Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
WINNERS League Season 3 Playoff brackets revealed
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
Breaking down all of Shattered Web’s Week 7 Missions, Challenges
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
BIG adds k1to and syrsoN, releases smooya and LEGIJA, benches nex
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
The beginner’s guide to setting up autoexec files in CSGO
M Alzamora
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 …
Counter-Strike
Fnatic CEO and CSGO coach are not happy with BLAST Premier snub
M Alzamora
Fnatic CEO Sam Matters expressed disappointment and frustration that Fnatic wasn’t offered a spot in the upcoming BLAST Premier circuit today on Twitter. Fnatic’s lack of an invite is curious, considering the team is currently ranked number three in the world. When BLAST Entertainment released the list of participating teams, many wondered why new and unproven lineups were included in BLAST Premier in the place of teams like Fnatic and …
Counter-Strike
Tips and tricks for CSGO’s Week 6 Challenge, Guardian Missions
M Alzamora
Shattered Web’s week six is finally here, meaning that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players are more than a third of the way through the latest operation. Valve hasn’t yet released anything else as groundbreaking as CSGO’s selectable player skins, but this week brings fans two Guardian Missions that add some heat to the fire of a bland week five. In the operation’s sixth week, players will fight through a deathmatch on …
Counter-Strike
Week 6 Shattered Web live after Valve mixes up operation cards
M Alzamora
Week six of Operation Shattered Web has arrived in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but Valve made a bit of a mistake. Don’t worry, the client isn’t broken. The game’s publisher just mistakenly announced that Christmas Eve marked the start of week seven of the event, rather than six. This resulted in someone at the company posting the wrong picture and description for the CSGO operation’s sixth week. Despite the hiccup, Operation …
Counter-Strike
EG ImAPet says BnTeT’s visa issues would’ve taken “a year” to fix
M Alzamora
While Gen.G has officially completed its first Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster with the addition of Hansel “BnTeT” Ferdinand, there’s one more hurdle to clear. The move confirmed a month’s worth of rumors that Gen.G was targeting Chinese CSGO organization TYLOO’s BnTeT for its fifth and final roster spot on its first CSGO roster. The organization officially announced the move on December 22 and made the announcement welcoming BnTeT in a tweet …
Syrson leaves Sprout, likely to join all-German BIG roster
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Florian “syrsoN” Rische is no longer affiliated with the Sprout organization or its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster. The organization announced the news on December 22. “Goodbye, syrsoN. He has proven himself as an exceptional talent and it was a pleasure having him,” the organization said on Twitter. “We thank you Rische, for the energy and effort you put in the team. Even though we are sure your journey isn’t over yet, …
Vitality win EPICENTER 2019, defeat Mousesports in finals
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
The EPICENTER 2019 grand final between Team Vitality and mousesports was close as can be but in the end, the French side came out on top to win their first tournament since June. The veto went predictably, with Inferno, Mirage, and Nuke ending up as the series’ maps. Vitality chose Inferno, a smart counterpick considering mousesports has a mediocre 63% win percentage on the map. In turn, mousesports played to their own …
Sprout eyes AWPer Oskar as syrsoN replacement, report says
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
German esports organization Sprout is reportedly in talks with ex-mousesports AWPer Tomáš “oskar” Šťastný to join their CSGO roster. The AWPer most recently competed for HellRaisers before being benched in September. He officially split from the organization and became a free agent in October. Per DBLTAP’s Jarek Lewis, oskar is being looked at to potentially fill the AWP role that might be opened up by the departure of Florian “syrsoN” Rische. SyrsoN …
Vitality, mousesports favorites for EPICENTER grand finals
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Tomorrow in Moscow, Team Vitality and Heroic will go head to head. This is followed by mousesports taking on Evil Geniuses. Both matches will determine the contestants in the EPICENTER 2019 grand finals. The matchups are intriguing on their own merits. Team Vitality hasn’t played in a tournament since November’s IEM Beijing, placing fourth. In theory, that sounds like a decent result. In reality, beating out TYLOO, ViCi Gaming, and ENCE …
Brehze’s visa issues at EPICENTER shows CSGO schedule problems
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Visa issues are nothing new for professional esports, standing as a constant irritation for tournament organizers and organizations alike as they try and keep up with the hectic, global competitive schedule. But in the span of just two weeks, irritation has given way to absurdity as CSGO has seen major competitors forced to use stand-ins for large tournaments. Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte of Evil Geniuses was forced to miss two matches …
CSGO update changes operation cards, adds Agent sleeves
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Today’s CSGO update made a few changes to the Operation Shattered Web mission cards, as well as changing some of the operator’s first-person sleeves. First, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team focused on Jungle for this week’s patch, making some optimizations and fixing some bugs around the Danger Zone map. Luckily, they also found and fixed an area of the map where players could fall through, meaning that Jungle is a …
BLAST Premier groups draw, schedule, and format revealed
M Alzamora
News
After a live drawing on the BLAST Entertainment Twitch channel, fans now have a breakdown of the groups that BLAST Premier will use throughout the spring series. As of now, fans only know one part of the format. Unlike previous BLAST events, all matches in BLAST Premier will be played as best-of-threes. Group A Team Liquid FaZe Clan MiBR Ninjas in Pyjamas Group B Astralis Natus Vincere Team Vitality Complexity …
ENCE’s allu ends a pro CSGO game by cratering on the map
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Moviestar Riders upset ENCE in the Champion Cup Finals yesterday off the back of a ridiculous mistake from Aleksi “allu” Jalli. On Moviestar Riders’ match point, veteran player allu made a rookie mistake while rotating off Overpass’ A bombsite towards B. allu took the shortcut from dumpster to stairs, falling just a little too far and cratering from the fall damage. His death gave Moviestar Riders the game. Granted, it …
Everything you need to know about skin betting in CSGO
Steven Rondina
Counter-Strike
Anyone that has been around Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for any length of time has probably heard about skin betting at one point or another. The practice was wildly popular during the formative days of CSGO’s pro scene and helped the game reach the heights it enjoys today. But in 2019, skin betting isn’t really talked about much anymore. While skins are still a big part of playing the game courtesy …
Explaining the complex system behind the ESL Pro Tour
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
2020 is set to see more leagues and tournaments in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive than ever before, and the ESL Pro Tour is just one pf tjpse that is trying to tie them all together. The ESL Pro Tour is a tournament circuit partnership between ESL and Dreamhack that has tied the two tournament organizers events together. Announced in September 2019, the EPT is technically already underway. Here’s how the ESL …
Use these hot tips for CSGO’s Week 5 Shattered Web missions
M Alzamora
Counter-Strike
Shattered Web’s Week 5 missions arrived last night and all of them are relatively simple to complete. There are still some quick tips that can help players finish them up, and some of them require some time investment, especially “Take the Long Way Home.” There are a few fun ones this week as well, like “Stop and Smell the Roses,” which turns Dust 2 into a Negev playground. “Feed the …
BLAST Premiere, B Site are first steps to exclusive CSGO leagues
M Alzamora
News
News has been swirling regarding two Counter-Strike: Global Offensive leagues that seem poised to shake up the entire professional scene. BLAST Entertainment announced BLAST Premier, a 12-team tournament circuit with a structure similar to League of Legends. It includes two splits where pre-selected teams accrue points to make it to a World Final. In addition, the winners of both ESL One Rio and the unannounced Fall 2020 Major will be …
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.
