I don't know who will win but I hope these will be C9.
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Counter Strike: Global Offensive
- Thread starter aVocado
- Start date
I was wrong. Astralis is back
If anyone who hasn't watched CS:GO at a pro level wants to start watching, then now is the perfect opportunity, because the finals of Blast Premier start today.
Blast Premier Fall 2020 Finals (click on this to see an overview and to see the match times)
CS:GO is a very approachable e-sport, unlike LoL or Overwatch. It can be summarized like this: Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists need to shoot each other, Terrorists need to plant a bomb and wait for it to blow up, and Counter-Terrorists need to defuse the bomb before it blows up. (also CS:GO is free now, check it out)
The reason this event is so great is because the teams participating are insanely good (and I think the commentators for the matches will be pretty solid too) - in fact, all 8 teams participating are in the global top 9.
Here they are:
Vitality - #1 team in the world - a bunch of good French players, and their AWP player (a player dedicated to using a high risk high reward one shot kill sniper rifle) was the single best pro CS:GO player in the world last year.
Astralis - #2 team in the world - a team of Danish players who have incredible team-play, coordination, and knowledge of the game, and who are also the winners of the most recent large online tournament.
Na'Vi - #4 team in the world - a team of 4 Russians led by a very aggressive Ukrainian AWP player who is arguably the GOAT of CS:GO
BIG - #5 team in the world - 4 Germans and a Turkish guy, unfortunately I can't comment on much here because I only got back into the pro scene recently
OG - #6 team in the world - a wide array of different nationalities, and an even wider array of backgrounds, with some being relatively new to high level play and some playing professionally even during prior games in the Counter-Strike series
FURIA - #7 team in the world - a young Brazilian team who came out of nowhere to dethrone the previous kings of Brazil, these guys are very fun to watch
Mousesports - #8 team in the world - a grab bag of nationalities, led by an insanely good Estonian player called Ropz and a French player called ChrisJ, these are the guys who came in second in the most recent online tournament (behind Astralis)
G2 - #9 team in the world - a mix of French and Eastern European players, these guys are all truly unbelievably good at FPS aim
Blast Premier Fall 2020 Finals (click on this to see an overview and to see the match times)
CS:GO is a very approachable e-sport, unlike LoL or Overwatch. It can be summarized like this: Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists need to shoot each other, Terrorists need to plant a bomb and wait for it to blow up, and Counter-Terrorists need to defuse the bomb before it blows up. (also CS:GO is free now, check it out)
The reason this event is so great is because the teams participating are insanely good (and I think the commentators for the matches will be pretty solid too) - in fact, all 8 teams participating are in the global top 9.
Here they are:
Vitality - #1 team in the world - a bunch of good French players, and their AWP player (a player dedicated to using a high risk high reward one shot kill sniper rifle) was the single best pro CS:GO player in the world last year.
Astralis - #2 team in the world - a team of Danish players who have incredible team-play, coordination, and knowledge of the game, and who are also the winners of the most recent large online tournament.
Na'Vi - #4 team in the world - a team of 4 Russians led by a very aggressive Ukrainian AWP player who is arguably the GOAT of CS:GO
BIG - #5 team in the world - 4 Germans and a Turkish guy, unfortunately I can't comment on much here because I only got back into the pro scene recently
OG - #6 team in the world - a wide array of different nationalities, and an even wider array of backgrounds, with some being relatively new to high level play and some playing professionally even during prior games in the Counter-Strike series
FURIA - #7 team in the world - a young Brazilian team who came out of nowhere to dethrone the previous kings of Brazil, these guys are very fun to watch
Mousesports - #8 team in the world - a grab bag of nationalities, led by an insanely good Estonian player called Ropz and a French player called ChrisJ, these are the guys who came in second in the most recent online tournament (behind Astralis)
G2 - #9 team in the world - a mix of French and Eastern European players, these guys are all truly unbelievably good at FPS aim
What makes vitality the #1 team? When i used to watch/play (which is maybe 2015-2017) TSM was by far the best until the roster left and made Astralis and continued being the best for as long as I watched. I remember watching a lot of tournaments at that time and still remember most the players/teams that left an impression, and none of the names on Vitality are ringing a bell
maybe i’ll answer my own question if i see the finals but I won’t have time to watch much
edit: actually just saw the other rosters and besides maybe 3 or 4 players i dont recognize anyone, either my memory’s hard failing me or theres a lot of new blood lol
ZyWOo.What makes vitality the #1 team? When i used to watch/play (which is maybe 2015-2017) TSM was by far the best until the roster left and made Astralis and continued being the best for as long as I watched. I remember watching a lot of tournaments at that time and still remember most the players/teams that left an impression, and none of the names on Vitality are ringing a bell
maybe i’ll answer my own question if i see the finals but I won’t have time to watch much
edit: actually just saw the other rosters and besides maybe 3 or 4 players i dont recognize anyone, either my memory’s hard failing me or theres a lot of new blood lol
2 people other than me replied to this thread let's go
As to why I would personally agree with HLTV's mystical numerical ranking: The main reason is ZywOo (frags from just 2020). He's insane. When all 5 enemies die to one taps 45 seconds into the round there's not really much to talk about. The secondary reason is the team. All 5 other guys (6 man roster) don't always get >1.0 ratings, but they can hold their own enough to allow ZywOo to do his thing. That's the difference between ZywOo's situation and the situation of a lot of other great players who are stuck on terrible teams.
