ESL One Cologne 2016 Previews

3 months have passed since FalleN’s crew hoisted the trophy at Nationwide Arena, winning the first 500 grand check in the history of CS:GO Majors. Now, we are coming back to the classic Lanxess Arena in Cologne, the sole property of Swedish teams in recent history. Three months of building storylines and drama, eight teams trying to defend their coveted “Legends” spots; It’s time for the biggest showdown of this summer!

Let’s go!

SK Gaming

Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo’s boys are coming to this major as main favourites for the first time in their CS:GO careers. The hottest team in the world at the moment, ex-LG have reached 3 consecutive grandfinal appearances in various tournaments after triumphing in Ohio.

Dreamhack Austin was a pretty lackluster competition (LG dropped 46 rounds in the span of 6 maps). However, both ESL ESEA Pro League and ECS witnessed Luminosity playing a revitalized G2 in finals. In EPL, they grinded their victory against the french team in a hard fought best-of-five, while LG got completely overwhelmed 1,5 months later at the ECS, losing their first final since IEM World Championship in Katowice.

Coming to Cologne, they’re not Luminosity Gaming anymore. Joining the legendary SK Gaming ranks, the beloved Brazilian lineup aims to enter the pantheon of the greatest teams to ever play Counter-Strike competitively. But to enter it, they need to start strong under a new banner. And winning a second major in a row, the feat only

pronax’s fnatic has ever achieved in CS:GO, is definitely a good start.

Randomized into the “group of death” with

Fnatic,

FaZe and their new rival,

G2, SK Gaming can’t make a single mistake. While they’re still a prime candidate to make it out in first seed, they’ll need to show their A-game from the get go in the first days of the major. Win the opener against G2 - and you have a date win fnatic to advance first and get an easy bracket until the final. Lose the opener and then go to play cutthroat bo3s against both FaZe and Fnatic, or even G2 once more.

Too far from comfort.

Natus Vincere

The storied organization has lost 3 finals in a row since their Counter Pit League Season 2 championship in March. The Columbus trophy was all but awarded to Na’Vi after their dominant performance throughout the tournament; in the end Luminosity Gaming triumphed. GuardiaN announced that he has a wrist injury, which forced Na’Vi to surrender their second Major finals in a row.

Dreamhack Malmö was the same story once again. Natus Vincere cruise controlled their way to the finals, where NiP had zero chances. Instead, the CIS organisation has lost once again, getting another silver in the bag. To finish the trifecta of spring silvers, Na’Vi has lost a final to

Virtus Pro during Starladder i-League Invitational in Kiev; their homesoil which always gave power to them, even during the darkest times.

Starix’s coaching wasn’t able to carry them to the EPL finals, narrowly missing the qualification. They soon announced to not be participating in the ECS finals. The only tournament they played since their silver spring is ELEAGUE, where they were able to beat

F3,

mouz, and

Echo Fox to qualify for the playoffs. Now they’ve aligned their sights on Cologne.

Na’Vi is a extremely dangerous team under any circumstances, especially when you have the limited knowledge of them. Known for their slow-paced and calculated style of playing the game, the CIS organisation is coming to the major as one of the heavy favourites to take it all. Getting placed in a group against NiP, F3, and OpTic Gaming, Na’Vi should not break a sweat and convincingly qualify for the bracket stage. Even if they struggle and finish second in their group, they’re likely to face either

Astralis, SK or

Team EnVyUs, teams they’ve beaten multiple times offline. It’s finally the Na’Vi time.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

After Columbus, where NiP played with

THREAT as a stand-in and lost to Na’Vi in quarterfinals, the original kings of CS:GO have reached their highest point since 2014. Not only have they dominated in the online part of EPL, but Heaton’s organisation finally won a gold medal in Malmö, stopping their drought.

Despite losing to

dignitas in a bo1 opener, NiP took out

Lounge Gaming and won 4 consecutive bo3s against Astralis, Virtus Pro,

GODSENT, and finally Natus Vincere to witness the Swedish crowd roar; the crowd which was always behind them, even in disastrous 2015.

