Women’s CS2 is in trouble, and zana explains why

Women’s leagues in CS2 have taken a major downturn with the loss of several major sponsors, and BIG Equipa’s Ana “Zana” Queiroz has a theory as to why.

Women’s Counter-Strike has always been seen as second banana to the main league. Tournaments like those in the ESL Impact Circuit fail to earn the same reach as men’s tier-two events. As a result, multiple women’s CS2 sponsors have exited the scene leaving the players to continue unsupported or quit the competitive grind entirely. ENCE, Team Spirit, and TSM have all canceled their efforts in the field.

Fed up with the decline, BIG Equipa’s AWPer took to social media to clarify why the women’s scene has yet to reach its full potential.

Zana claims toxicity is preventing women from playing CS2

Zana’s core complaints come down to toxicity creating few health spaces for women to developer their CS2 skills.

In the statement posted to social media, Zana explains that women in the competitive scene understand that they would have a difficult time playing against lower-rated men’s teams and attributes it to the talent pool. She elaborates that there are very few women even willing to play Counter-Strike 2, and the few who are can be driven off by men’s negative behavior.

“How could we be, when we have a few hundred girls playing FACEIT vs tens of thousands of men grinding pugs even BEFORE hitting level 10?” said Zana.

She then claims that FACEIT is really the only safe space for women in the esport, citing the CS2 matchmaking platform’s efforts to halt sexism. However, the current matchmaking pipeline involves grinding Valve matchmaking before moving to FACEIT. Sexism in official servers is often overlooked or lightly punished. Zana believes this contributes to why there are so few women at the top level of the game.

Are CS2 esports separated by men and women?

While there are multiple CS2 circuits limited to women, the primary esports circuit is open to both women and men.

There is no clause in any major CS2 ruleset that excludes women from competition. This is true for all top-level tournament hosts ranging from ESL to BLAST to the Esports World Cup. However, it is very rare to see a woman competing at the top level of play, and every player in HLTV’s current top team rankings is male.

That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been influential women in the esports. American rifler Brianna “Masq” Becker played in several top-tier stacks alongside men in regional North American CSGO events. Imperial Female’s Ana “ANa” Dumbravă often draws attention due to her skills with the AWP. Zana herself is also quite established. CS2 also has multiple women in desk and analysis roles such as Frankie Ward and Freya Spiers. Still, in the top competitive scene, players are familiar with far more men than women.