EPT
The Majors are where Legends are made. These Valve-sponsored premier tournaments are hosted by only the best organizers and feature the pinnacle of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive play. To date, there have been seven, with four different teams from three different countries crowned champion. The Swedes, the Poles, and the French all boast trophies. As of today, there are eight teams who have achieved Legend status for making it out of the group stage in the latest Major: EnVyUs, Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, Virtus.pro, Team SoloMid, and Luminosity Gaming.
Conspicuously missing from this list of accolades is a North American team. One needs only a cursory knowledge of the history of CS:GO to know that North America has failed repeatedly to field an elite team on the international stage. In the two years of the Majors’ existence, only a single core of NA players has ever made it out of groups; the team that Spencer ‘Hiko’ Martin, Sean ‘sgares’ Gares, Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert, and Kory ‘Semphis’ Friesen formed. They did it with Braxton ‘swag’ Pierce as their fifth as compLexity in DreamHack Winter 2013 and EMS One Katowice 2014. Later, they did it at ESL One Cologne 2014 as Cloud9 with Mike ‘shroud’ Grzesiek replacing swag after the latter had left the team. Since then, NA teams have repeatedly failed to make the quarterfinals.
One other NA team appeared with the coL/C9 line-up in the first four Majors: iBUYPOWER. Their failures at Majors was perhaps even more astounding than their NA brethren. Regarded as the more talented, better led team that always had the head-to-head edge, iBUYPOWER should have out-performed coL/C9. Yet in ESL One Cologne 2014 and Dreamhack Winter 2014, they faltered in the group stages and were unable to deliver, despite having picked up the highly-skilled swag after he left coL.
Conspicuously missing from this list of accolades is a North American team. One needs only a cursory knowledge of the history of CS:GO to know that North America has failed repeatedly to field an elite team on the international stage. In the two years of the Majors’ existence, only a single core of NA players has ever made it out of groups; the team that Spencer ‘Hiko’ Martin, Sean ‘sgares’ Gares, Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert, and Kory ‘Semphis’ Friesen formed. They did it with Braxton ‘swag’ Pierce as their fifth as compLexity in DreamHack Winter 2013 and EMS One Katowice 2014. Later, they did it at ESL One Cologne 2014 as Cloud9 with Mike ‘shroud’ Grzesiek replacing swag after the latter had left the team. Since then, NA teams have repeatedly failed to make the quarterfinals.
One other NA team appeared with the coL/C9 line-up in the first four Majors: iBUYPOWER. Their failures at Majors was perhaps even more astounding than their NA brethren. Regarded as the more talented, better led team that always had the head-to-head edge, iBUYPOWER should have out-performed coL/C9. Yet in ESL One Cologne 2014 and Dreamhack Winter 2014, they faltered in the group stages and were unable to deliver, despite having picked up the highly-skilled swag after he left coL.
Throughout 2015, NA has been floundering in international competition. The past three Majors have been utter failures for NA teams, despite the fact that more of them have qualified than ever before. Each of the top 3 teams (C9, CLG, TL) has shown some promise, but outside of an extraordinary run of form such as C9’s at the ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 LAN Finals, ESWC Montreal 2015 and FACEIT Stage 2 Finals, none of it has been lasting. It ultimately leaves us with the question: why has NA failed to form a true contender to win a major?
To truly comprehend NA’s struggles in the international context, one must understand the story of iBUYPOWER. This team was originally formed in late 2013 by Tyler ‘Skadoodle’ Latham, Kevin ‘AZK’ Lariviere, Sam ‘Dazed’ Marine, Eric ‘adreN’ Hoag and Todd ‘anger’ Williams. After Katowice 2014, they made an important roster change, bringing in Josh ‘steel’ Nissan and Braxton ‘swag’ Pierce to replace what the team saw as their weaker links. After reloading with arguably more skilled players, they had strong showings at both ESEA S16 and FACEIT S2 Lan Finals , winning the former and coming second to the best team in the world at the latter.