NiP has won their ELEAGUE group in Atlanta by beating G2 in the final bo3, got a top-4 in EPL after losing to LG in semifinals, but got eliminated in groups at ECS, after losing to eventual finalists, Luminosity and G2 in best-of-ones. Their Major group is totally doable for legendary quartet +

pyth and THREAT. NiP have history of beating Na’Vi, OpTic, and F3 and considering their power in the bracket stage, the old timers have a solid chance.

Lanxess Arena has witnessed miracles to the poster boys of Counter-Strike. Can a miracle happen once again?

Fnatic

MLG Columbus was supposed to be a coronation of the fnatic lineup. Winning tournament after tournament after pronax’s leave, Columbus should’ve been the final cherry on cake for that 5-man lineup led by

olofmeister, who reached an unbelievable peak form to get the legenadary status. Instead, olofmeister’s wrists collapsed on the biggest stage, fnatic was narrowly defeated by

Team Liquid, before getting roflstomped by Astralis in the round of 8 and quit the tournament earlier than everyone expected.

After olofmeister decided to take a break, fnatic stopped being a serious contender. Struggling with both

Plessen and

wenton,

flusha’s team still was able to qualify for most events and even got top-4 in EPL, after losing to NiP and G2. With olofmeister returning, Fnatic were able to top their ELEAGUE group, after beating FaZe in group finals and followed it with top-4 run in ECS, losing to the eventual winners in G2.

Now, Fnatic make their return to the same Lanxess Arena, where they won their third major title last year. Beating

eBettle, Na’Vi, Luminosity, VP, and EnVyUs, fnatic became the first team ever to win two majors in a row. Now they just need to return to the grandfinals, the only important thing to this insanely skilled lineup. And considering that they were never scared of playing anyone, being in the group with SK, G2 and FaZe is a top-notch opportunity for them. Now or never.

Team Liquid

When Liquid threw 15 map points against Luminosity Gaming in the MLG Columbus semifinals, many thought that it was just a beginning. Instead, it was an end.

After Malmö collapse, when TL lost to mouz and

TyLoo in groups, s1mple bailed out of the team, stating that he was homesick. Liquid decided to play with

Adren again, but the former IGL wasn’t able to continue his form from Columbus and Liquid. Not able to get to the finals in Austin, going 0-8 in ELEAGUE group, not getting out of the EPL group stage, after losing to Fnatic — Liquid needed to do something drastic.

Then former Tempo Storm coach

peacemaker joined. Then s1mple returned. Then

koosta and

jdm64 were swapped and Team Liquid won 2 maps from G2 during the ECS LAN finals, becoming the only team to actually take a map from the victorious French-Belgian side in London.

Now Hiko’s squad is coming to play against nV, VP, and mouz in Cologne. The same Cologne, where Hiko’s Cloud 9 were so close to winning major in 2014. And he definitely does not forget that. If TL loses the opener to nV, going into a bo3 against either skilled mouz or Poles, who might dominate Liquid mentally, it might be a fast ending to the new campaign. If they win? Well, that’s a completely different story.

Counter Logic Gaming

After the very successful performance in Ohio, when

CLG was able to take out nV and

Gambit, before losing in the North American quarterfinal to Team Liquid, CLG has just faceplanted into a perpetual state of questionable performances. On the bright side you have their EL group. CLG got second, took a map of Astralis and was able to beat SK and NRG in the fight for the second slot, even with

pita in the playing roster.

On the dark side, we have their early Malmö exit (beating G2, close loss to Na’Vi, beatdown by GODSENT), the Dreamhack Austin exit in groups by Cloud9’s hands, a couple of subpar online performances, featuring not qualifying for either EPL or ECS. And we still have pita standing in since FugLy left and jdm left for Team Liquid. Add tarik and cutler’s shoddy performances in the past few months and you get the picture.

Now, the CLG roster with pita and koosta will aim at answering the question that CLG’s LoL team has answered years ago. Are they truly counter logic? If yes, CLG can beat both

hooch’s Gambit and

cajunb’s Dignitas. If not, they’ll convincingly lose on a comfort map pick for Gambit in the opener, before going down to MSL “Why do you invite Americans?”’ in the loser match. With North America fielding only 3 teams this tournament, every map win is valuable. CLG needs just a few of them.

