Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Cloud9 takes IEM Katowice spot over MiBR in stacked NA qualifier
M Alzamora
The North American closed qualifiers were hotly contested, but Cloud9’s fresh roster prevailed. 2020’s iteration of IEM Katowice came with a new set of rules for qualifiers, as well as a reduction in the number of slots assigned regions. This year, North America has a single slot. The change forced teams that would have normally attended together fight over the single opportunity to compete in Poland. Some of the top …
Counter-Strike
CSGO pro settings and sensitivity for s1mple, ZywOo, dev1ce, more
M Alzamora
Below are some of the top professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players’ settings from major pros like Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz. CSGO players are free to copy them into their configuration file or autoexec, but there are some things they have to keep in mind. Just because pro players use a certain crosshair or viewmodel doesn’t mean that it’s the best version. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski of Team Liquid, for example, uses …
Counter-Strike
Top CSGO team says Valve reached out to pros to help with skins
M Alzamora
Valve is working with at least one top-tier team to address the visibility of Shattered Web models, a source revealed today. With the release of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s Shattered Web operation, the developer brought customizable player skins into the first-person shooter. It was immediately clear that some of these new Agents models blended into CSGO’s maps, making them hard to see and giving a competitive advantage to those that bought …
Counter-Strike
DickStacy leaves Renegades shortly after joining
M Alzamora
After only a month on Renegades, one of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s infamous bad boys is looking for a new job. Oliver “DickStacy” Tierney has left or been released by the Renegades organization, according to a Tweet from the team’s official Twitter account and an official press post on the team’s blog. WIN.gg reported yesterday that ex-Order member Jordan “Hatz” Bajic had joined the Renegades ESEA roster and paid his league …
Counter-Strike
CSGO bots can now use utility for a perfect Mirage execute strat
M Alzamora
Valve didn’t just release Shattered Web’s challenges on December 21, they implemented the ability for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s bots to throw perfect executes. In week seven of CSGO’s Shattered Web operation, players got a bit of a surprise when playing through the Guardian mission “Coordinated Attack.” What starts off as a slaughter that favors the human CTs quickly becomes complicated as perfect jungle, CT, and stairs smokes land on the …
Counter-Strike
North socials disappear before fresh rebranding announced
M Alzamora
In the early morning of January 7, all of North’s social media accounts and website went dark, but it was always a juke. As all of North’s online presence disappeared, the Counter-Strike:Gobal Offensive community bought in to the latest social media tease. Even CSGO insider Richard Lewis was sucked in. It was good a good sell, but North left several signs that something a rebrand was incoming. Twitter was where it all …
Counter-Strike
These are five of the best CSGO players from 2019
Jared Wynne
2019 was a very competitive year for the top Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players. Some of the best teams and players emerged during the course of the year, and some have become even better than they were in 2018. Here we will discuss some of the top CSGO players of the year and consider who may have been the best overall. While all of these players depend on their teammates to …
Counter-Strike
CSGO’s best practice config guide with brand new commands
M Alzamora
In order to get better at Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, players need three things. The patience to identify their weaknesses, the time to invest into turning them into strengths, and a practice config file. This small list of commands, also called a .cfg file, is a basic text file that enables some pretty neat features in CSGO. When activated through the console, all of the commands activate at once to change …
Pita out, THREAT in as NiP head coach as f0rest rumored to leave
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Faruk “pita” Pita said goodbye to Ninjas in Pyjamas on Twitter as the organization announced it has added Björn “THREAT” Pers as the new head coach of its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team. Days after announcing North’s Jonas “calc” Gundersen as its new COO and unveiling a new headquarters, the Ninjas in Pyjamas organization has made another major change. The organization revealed the departure of longtime CSGO head coach pita in a tweet on its …
Cloud9 signs ATK roster ahead of DreamHack Leipzig, WINNERS League