Yet outside of these two placings, the team historically did worse than compLexity/Cloud9 at almost every international event they both attended. Despite having better domestic success and an edge in the head-to-head, iBP never had a run like C9’s at ESL One Cologne 2014. Some would point to close matches and groups of death in a flawed Major tournament format as reasons why they never made it to the playoffs. Nonetheless, one has to question what went wrong. Did the team need a change?
Indeed, the team did make a roster change only weeks before DH Winter 2014. They kicked Dazed and steel and brought in two rising stars from NA with strong aim: Nick ‘nitr0’ Canella and Derek ‘desi’ Branchen. This iteration of iBP lost the decider to PENTA 16-13 and were knocked out. It did not take long for them to drop desi and add Dazed back, understanding that the lack of leadership likely cost them their chance at a Major success story. It was also around this time that Hiko left C9, citing motivational issues within the team.
It was during this period that NA fans really got their hopes up. Hiko joined up with the now former-iBP squad to form an NA superteam. The line-up of Dazed, swag, Hiko, Skadoodle, and AZK was indisputably the most talented set of players the region had ever put together. Dazed was widely regarded as the best in-game leader in NA, Ska the best AWPer, and either Hiko or swag as the best player, full stop. They began to shop around for a real sponsor to get paid, as iBP only provided travel stipends with no salary.
Unfortunately, this team’s potential will forever remain a mystery. Famously, the match-fixing scandal that shook NA CS:GO to its core took this team apart and left NA without many of its best players. The aftermath left steel, Dazed, swag, and AZK with indefinite bans from competing in Valve’s Majors. Other tournament organizers have followed suit in banning the players as well.
Post-ban, Hiko and Skadoodle tried to shop around for a new team as a pair, but were unable to find a fit for the both of them. Today, Hiko plays for Team Liquid and Ska for C9. Despite the bans, Swag is still so highly regarded that C9 had him under contract as an “analyst”, despite his lack of analytical experience. C9 later changed his official title to “streamer” when Valve released a statement stating their discontent for organizations having interactions with the banned players. The move is somewhat of a hope that one day Valve will reconsider the ban and NA will gain back one of its most talented players of all time.
What team could possibly step into the void left by this ban and provide results? Not only were these highly talented players, they also comprised a significant margin of the experience that NA had playing internationally, with Dazed and swag being on the original top NA CS:GO teams such as Area 51 and Team Dynamic, along with a plethora of other longstanding NA players still around in the top of the scene today. As 2015 has shown, the North American scene is still reeling from the impact of this blow.
Yet outside of these two placings, the team historically did worse than compLexity/Cloud9 at almost every international event they both attended. Despite having better domestic success and an edge in the head-to-head, iBP never had a run like C9’s at ESL One Cologne 2014. Some would point to close matches and groups of death in a flawed Major tournament format as reasons why they never made it to the playoffs. Nonetheless, one has to question what went wrong. Did the team need a change?
Indeed, the team did make a roster change only weeks before DH Winter 2014. They kicked Dazed and steel and brought in two rising stars from NA with strong aim: Nick ‘nitr0’ Canella and Derek ‘desi’ Branchen. This iteration of iBP lost the decider to PENTA 16-13 and were knocked out. It did not take long for them to drop desi and add Dazed back, understanding that the lack of leadership likely cost them their chance at a Major success story. It was also around this time that Hiko left C9, citing motivational issues within the team.
It was during this period that NA fans really got their hopes up. Hiko joined up with the now former-iBP squad to form an NA superteam. The line-up of Dazed, swag, Hiko, Skadoodle, and AZK was indisputably the most talented set of players the region had ever put together. Dazed was widely regarded as the best in-game leader in NA, Ska the best AWPer, and either Hiko or swag as the best player, full stop. They began to shop around for a real sponsor to get paid, as iBP only provided travel stipends with no salary.
Unfortunately, this team’s potential will forever remain a mystery. Famously, the match-fixing scandal that shook NA CS:GO to its core took this team apart and left NA without many of its best players. The aftermath left steel, Dazed, swag, and AZK with indefinite bans from competing in Valve’s Majors. Other tournament organizers have followed suit in banning the players as well.