As to way Astralis isn't top - CSGO team owners suck. There was a huge controversy about Astralis management overworking their guys, and the players actually had to bring in legal assistance to get management to give them time off of playing. You can read more about that here, but the breakdown is:
Xyp9X and gla1ve both took medical breaks for stress and burnout in May 2020, and were replaced with es3tag and JUGi. This was obviously a huge hit for the team, and this modified roster lasted until October. As of December 2020, they're running a 6 man roster with the original 5 and a player called Bubzkji. After such a long time without playing, they're not as good as they were before, so now Astralis is just working on returning to form. Fortunately, they seem to be doing this very quickly.
Two other things of note:
- 6 man rosters are being tried out by Vitality and Astralis. I don't know if this will work, but it could revolutionize pro CS:GO
- CSGO team owners really do suck. People are turning the whole CS:GO scene into just a cash grab. This Reddit thread will explain more
All of my rankings in that post came from the HLTV World Ranking. HLTV is the Smogon of CS:GO, and they have a pretty reliable statistics-based way to rank CS:GO teams. I don't know too much about the way this numerical system works, but on this page you can see the events/tournaments that influenced Vitality's ranking.
As to why I would personally agree with HLTV's mystical numerical ranking: The main reason is ZywOo (frags from just 2020). He's insane. When all 5 enemies die to one taps 45 seconds into the round there's not really much to talk about. The secondary reason is the team. All 5 other guys (6 man roster) don't always get >1.0 ratings, but they can hold their own enough to allow ZywOo to do his thing. That's the difference between ZywOo's situation and the situation of a lot of other great players who are stuck on terrible teams.
As to way Astralis isn't top - CSGO team owners suck. There was a huge controversy about Astralis management overworking their guys, and the players actually had to bring in legal assistance to get management to give them time off of playing. You can read more about that here, but the breakdown is:
Xyp9X and gla1ve both took medical breaks for stress and burnout in May 2020, and were replaced with es3tag and JUGi. This was obviously a huge hit for the team, and this modified roster lasted until October. As of December 2020, they're running a 6 man roster with the original 5 and a player called Bubzkji. After such a long time without playing, they're not as good as they were before, so now Astralis is just working on returning to form. Fortunately, they seem to be doing this very quickly.
Two other things of note:
- 6 man rosters are being tried out by Vitality and Astralis. I don't know if this will work, but it could revolutionize pro CS:GO
- CSGO team owners really do suck. People are turning the whole CS:GO scene into just a cash grab. This Reddit thread will explain more
That video is insane LOL, googled him and he’s a 2000 kid man those kids are built different, doesn’t surprise me that the best player in csgo is 20. But still didn’t think this game would get too many new players on a pro level
also i didnt know i was the one who started this thread until i went back to the first page and man i sure came a long way, been 5 years too so it’s time for another existential crisis i guess
also i didnt know i was the one who started this thread until i went back to the first page and man i sure came a long way, been 5 years too so it’s time for another existential crisis i guess
pro CS:GO is kind of crazy with the ages. both Ropz and Stewie2k were 18 when they started playing pro. And ZywOo actually could have started earlier, he just denied offers from pro teams until he got his highschool diploma...
also you did start this thread haha. counter strike is great because it's always the same game at its core, even if so much has changed
About half the time lmao
Anti climatic as fuck
Twistzz is back though
Twistzz is back though
As a Gambit fan, gotta say I really liked their win over Astralis today in ESL Pro League- I didn't really expect such a one sided result tbh