They'll eventually perform.

Astralis

Once destined to become the best team in the world, Astralis never was able to make it through the final hurdle.

Chokers.

Every pundit, every fan, every casual viewer called the Danestack that at least once in his life. Not because of his/her hate of that fantastic lineup but because of how baffling it was and it still is. Astralis, the team with one of the best players in the world,

device leading the charge and the famous igl/coach duo of

karrigan and

zonic, still can’t complete the dream and win the major. Even after their thrashing of fnatic at the Nationwide Arena, Astralis still lost to Na’Vi in semifinals. Oh you.

Once being praised as the best team in the world in groupstages, never dropping games to inferior opponents and easily advancing into brackets, Astralis started to falter there as well. A loss to OpTic in Leicester forced them to play a bo3 against Luminosity, who eventually went to win the entire EPL. They couldn’t advance from groups in neither Malmö nor London during the ECS, and while they were able to win their group in ELEAGUE, it was far from a convincing affair, given that the Danestack was on the brink of losing to NRG in the semifinals and threw Dust2 in finals against CLG.

Coming to the major, Astralis will be forced to play with

gla1ve, a guy who’s not a

Kjaerbye nor a cajunb in terms of skill. Will be enough for the Danish lineup to finally prevail over their own demons? Their group matches against Team Dignitas (hello, cajunb), Gambit Gaming, and Counter Logic Gaming looks like a pretty easy task for Astralis to take first, but their bracket run might require winning three consecutive bo3s against top-five teams in the world. What a way to redeem yourself.

Virtus.pro

Willpower, that’s the word I feel forced to use every time I try to describe the Polestack throughout history. The odds were against them so many times that

TaZ and

NEO are assumingly more used to be considered underdogs, despite their countless championships and achievements.

Willpower was what always carried Virtus Pro. Bad online streaks? No big deal, we’ll bounce back offline. They suffered 6 last LANs series losses in bracket stages, counting their last week EL group final loss to Team EnVyUs. At least, they have that Starladder i-League Invitational championship in the bag which is pretty ignorable, despite winning against Na’Vi in the final.

While everyone looks at Group D as a group of death, group C is the most interesting group for me. We have Team EnVyUs, who looked fresh and showed fantastic CT sides in their EL group, like in good old days. Then there is Mousesports, the team which found an identity in praying to

NiKo, but still doesn’t look capable of winning important bo3s. The Americans Team Liquid are fighting as well, a team with an insanely high ceiling, featuring peacemaker, one of the creators of Tempo Storm phenomenon. Finally, we haveVirtus Pro. The team who hadn’t failed to advance from groupstages at majors since the very first Dreamhack Winter 2013, when this exact 5-man lineup played under the Universal Soldiers tag.

And you know what? Virtus Pro will advance once again.

Gambit Gaming

Despite the addition of

Ivan “spaze” Obrezhan to the squad,

Gambit Gaming has not improved with their new roster. At their recent appearance in ELEAGUE, they only won two maps and barely answered to the Polish Plow, mustering only six rounds on the two maps. Coming into this Major, it is a coin flip on whether we will see the raw talent of CIS Counter-Strike, or bungled and miscalculated plays. Their core players

Milhail “Dosia” Stolyarov,

Dauren “AdreN” Kystaubayev, and

Rustem “mou” Telepov will need to guide their team against Counter Logic Gaming in their opening match, to whom they lost at the last major two to one. Against the new CLG, Gambit has a very good chance of victory, especially on Cache; if possible, they will need to avoid CLG’s strongest map, Mirage. They have not met the other two teams in their group in past events.

Dignitas have been very disappointing as of late, with several losses and nearly losing against

Team SoloMid in ELEAGUE. When Dignitas and Gambit meet, expect a slugfest.