Post-ban, Hiko and Skadoodle tried to shop around for a new team as a pair, but were unable to find a fit for the both of them. Today, Hiko plays for Team Liquid and Ska for C9. Despite the bans, Swag is still so highly regarded that C9 had him under contract as an “analyst”, despite his lack of analytical experience. C9 later changed his official title to “streamer” when Valve released a statement stating their discontent for organizations having interactions with the banned players. The move is somewhat of a hope that one day Valve will reconsider the ban and NA will gain back one of its most talented players of all time.
What team could possibly step into the void left by this ban and provide results? Not only were these highly talented players, they also comprised a significant margin of the experience that NA had playing internationally, with Dazed and swag being on the original top NA CS:GO teams such as Area 51 and Team Dynamic, along with a plethora of other longstanding NA players still around in the top of the scene today. As 2015 has shown, the North American scene is still reeling from the impact of this blow.
North American teams do not, as a rule, get a lot of international experience. European teams rarely travel to NA, and only a select few NA teams qualify for the big EU LANs worth the cost of traveling overseas and competing. This is one of the major factors in NA’s lack of results at LANs that feature international competition. EU teams have a decisive advantage in level of play, because they are constantly playing online against one another, honing their strategies and developing a robust metagame.
In NA, the only chance to gain similar experience is to play the absolute best NA teams that have some level of refinement. However, oftentimes these teams do not take league games against lesser teams seriously and are heavily anti-stratted even if they do. Ultimately, this leads to a Catch-22; to have international success, you need experience. However, to get the experience you must be on a top NA team, but to be on one of those teams you often need experience already because they only replace players to have immediate upgrades in results.
Thus, you have seen names like adreN, Semphis, seangares, Dazed, swag, Hiko, and n0thing since the earliest days of GO be on these teams with only a select few others getting the chance to join top NA teams and develop their talent. Recently, this has changed, to a degree, with teams like TL and CLG entering the scene and providing funds and developing rising talent. However, the current state of the game sees only three NA teams consistently playing against top-flight European teams. That’s simply not enough good practice for NA, as a region, to make large strides towards parity.
In NA, the only chance to gain similar experience is to play the absolute best NA teams that have some level of refinement. However, oftentimes these teams do not take league games against lesser teams seriously and are heavily anti-stratted even if they do. Ultimately, this leads to a Catch-22; to have international success, you need experience. However, to get the experience you must be on a top NA team, but to be on one of those teams you often need experience already because they only replace players to have immediate upgrades in results.
Thus, you have seen names like adreN, Semphis, seangares, Dazed, swag, Hiko, and n0thing since the earliest days of GO be on these teams with only a select few others getting the chance to join top NA teams and develop their talent. Recently, this has changed, to a degree, with teams like TL and CLG entering the scene and providing funds and developing rising talent. However, the current state of the game sees only three NA teams consistently playing against top-flight European teams. That’s simply not enough good practice for NA, as a region, to make large strides towards parity.
On the topic of practice, there is another problem with North America and how they learn to play the game, and it comes in the form of the most ubiquitous Pick-Up-Game service around: ESEA. It seems almost unnecessary to document the organization’s transgressions at this point; from Bitcoin mining, to effectively rootkitting your PC, and even making fun of disabled people for their own gain. [Author’s note: I still play on ESEA LOL]
The real issue is, however, that these past controversies are not even the reason ESEA is a problem. The real issue comes with the metric they use to measure a player’s contribution to the game: RWS, or Round Win Share. On its face, this metric does not seem all that bad. Players get points for contributing to a round win by doing damage or completing round-ending objectives like planting and defusing the bomb. However, it is not quite as perfect as it sounds, and it ultimately reinforces an individualistic mindset. RWS is looked upon by the community as a real indicator of skill, but is woefully flawed and biased towards certain styles of play.
Ultimately, ESEA’s system is churning out a bunch of relatively mindless players who chase frags but do not communicate well or strategize. This bleeds all the way into the top teams where players exist and get paid salaries, despite knowing little about the game beyond how to kill people. This can be frustrating to players that have a mind for strategy, as you must micro-manage every player on your team so that they follow the plan you have set out.