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Cloud9 officially announced the signing of ATK’s CSGO roster in a post on the organization’s website. The ATK roster joins Cloud9 after an impressive showing at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals where the team defeated both North and G2 Esports in best-of-threes before falling to eventual tournament winner mousesports in the third round of the lower bracket. The full ATK roster has made the switch, including head coach Tiaan …
IEM Katowice Major was the most-watched CSGO event of 2019
Olivia Richman
Counter-Strike
Amassing over 1.2 million peak viewers, the IEM Katowice Major 2019 was the highest viewed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event of 2019. IEM Katowice’s peak viewership of 1,205,103 shot it far ahead of the other big CSGO events last year, including the StarLadder Berlin Major which reached a peak of 837,748 viewers. Viewership declines even more for non-Major events, with ESL One Cologne 2019 reaching 506,375 peak views. IEM Katowice was …
Dignitas reuniting GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, and other NiP legends
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg is reportedly set to depart Ninjas in Pyjamas to rejoin three previous teammates on Dignitas. According to French news site 1pv.fr, the player’s rumored move to Dignitas has been finalized. F0rest is the final player remaining with Ninjas in Pyjamas from its legendary 2014 roster that also included Richard “Xizt” Landström, Adam “friberg” Friberg, and Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund. 1pv goes on to state that f0rest himself decided to part …
Everything you need to know about CSGO betting markets
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Betting is woven into the fabric of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s fanbase. For years, the game had a massive and vibrant betting industry that revolved around in-game cosmetic items. Players could freely wager their skins through various third-party sites with few limitations. The questionable ethics and legality of the practice eventually resulted in multiple lawsuits, an FTC investigation, and a crackdown from CSGO publisher Valve that largely killed skin betting. Despite …
mOE trolls Wardell on stream with fake Vertigo run boost
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Vertigo has always been a controversial map, but nobody can deny that if offers some of the best run boost plays in all of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. During a pick-up game on Vertigo, Counter-Strike fixture Mohamad “m0E” Assad managed to get Matthew “Wardell” Yu to fall for the oldest trick in the book. Literally. After convincing Wardell that it was possible to runboost from B site to T spawn, Wardell took …
GG.Bet ICE Challenge sees mousesports, Na`Vi as early favorites
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
The list of teams and tournament format for the GG.Bet Ice Challenge 2020 have been revealed. The eight competitors will travel to London in February to compete for their slice of the tournament’s $250,000 prize pool. Both Natus Vincere and mousesports are the favorites to take home the $125,000 first-place prize. While they are the strongest teams on paper, OG will attend their second tournament ever at the ICE Challenge, …
Chaos EC release Infinite before IEM Katowice 2020 qualifiers
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Gage “Infinite” Green has been benched from the active roster of Chaos Esports Club. The organization benched Infinite just days ahead of the IEM Katowice 2020 North American closed qualifier. The North American esports organization made the announcement on its official Twitter account while also announcing that the team would be relocating to Arizona. Infinite joined Chaos EC exactly year ago, on January 3, 2019. In an official statement from …
Vanity officially leaves eUnited after months on team’s bench
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Anthony “vanity” Malaspina has announced that he is no longer a part of the eUnited organization. The North American player was benched by eUnited on November 10 in favor of a returning Kaleb “moose” Jayne. Vanity joined eUnited in February 2019 and functioned as the team’s in-game leader during his time with the organization. His benching came after a string of poor results dating back to July 2019. During that …
Sprout adds oskar ahead of DreamHack Open Leipzig, lacks fifth
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Czech AWPer Tomáš “oskar” Šťastný has officially signed with the Sprout Counter-Strike: Global Offensive organization following the departure of Spout’s Florian “syrsoN” Rische and Nils “k1to” Gruhne to German CSGO organization BIG. Almost as soon as rumors indicating that BIG was scouting the two Sprout players, speculation surfaced that Sprout had pegged free agent AWPer and ex-mousesports star oskar as a potential replacement for srysoN as the team’s primary AWPer. Those rumors were …
Ninjas in Pyjamas undergo big 2020 changes with new COO and HQ
Olivia Richman
Counter-Strike
