win at an event in 2018.

In April, Twistzz’s Liquid ESL Pro – Season 7 final. Liquid continued to place 2nd against Astralis at the ECS – Season 5 Finals and ELEAGUE – Season Premier 2018.

In the second major of 2018, The FACEIT London Major, his performances helped Liquid secure 1st place in the new challenger’s stage by going 3-0. Twistzz achieved a Performance Rating 2.0 of 1.47 against HellRaisers which Liquid won 16-9 and an even more impressive Performance Rating 2.0 of 1.54 against Vega Squadron in which Liquid won in Overtime 19–17 in the New Challenger’s Stage.

Going into the New Legends Stage, Team Liquid would go 3–0, beating Winstrike, where Liquid won 16–7, Twistzz achieving his most impressive Performance Rating 2.0 in the tournament of 1.79. This would be followed by a 16–10 win over NIP, Twistzz getting a Performance Rating 2.0 of 1.44. Team Liquid would then go onto beat HLTV’s No. 1 Rated team at the time, Astralis 19–15, Twistzz having a quiet Performance Rating 2.0 of 1.06.

The next stage of the FACEIT London Major was The Playoffs. Liquid would face HellRaisers yet again winning 2–1 with Twistzz amounting to a Performance Rating 2.0 of 1.16, going through into the Semi Finals of the second Major of 2018. Liquid would go up against Astralis in the Semi Final, this time losing 2–0, going out of the Major. However Twistzz would still get a Performance Rating 2.0 of 0.92.

After the FACEIT London Major, Twistzz and Liquid would go on to place 2nd at ESL One New York 2018 (Twistzz receiving the MVP award), IEM Chicago 2018 and at the ESL Pro League – Season 8 Finals. However, Liquid would win SuperNova CS:GO Malta which did have the caveat of not having Astralis in attendance and was not considered a High Tier tournament.

2019
In January, HLTV named Twistzz the 12th best professional player of 2018.[5] Liquid were finally able to beat their rival Astralis in a best of 3 final at the iBUYPOWER Masters 2019 tournament. Team Liquid would place 5th-8th at the major, losing to the underdogs ENCE in the quarterfinals. In May, at IEM Sydney 2019, Liquid went undefeated and secured 1st place, and Twistzz won his first big event. Twistzz was named MVP at this event and had an average HLTV rating of 1.25. In June, Liquid won DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019 and the ESL Pro League – Season 9 Finals, beating their rivals Astralis in the round of 6. At ESL One Cologne 2019 Liquid won the Intel Grand Slam worth $1 million in addition to the tournament itself.[16] Despite Team Liquid coming into the Starladder Berlin Major as heavy favorites, they scraped out of the group stage 3–2, and lost to Astralis in the quarterfinals.

2021
In January, Twistzz joined FaZe Clan, replacing Kjaerbye⁠. Twistzz had mostly mediocre results for the rest of 2021 with FaZe Clan other than an impressive showing at IEM Cologne 2021, finishing in a respectable 3rd-4th position in the first CS:GO LAN event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CS:GO

CS:GO Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO for short) is a computer game from the genre of online tactical shooters. It was developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment and is the fourth part of the Counter-Strike series. The game was released on August 21, 2012 for Windows, Linux, macOS, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A release for the PlayStation 3 in Europe failed to materialize for unknown reasons. Global Offensive achieved a Metascore of 83 points. Since September 14, 2017, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has also been available in China via the Perfect World client. In December 2018, the game was switched to a free-to-play model, which drew criticism.