Sean obviously feels incredibly frustrated, as he speaks about how their team prepared and how his team played. Compared to their high water mark of the summer of 2015, they were less prepared, less aggressive, and in a worse mindset at the Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca Major. He speaks about repetitive mental errors and poor communication that have been issues within the team for a long time, leading one to believe that these players (some of the best in NA) are not improving in these areas and developing the team cohesion that is essential for top level play.
While every team certainly has their issues (as any random assortment of five people would), one would hope that players being paid salaries to compete in a video game would work to improve over time. Is it a motivational issue that holds these players back from achieving in CS:GO? They make large sums of money streaming and still manage to win the odd NA LAN, so perhaps the financial motivation of winning something like a Major just is not there. Without some sort of personal drive to achieve or other intrapersonal motivating factor, perhaps they do not have a reason to push themselves to improve.
The real issue is, however, that these past controversies are not even the reason ESEA is a problem. The real issue comes with the metric they use to measure a player’s contribution to the game: RWS, or Round Win Share. On its face, this metric does not seem all that bad. Players get points for contributing to a round win by doing damage or completing round-ending objectives like planting and defusing the bomb. However, it is not quite as perfect as it sounds, and it ultimately reinforces an individualistic mindset. RWS is looked upon by the community as a real indicator of skill, but is woefully flawed and biased towards certain styles of play.
- Not every round is equal. To any seasoned Counter-Strike player, this seems obvious. Because of the game’s economy system, not every round is an equal playing field between combatants. Killing opponents that do not have rifles or armor is much easier than getting frags against AKs and AWPs. Yet ESEA’s metric treats these as equal. All that matters is that you did damage and won the round. Treating all damage equally in round wins is misleading, as often the impact players that get key frags in important positions get rewarded less than the over-aggressive “primary” who just runs down mid and farms easy kills on eco rounds. {NiP’s Adam ‘friberg’ Friberg agrees}
- All rounds matter. Even in losing rounds, players can do things that help their team win the game. If someone gets a 4K but loses the round, ESEA’s RWS system treats it as if they did nothing. In reality, this player made 4 opponents rebuy weapons, armor, and grenades the next round, giving his team more of a chance to win future rounds by affecting the enemy’s economy. Again, a player having impact is not being rewarded by this metric, despite their obvious effect on the game. No round win exists in isolation.
- Strategy. If one has ever played on ESEA, they would know what the environment is like, strategically speaking. Entire 30 round games can go by with zero calls being made, no communication being had, and no teamplay being attempted. Players simply are not rewarded for even attempting cooperation outside of the nebulous idea that perhaps if they make this call now, their teammates can win the round they contributed towards and they will get RWS points for it. The only recourse for this mentality is giving a player minus karma after the game is over, which is a proverbial drop in the bucket given that many PUG players have hundreds of karma to lose before they experience any negative repercussions. It simply does not mean anything.
Ultimately, ESEA’s system is churning out a bunch of relatively mindless players who chase frags but do not communicate well or strategize. This bleeds all the way into the top teams where players exist and get paid salaries, despite knowing little about the game beyond how to kill people. This can be frustrating to players that have a mind for strategy, as you must micro-manage every player on your team so that they follow the plan you have set out.
Sean obviously feels incredibly frustrated, as he speaks about how their team prepared and how his team played. Compared to their high water mark of the summer of 2015, they were less prepared, less aggressive, and in a worse mindset at the Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca Major. He speaks about repetitive mental errors and poor communication that have been issues within the team for a long time, leading one to believe that these players (some of the best in NA) are not improving in these areas and developing the team cohesion that is essential for top level play.
While every team certainly has their issues (as any random assortment of five people would), one would hope that players being paid salaries to compete in a video game would work to improve over time. Is it a motivational issue that holds these players back from achieving in CS:GO? They make large sums of money streaming and still manage to win the odd NA LAN, so perhaps the financial motivation of winning something like a Major just is not there. Without some sort of personal drive to achieve or other intrapersonal motivating factor, perhaps they do not have a reason to push themselves to improve.
