CSGO legends weigh in on Counter-Strike 2 after its first major tournament Helena Kristiansson\/ESLAt IEM Sydney, the world got its first taste of Counter-Strike 2 played at the top level. Players told us that it\u2019s a good game that still needs a lot of work, but a new meta is breathing life into the game. In the world of esports, most scenes are at the whims of its publisher when it comes to developing new metas and strategies, and at times, even a shift into a completely new game. Scenes like the Call of Duty League are used to this with Activision\u2019s yearly release cycle. But Valve\u2019s premier FPS esports title, Counter-Strike, is not that. CSGO has a reputation for staying largely the same, which was why so many pros were able to transition from CS 1.6 and Source to CSGO so seamlessly in its early days. And it\u2019s also why so many pros have stayed in the scene for so long because the early days of CSGO back in 2012 are largely still the same game until its eventual replacement in Counter-Strike 2. When Counter-Strike 2 was eventually fully released on September 27, 2023, in the middle of its esports season, it meant the upcoming Premier tournament, IEM Sydney, would be host to the game\u2019s very first major tournament. So we talked to many of CSGO\u2019s legendary and upcoming players at IEM Sydney to get a look at what pros really think of CS2 at its first major LAN event. Counter-Strike 2 is a good game that\u2019s still a work in progress IEM Sydney was right in the middle of CS2\u2019s first month of release and swirling right before and in the middle of the event was the amount of bugs which the game has been inundated with. However, the tournament wasn\u2019t as bug-filled as many people thought it was, with practically no egregious problems showing. Many players told us that initially, they were skeptical of CS2, but once they experienced it on LAN, without much of the game\u2019s online subtick issues, they were sold on the game. As MOUZ\u2019s \u00c1d\u00e1m \u201ctorzsi\u201d Torzs\u00e1s said, \u201cIn the beginning, I was really anti about [Counter-Strike 2], I didn\u2019t really like it. But to be honest, I have to say that on LAN it feels better.\u201d But as he admits, CS2 is still not up to par with its predecessor. He emphasizes that it feels better on LAN rather than playing online with zero ping, however, he still takes issue with CS2\u2019s various problems; from peekers advantage, the lack of 128 tick servers, the small difference in spray patterns, movements, and the switch to MR12. Complexity\u2019s Jonathan \u201cEliGE\u201d Jablonowski was more critical of the game\u2019s problems, despite actually enjoying the game on LAN. \u201cI\u2019m not happy with how the state of the game is right now, but I\u2019m not a doomer,\u201d he said of CS2\u2019s state of bugs and problems. \u201cIt\u2019s still the same game we love, but it\u2019s not as optimal as how we\u2019d have liked the release to go, but it\u2019s not like it\u2019s not going to get fixed.\u201d EliGE continues to explain, \u201cA lot of pros, myself included, we just see what we could have. We want the game to be as good as it can be, this is our lives. We want it to be good for everybody because if it\u2019s bad, that\u2019s obviously our lives and our jobs.\u201d Counter-Strike 2 new meta breathes a fresh new life into the game Metas in Counter-Strike rarely shift. Back in CSGO, only rifles (exclusively the AK-47, M4s, AWP, Galil, and FAMAS), pistols, and the odd SMG were used at the highest level of play. And for half a year in 2019, we briefly saw the \u201cKrieg\u201d meta come for a while. But very rarely do you see any other weapon used. However, IEM Sydney showed off that in CS2, a new game meant a fresh new meta, and that meant pros using a wide variety of guns in the tournament. Pros were using rarely seen guns such as the Nova, XM1014, MAG-7, P-90, and MP5 at a surprising rate. Even when they weren\u2019t using SMGs or Shotguns on ecos and half-buys, there were still variations in the rifles used, with some preferring the AUG and SG 553 in comparison to the M4s and AK-47s on full buys. And this, in our talks with the pros at IEM Sydney, was nothing if not a breath of fresh air to Counter-Strike\u2019s normally stale gun choices. When asked about the uptick in off-meta guns being used, BetBoom\u2019s Vladislav \u201cnafany\u201d Gorshkov revealed, \u201cWe try to use it as much as we can, for example, zorte is our primary P-90 player right now, so we don\u2019t an AWPer, but we have a P-90 player.\u201d Nafany continues to explain his excitement at the increase in the diversity of guns being used, \u201cIt\u2019s way better than it was in CSGO, because everyone\u2019s using different SMGs, different Shotguns, different rifles. I hope Valve buffs the Scar-20, and everyone will start using it as well.\u201d And even moving away from the guns, the new changes in the smokes, in which you can briefly dissipate one with a grenade, have also added a new twist to CS. As FaZe Clan\u2019s Finn \u201ckarrigan\u201d Andersen, fresh off winning IEM Sydney and the only player to win trophies in CS 1.6, CSGO, and CS2, said of IGL-ing in the new meta, \u201cI think it\u2019s a lot more different, there\u2019s a lot of variance and different ways the game can change so fast.\u201d He explains, \u201cEverytime you smoked, you think you\u2019re protected, but now the CTs can break you while you\u2019re walking out. Especially as a IGL, a lot of things is going down, and keeping track of grenades is hard.\u201d Karrigan also commented on how the new meta has affected the speed of rounds, saying, \u201cI think the reason why the game is so fast, is first of all the sound in front of the arena, but at the same time people just don\u2019t feel comfortable holding angles.\u201d So right now it\u2019s a trading game, it\u2019s not like a one for one trades, but trades happening all around the map.\u201d karrigan also pointed out that the economy has now shifted. \u201cYou have to really think about the economy. We try to balance it, we have some force buys, but that\u2019s just the way [FaZe] plays the game.\u201d However, he says as we move away from IEM Sydney, the meta will change as teams figure out the game for themselves. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s going to change over time, let\u2019s just see how Virtus Pro is playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CSGO legends weigh in on Counter-Strike 2 after its first major tournament Helena Kristiansson\/ESLAt IEM Sydney, the world got its first taste of Counter-Strike 2 played at the top level. Players told us that it\u2019s a good game that still needs a lot of work, but a new meta is breathing life into the game. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}