Astralis also have been on a downward spiral but they have the experience of playing in Majors, and Gambit will need to have tighten up their tactical play in order to beat the Danish squads. Overall, Gambit could come out of the group as their opponents are in transition periods themselves. With the best of one format and smart map picks, they will have a more than a modicum of success.

Team Dignitas

Continuing the pattern of roster changes, Dignitas replaced

Marcus “Kjaerbye” Kjaerbye with

Rene “cajunb” Borg, and are facing off against cajunb’s former team for the first match. In May, with their new roster, Dignitas has not seen success in ECS Season 1 nor in ELEAGUE. They played Astralis in ECS and nearly defeated them on Cache;

Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke managed to put up big kills, but could not seal the deal against their Danish counterparts. Dignitas’ initial game with Astralis will be tough. However, they had a two week break to properly prepare for their matches. Also, having cajunb’s intel on his former teammates should prove valuable. Dignitas haven’t played against CLG since February, and haven’t played against Gambit whatsoever, but if they beat Astralis they should have the confidence to defeat these opponents.

OpTic Gaming

The Canadian squad has proved to be a new breakout from NA, especially during the ESL One Cologne 2016 qualifiers, where they defeated

FlipSid3 Tactics and

HellRaisers. Adding

Oscar “mixwell” Canellas has revitalized the team, and their recent performances have shown that they can hang with the stronger teams. In their opening match, they are playing

NiP, who seem to be regaining their own magic. However, OpTic recently played them at ELEAGUE and lost three to one. The format could play to OpTic’s advantage: a best of one is a lot of pressure, but allows weaker teams to focus on one map and strategize accordingly. Unfortunately, “NiP Magic” can be overwhelming and the map will either be close or a blow out. OpTic’s chances against

Na’Vi are very slim as Na’Vi has been very consistent lately with no signs of any weaknesses. Flipsid3 on the other hand, OpTic defeated in the qualifier. OpTic has a relatively deep map pool, and if it comes down to a best of three, it should go to three maps.

Flipsid3 Tactics

Flipsid3 Tactics will unfortunately be starting their major run against Na’Vi: the team that crushed them at ELEAGUE about two weeks ago; not a promising starting point. With a best of one to start, they can try to steer the map to Train. However, since Na’Vi has been consistently performing lately, they do not have a very good chance against the Ukrainian powerhouse.

Georgi “WorldEdit” Yaskin and

Jan “wayLander” Rahkonen will need to come up big during the group stage, as their other teammates are definitely slumping. Flipsid3 lost to OpTic gaming during the qualifiers, but with the high chance of them meeting in a best of three, it should go to three maps. Flipsid3 also do not have a winning record against NiP and recently played them in April, losing to them two to zero with only a total of twelve rounds over the two maps. FlipSid3 has equal chances with OpTic to get out of groups, which to say is highly unlikely due to the two current legends they each must face.

Mousesports

Mousesports continue to be a mainstay in premiere CS:GO tournaments. Despite a history of 5th to 8th place finishes at main events, mousesports have regularly placed first in qualifiers, most recently finishing undefeated at the top of the ESL One Cologne 2016 European Qualifier alongside

FaZe clan. Perhaps the most notable performance of those three qualifier matches was a 16-1 drubbing of

G2 Esports on Dust2 in the final round. Mousesports looked especially confident in this matchup, winning thirteen consecutive rounds on the CT-side before dropping one round to a B-fake that pulled them out of position, rendering them unable defend a chaotic squeeze play on the A-bombsite. Despite this round victory, G2’s attempt to rush long A in round 15 was stuffed by the double awps of

Chris “chrisJ” de Jong and

Timo “Spiidi” Richter, and cleaned up by

Denis “denis” Howell and

Johannes “nex” Maget. It was a promising showing by mousesports, showcasing both the teamwork and individual talent that they clearly possess as players that has been suppressed by their inability to clutch. Although mousesports have a continuing trend of middling success (finishing at 5-4 in ECS Season 1, for example), fans should take heart following this dominant rout of the recently on-fire G2 squad. Perhaps mousesports can carry this momentum into ESL One Cologne 2016, and find that elusive top 4 finish.