On the topic of team dynamic, there is another factor impeding NA development. In the past, even some of the more successful line-ups have succumbed to “toxic” team environments, and thereafter fallen apart or changed players. The original Area-51 line-up, with Semphis and Dazed, had in-fighting between Marine and Friesen, ultimately leading to the team dropping the latter. Dazed again had friction between himself and teammate steel in iBP, leading to the team dropping them both before eventually bringing Dazed back in.
C9, at one time, said that they preferred playing with each other because they were all friends, and would rather play with friends than be successful. Ironically, Hiko left that team even after giving a speech to Thorin on this subject. To this day, it seems that the personal feelings of the players dictate their roster decisions, as they have in the past.
These situations give one the impression that NA is populated by oversized egos incapable of working through disagreement in the name of professionalism. Hiko, in that same Reflections interview with Thorin, stated that the top players form their own ‘cliques’ and largely stick to them. If they do not like a player, they attempt to turn others against him and keep him out of top teams (see: Dazed’s vendetta against Shahzam post-ban).
The European scene sees relatively little infighting compared to this. Europe’s players are all much more professional and team-oriented both inside and out of the game. Perhaps some of it is a bit nationalistic, given that most countries have only one or two good teams, but the mindset of the players cannot be discounted. Even the French players Richard ‘shox’ Papillon and Kevin ‘Ex6tenZ’ Droolans put aside their past differences recently to team together again in a retooled Titan.
C9, at one time, said that they preferred playing with each other because they were all friends, and would rather play with friends than be successful. Ironically, Hiko left that team even after giving a speech to Thorin on this subject. To this day, it seems that the personal feelings of the players dictate their roster decisions, as they have in the past.
These situations give one the impression that NA is populated by oversized egos incapable of working through disagreement in the name of professionalism. Hiko, in that same Reflections interview with Thorin, stated that the top players form their own ‘cliques’ and largely stick to them. If they do not like a player, they attempt to turn others against him and keep him out of top teams (see: Dazed’s vendetta against Shahzam post-ban).
The European scene sees relatively little infighting compared to this. Europe’s players are all much more professional and team-oriented both inside and out of the game. Perhaps some of it is a bit nationalistic, given that most countries have only one or two good teams, but the mindset of the players cannot be discounted. Even the French players Richard ‘shox’ Papillon and Kevin ‘Ex6tenZ’ Droolans put aside their past differences recently to team together again in a retooled Titan.
One must wonder, then, what can North America do to change these systemic issues within the scene to reach greater heights than they have thus far? Some issues, such as the personality conflicts and player habits, cannot be readily patched up. Organizations would have to provide a personnel manager that can provide real conflict resolution to prevent prolonged infighting and team implosions. They would need to invest more in making sure their teams are actually practicing to improve by providing a coach worth his salt to train them. Some teams do this, but others have yet to provide real infrastructure to support their players. Think what iBP could have done with backing from an organization like Evil Geniuses! One could argue the match-fixing never would have occurred.
Wishful thinking aside, there are a few models for success that NA can look at to learn from and improve upon.
Wishful thinking aside, there are a few models for success that NA can look at to learn from and improve upon.
Luminosity Gaming is not a North American team, strictly speaking. The Brazilian side originally trained in their home country before making a splash as Kabum.TD and later as Keyd Stars in NA competitions. They made the move to the U.S. for the ESL ESEA Pro League, and now they have a team house. The team also has their own coach and Manager, along with a sister team that Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo is developing called Games Academy.
Despite arguably lower individual skill than many of its NA counterparts, this team has achieved success in the Majors it has attended, placing top 8 or better in all 3 that have occurred in 2015. Granted, they have yet to crack the semis, but the team is still regarded as a legitimate threat in any tournament it enters and often scores upsets against good European teams.
What can be taken away from this team? Obviously they have great infrastructure around them with both a coach and a manager to help them in NA. From their media, it also seems that the team owner, Steve “Buyaka” Maida, is involved in helping the team run well and genuinely roots for them at events. This sort of support, both financial and personal, is essential to their success as a team.