Ninjas in Pyjamas is undergoing a lot of change coming into 2020. The Swedish esports organization hired a new chief operating officer, Jonas Gundersen. The former Counter-Strike 1.6 pro, who played under the name “calc,” will will be NiP’s go-to for esports operations and revenue. Before joining the popular CSGO org, Gundersen served as the chief commercial officer for North. “I think Ninjas in Pyjamas is arguably one of the most …
Streamer Summit1g wins “Worst Play of the Decade” for CSGO
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Jaryd “Summit 1g” Lazar now has an unfortunate award to add to his successful streaming career. A Twitter poll posted by ESL production staff member Don Constantin awarded streamer Summit 1g the top spot for CSGO’s “Worst Play of the Decade” for his infamous gaffe against CLG while playing for Splyce. At DreamHack Austin 2016, professional streamer Summit 1g was playing for Splyce against CLG on Train in an early matchup. With …
Counter-Strike has long been among the biggest titles in esports and competitive gaming, even going back to esports’ deepest roots from decades past. What’s more, the game continues going strong today, with developer and publisher Valve releasing the latest iteration of the franchise in 2023. The newest version, Counter-Strike 2, has not been without its issues. But its popularity continues the enduring prominence of the Counter-Strike series, signaling that the venerated franchise is likely here to stay for many years yet to come.
But how did the franchise come be to so prominent in the esports space, and role does CS2 have to play in the industry moving forward?
Counter-Strike has roots in the beginnings of esports
Counter-Strike was unquestionably one of the biggest drivers of what we would today consider to be early professional esports movement. It was far from alone, and it wasn’t the most advanced. That likely was StarCraft: Brood War, a real-time strategy game from famed developer Blizzard that caught on in South Korea and led to a professional scene in the country well ahead of any examples of esports industry elsewhere in the world.
But outside of Korea, Counter-Strike quickly became the driving force behind competitive gaming and esports. First released in 1999 as a modification for popular first-person shooter Half-Life, the game was easy to pick up and play for many gamers. Half-Life was borderline ubiquitous software for gamers with a PC, and adding a mod to it was as simple as downloading and applying said mod. So it was that Counter-Strike began to catch fire and spread across the world.
As it spread, so too did its competitive play. Early competitions often centered around online play, most prominently including the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL) in North America and the Clanbase Eurocup in Europe. But live, in-person tournaments, similar to those enjoyed by StarCraft players and fans in Korea, were also rising in prominence.
Within just a few years, there were a number of major annual tournaments being held for the original version of Counter-Strike. Notable international tournament organizers included the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) in the United States, the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) in France, and the World Cyber Games (WCG) in Korea. This was in addition to many other regional tournaments through which teams could test their mettle and battle over smaller prizes.
But even at bigger tournaments, prizes weren’t what they are today, and in general there was far less money available to professional Counter-Strike players than there is in today’s thriving esports industry which sees many players and teams playing at the full-time pro level. That’s a far cry from a time when perhaps a small handful of players were able to make a true living through playing CS alone, and even them, it was often a modest one.
Counter-Strike 2 at the fore of a bigger esports scene than ever before
Counter-Strike 2 was released to a far different esports space than that which the original Counter-Strike occupied. But what exactly is it that has changed the scene so much, besides the accrual of years?
Esports betting is at the top of the list. The sports betting industry is growing and expanding around the world each and every year, and esports has absolutely been a part of that. As esports betting continues to grow and thrive, it brings its benefits to the games that are being bet on. And Counter-Strike 2 is at the top of that list.
These benefits have arrived through a myriad of means. Fan interest in tournaments has gone up and become more consistent with betting markets available for each and every game played, which further incentivizes tournament organizers and their sponsoring partners. But those partners are also now more likely to work with the pro teams and players themselves. Betting operators are among the most common and most generous sponsors in the pro CS2 space, showing how esports betting’s rise has contributed to Counter-Strike’s continued prominence in esports and competitive gaming as a whole.
