NiKo calls out Valorant for being easy, stealing CSGO players

Legendary Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional player Nicola “NiKo” Kovac isn’t a big fan of Valorant. 

The Valorant Champions Tour event in Iceland is Valorant’s biggest and most anticipated event so far. It’s also the first LAN event for Riot’s shooter, which has managed to garner a peak concurrent viewership of 750,000 during a game between Team Liquid and Version1. Even if you’re not following the matches closely, the social media fanfare is too much to ignore. And G2 Esports CSGO player NiKo is tired of seeing tweets about Valorant on his timeline. 

NiKo is one of CSGO’s most gifted players, so his opinion certainly carries a lot of weight among fans. While many other CSGO players have remained neutral or silent about the game’s player exodus due to Valorant, NiKo isn’t holding back. He’s clearly not a Riot Games shooter fan due to the damage it has done to CSGO’s pro scene, specifically in North America. 

Is Valorant hurting CSGO?

While Valorant has contributed to the overall esports scene in a just short time, dedicated CSGO players aren’t particularly pleased about it. Riot Games’ shooter’s immense popularity comes at the expense of CSGO’s player base, and NiKo has finally expressed his thoughts publicly. 

The pro player said that he doesn’t like the tweets about Valorant flooding on his timeline. NiKo is a prominent CSGO personality, so his comment caught the eye of Valorant’s official Twitter account which responded with a cocky Mickey Mouse GIF.

NiKo wasn’t having any of it. The pro player called out Valorant for stealing CSGO’s player base by creating a similar game with a shallow learning curve. 

His response blew up among both CSGO and Valorant players who love to compare the two games. Michael “shroud” Grzesiek recent statement regarding the low difficulty in CSGO was also brought back into the conversation after NiKo labelled Valorant as the easier FPS game.

• shroud says CSGO is easier than Valorant during live stream

After his tweet also received severe backlash from Valorant players, he muted the accounts. Considering his responses, it’s evident that he doesn’t plan to make the big switch from CSGO to Valorant any time soon. While his sentiments for Valorant are comforting for CSGO fans, anything remains possible. CSGO pro players like Ricky “floppy” Kemery have previously expressed their dislike for Riot’s shooter before changing their mind and joining Cloud9’s Valorant roster.