The impact of their sister team cannot be ignored, either. Koreans in Brood War succeeded for so long in part because they had highly skilled practice partners to play against on a regular basis. Even in League of Legends, this trend continued with sister teams often being rivals on an international scale such and CJ Entus Blaze and Frost. Gamers Academy may not be quite on the level of LG, but as shown in the recent RGN Pro Series LAN, they are around mid-level NA teams in skill.
Not only is it quite good practice, but FalleN also realizes the importance of developing talent. Not only do LG benefit from having a scrim partner, but GA also benefit from getting to play LG. Rarely do any NA players care about actually developing the scene beyond their own team, or even just themselves. The only org currently to have more than one team is CLG with their all-female CLG Red squad, and I doubt that they scrim their male colleagues all too often, given that CLG Red only participates in smaller LANs such as Fragadelphia, along with some online leagues.
Liquid is another example of an organization that is attempting to field a successful team despite NA’s pitfalls. They have invested in a dedicated coach since Day One, realizing the necessity to take some of the workload of analysis and tactical brainstorming off of the in-game leader. Their roster has undergone quite a change since it was originally announced as well, swapping out players on a frequent basis in an attempt to find a better fit and not hesitating to pick up rising talent such as Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski.
While this team has certainly had its highs and lows, it is currently on the upswing in the few LANs that have followed the Cluj-Napoca Major. The current roster of adreN, nitr0, Hiko, EliGE, and Jacob ‘FugLy’ Medina has only been together for a couple of months and they are showing some great performances from time to time, though these are admittedly undercut by periods of inexperience and inconsistency against high-level teams.
Despite arguably lower individual skill than many of its NA counterparts, this team has achieved success in the Majors it has attended, placing top 8 or better in all 3 that have occurred in 2015. Granted, they have yet to crack the semis, but the team is still regarded as a legitimate threat in any tournament it enters and often scores upsets against good European teams.
What can be taken away from this team? Obviously they have great infrastructure around them with both a coach and a manager to help them in NA. From their media, it also seems that the team owner, Steve “Buyaka” Maida, is involved in helping the team run well and genuinely roots for them at events. This sort of support, both financial and personal, is essential to their success as a team.
The impact of their sister team cannot be ignored, either. Koreans in Brood War succeeded for so long in part because they had highly skilled practice partners to play against on a regular basis. Even in League of Legends, this trend continued with sister teams often being rivals on an international scale such and CJ Entus Blaze and Frost. Gamers Academy may not be quite on the level of LG, but as shown in the recent RGN Pro Series LAN, they are around mid-level NA teams in skill.
Not only is it quite good practice, but FalleN also realizes the importance of developing talent. Not only do LG benefit from having a scrim partner, but GA also benefit from getting to play LG. Rarely do any NA players care about actually developing the scene beyond their own team, or even just themselves. The only org currently to have more than one team is CLG with their all-female CLG Red squad, and I doubt that they scrim their male colleagues all too often, given that CLG Red only participates in smaller LANs such as Fragadelphia, along with some online leagues.
Liquid is another example of an organization that is attempting to field a successful team despite NA’s pitfalls. They have invested in a dedicated coach since Day One, realizing the necessity to take some of the workload of analysis and tactical brainstorming off of the in-game leader. Their roster has undergone quite a change since it was originally announced as well, swapping out players on a frequent basis in an attempt to find a better fit and not hesitating to pick up rising talent such as Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski.
While this team has certainly had its highs and lows, it is currently on the upswing in the few LANs that have followed the Cluj-Napoca Major. The current roster of adreN, nitr0, Hiko, EliGE, and Jacob ‘FugLy’ Medina has only been together for a couple of months and they are showing some great performances from time to time, though these are admittedly undercut by periods of inexperience and inconsistency against high-level teams.
The last change that could really elevate North America’s mid-tier talent and provide more experience for high-level players would be a system like Faceit Pro League. To those unaware, FPL is a PUG-like service that is usually staged as a competition to see who has the highest points (a function of win/loss and an ELO system) in a given time period. In essence, FPL would be like ESEA, but only for pros or other high-level players. Currently, the closest thing to this is the regular 10-mans that occur between high-level players. This service, however, would be much more extensive and far less exclusive. Instead of having to be friends with a pro, you would simply have to climb the ladder and prove that you are objectively good enough to compete. This would give another way for rising talent to up their game and become recognized, rather than having to grind with a team through the various ESEA leagues and hope to get noticed.
