Counter-Strike
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 …
Counter-Strike
Pita out, THREAT in as NiP head coach as f0rest rumored to leave
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
Cloud9 signs ATK roster ahead of DreamHack Leipzig, WINNERS League
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
mOE trolls Wardell on stream with fake Vertigo run boost
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
GG.Bet ICE Challenge sees mousesports, Na`Vi as early favorites
M Alzamora
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, …
Counter-Strike
Chaos EC release Infinite before IEM Katowice 2020 qualifiers
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
Vanity officially leaves eUnited after months on team’s bench
M Alzamora
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 …
These are the most expensive skins you’ll find in all of CSGO
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Skins are a part of almost every online title. Games like League of Legends, Fortnite, and Overwatch all look to retain users and incentivize them to drop a bit of extra cash using fun and interesting cosmetic items. But none of them have skins as tightly woven into the community as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. CSGO players relish the opportunity to show off their items to teammates and the enormous trading …
Shattered Web Week 7 tips to beat new Guardian AI, challenges
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Shattered Web’s week seven ups the difficulty from the previous weeks, focusing on two fairly tough Guardian missions and a technical headshot challenge on Dust 2. Despite how overwhelming the Dust 2 challenge seems, many players have come out the other side saying they feel like they’ve improved after completing it. Here are tips and tricks for each one of Shattered Web’s week seven challenges followed by the best strategies …
Envy bench ANDROID, leaving three active players on the roster
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Team Envy continued its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive purge today with the benching of Bradley “ANDROID” Fodor from its active roster. Formerly known as Team EnVyUs, Envy has benched Bradley “ANDROID” Fodor, according to a tweet from the organization’s official Twitter account. The team said that it will field offers for the 25-year-old rifler, but the decision leaves Team Envy with only three players on their active roster: Noah “Nifty” Francis Jacob …
WINNERS League Season 3 Playoff brackets revealed
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
After seven weeks of intense matches, WINNERS League Season 3’s playoffs are about to begin. WINNERS League Season 3 will ring in the new year with the playoffs for both the European and North American Invite Divisions. The European playoffs will begin on Sunday, January 12 while their counterparts across the Atlantic start a day prior on January 11. The WINNERS League playoff teams have faced a long road to …
Breaking down all of Shattered Web’s Week 7 Missions, Challenges
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Valve released Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s week seven “Hot Shot” missions, but no new patch was applied to the first-person shooter. Shattered Web kicks off 2020 with week seven of the Shattered Web Operation, bringing new Guardian missions and challenges to CSGO. There’s a list of them below, plus an inside look at how CSGO’s updated enemy bot AI might make Guardian missions a little harder from now on. Pace Yourself …
BIG adds k1to and syrsoN, releases smooya and LEGIJA, benches nex
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
BIG Clan announced the departures of two members of its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster and confirmed the signing of two players from Sprout. In an official statement, the German organization announced the acquisitions of Florian “syrsoN” Rische and Nils “k1to” Gruhne. The transfer is accompanied by the releases of Owen “smooya” Butterfield and coach Nikola “LEGIJA” Ninić. Alongisde this, Johannes “nex” Maget was deactivated to make room for the two new …
The beginner’s guide to setting up autoexec files in CSGO
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most customizable titles in modern gaming, even at eight years old. At the heart of that customization is the autoexec.cfg file. An autoexec can do basic things, like making sure that all of a player’s settings are saved. Every time Counter-Strike starts, it reads a file called config.cfg. This configuration file tells the game what settings to load. If the in-game settings don’t match …
s1mple’s rating has plummeted since GuardiaN returned to Na`Vi
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Natus Vincere star Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev hasn’t been himself since the team’s wayward AWPer, Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács, returned to the team. Something odd is going on with Na`Vi, and its more than the usual early tournament exits and the team’s signature inability to make it to a grand final. s1mple, inarguably one of the best players in the world, has started to see a sharp drop in rating following the addition GuardiaN …
CSGO has just broken another record for highest number of players
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive broke another record this month as it logged over 450,000 average players for the month of December. Valve’s first-person shooter continued its comeback as the world’s most popular tactical shooter this month, cracking the 450,000 average player mark over the month of December. CSGO smashed its previous average player count by more than 35,000. That record was initially set in August 2019. Players have logged over 330 …
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.