This system was developed for DotA, where it has had some success in both EU and NA, despite NA DotA sharing some of the glaring problems that NA CS has. FPL EU recently had some controversy over players being “kicked” by a committee of pro players, but this seems more like an issue with the way the league is being conducted rather than some knock on the concept as a whole.
While an ELO system is far from perfect in determining a player’s objective skill in a team-based game such as Counter-Strike, it is still significantly better than ESEA’s misleading RWS metric. Rather than trying to uproot ESEA as a service in NA, which is a rather impossible task, FPL could simply provide something that ESEA does not. Why they have yet to attempt to penetrate the NA market despite having NA services for other levels of play is perplexing, but not altogether surprising given the dominance of ESEA.
The only alternative to a FPL that would improve the ecosystem at high-level play would be a retooling of the matchmaking system Valve has implemented in CS:GO, as currently the system is quite bad for high-level players. Again, this may be intentional as not to encroach upon ESEA, but nonetheless, 64-tick servers and the rank distribution being capped at GE inhibits matchmaking from becoming anything more than a time sink for any player attempting to honestly improve at the game.
This system was developed for DotA, where it has had some success in both EU and NA, despite NA DotA sharing some of the glaring problems that NA CS has. FPL EU recently had some controversy over players being “kicked” by a committee of pro players, but this seems more like an issue with the way the league is being conducted rather than some knock on the concept as a whole.
While an ELO system is far from perfect in determining a player’s objective skill in a team-based game such as Counter-Strike, it is still significantly better than ESEA’s misleading RWS metric. Rather than trying to uproot ESEA as a service in NA, which is a rather impossible task, FPL could simply provide something that ESEA does not. Why they have yet to attempt to penetrate the NA market despite having NA services for other levels of play is perplexing, but not altogether surprising given the dominance of ESEA.
The only alternative to a FPL that would improve the ecosystem at high-level play would be a retooling of the matchmaking system Valve has implemented in CS:GO, as currently the system is quite bad for high-level players. Again, this may be intentional as not to encroach upon ESEA, but nonetheless, 64-tick servers and the rank distribution being capped at GE inhibits matchmaking from becoming anything more than a time sink for any player attempting to honestly improve at the game.
Looking at the history of North American CS:GO, it’s rather obvious that NA cannot simply go on as it has been and expect success. With issues ranging from personality clashes to lack of teamplay, the scene has a lot of ground to cover before it can challenge EnVy.Us or Fnatic for the best team in the world. It may be that NA teams stay mired in mediocrity, never putting together a fully realized roster with the potential to win a Major. But at the very least, North America should be able to produce at least a single team worthy of Legend status, a feat they have yet to manage.
While none of these problems have easy answers, they are nonetheless contributing factors to the overall lack of success. Hopefully teams look to models like Luminosity and attempt to copy their structure and steal their ideas. Having a support network for your players is incredibly important, even the players of TSM realize it more than the owner of the organization himself does, having decided to pay their manager out of their own pockets after he was released from TSM.
Perhaps by this time next year, there will be a team worth writing about. An American team worth fanboying over. One writer certainly will not give up hope.
Writer: Yamato
Editor: Amazingxkcd
Graphics: Rick
CSS: FO-nTTaX
While none of these problems have easy answers, they are nonetheless contributing factors to the overall lack of success. Hopefully teams look to models like Luminosity and attempt to copy their structure and steal their ideas. Having a support network for your players is incredibly important, even the players of TSM realize it more than the owner of the organization himself does, having decided to pay their manager out of their own pockets after he was released from TSM.
Perhaps by this time next year, there will be a team worth writing about. An American team worth fanboying over. One writer certainly will not give up hope.
Writer: Yamato
Editor: Amazingxkcd
Graphics: Rick
CSS: FO-nTTaX