EnVyUs

2016 has been a year of disappointment thus far for

Team EnVyUs, who seem to have left behind their winning ways of yesteryear. EnVyUs has placed first in only one premier event this year, taking the finals in the Global Esports Cup Season 1 three games to nil over Dignitas. Despite this convincing result, their performances in other tournaments have been less than stellar; EnVyUs finished in the bottom 8 at MLG Columbus, the IEM X World Championship in Katowice, and ESL Pro League Season 3. What once was a powerhouse of finesse, top-tier awping, incredible positioning, clutch deagle play, and solid, dependable rifling has continued to falter in recent months, culminating in the benching and ultimate release of

Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey. However, it is not all doom and gloom. EnVyUs demonstrated their potential with a top 4 finish at Dreamhack Masters Malmö in April, and they will be travelling to ESL One Cologne 2016 to square off versus

Team Liquid,

Virtus.Pro, and mousesports in Group C. This is a favorable draw for EnVyUs, who are easily the top team in the group if they show up to play. Success in this group could be just the jumping point that EnVyUs need to propel themselves to a top 4 finish at this upcoming major.

FaZe Clan

FaZe Clan is yet another team residing in the middle of the pack in 2016. Since the addition of kioShiMa in April, FaZe has seen a small increase in success in the wake of several months of mediocrity. Interestingly enough, they finished in the middle of the standings in ESL Pro League Season 3 just ahead of fellow challengers mousesports and EnVyUs. ELEAGUE has been promising so far for FaZe Clan: they stand at 7-2 in the inaugural season with overall success in a group with

fnatic,

TSM, and dignitas. Unfortunately, in Group D at ESL One Cologne 2016, FaZe will be pitted against juggernauts in fnatic and

SK Gaming (formerly Luminosity), and a recently hot G2 Esports squad in what looks to be the group of death for this event. It is even more unfortunate that Inferno, their best map, is no longer in the map pool, replaced by the new Nuke which FaZe remain untested on. In general, their own map success is severely limited, with positive win rates on only Mirage and Inferno. FaZe could definitely benefit from working on their Cache and Dust 2 before the major, with only around a thirty percent win rate on each map. It will certainly be a tough group stage for FaZe Clan, but if they can bring some of the poise and resourcefulness they have shown at times during June in ELEAGUE, we may see some upsets.

G2 Esports

G2 Esports squeezed through the ESL One Cologne 2016 qualifier, defeating

TyLoo,

Cloud9, and

Hellraisers, but being bested by fellow challengers mousesports and Gambit Gaming on single maps. Despite this, things have been very positive for G2 as of late; most recently at the ECS Season 1 Finals, they cruised to the grand finals and shut out both fnatic and Luminosity Gaming to claim first place while keeping each team to single digit round wins on overpass. Prior to ECS, G2 also fought their way to the grand finals at ESL Pro League Season 3, but were edged out in a full five games by Luminosity. There is no doubt that something has been clicking for G2. Lately, star players

Richard “shox” Papillon and

Adil “ScreaM” Benrliton have showcased a return to form, each regularly making fantastic individual plays versus multiple opponents to keep G2 in games. Statistically, they do not seem to possess a weak map except maybe Cobblestone, and they have played six games on the new Nuke with a 4-2 record. The future looks bright for G2, and despite being placed into a group with the formidable fnatic and SK Gaming squads, recent success has shown that G2 can not only go toe-to-toe with these titans, but they have the potential to convincingly put them down. G2 Esports is certainly a team to watch at ESL One Cologne 2016, and Group D should be quite a show to behold.

It’s been a few months since Valve enforced a map pool change, removing Inferno and bringing back a revamped Nuke. This new pool, enforced at ESL One Cologne, was quickly ushered in by the other tournaments and leagues as the major drew near. Valve tournaments being the most prestigious of the scene, this could really be a game changer coming into this one. For now, this is still a big question mark. Indeed, even though tournaments and leagues have incorporated the map for some time, we have yet to see ample games of Nuke played. With only 15 offline games played — and that include the All-Star showmatch at the last major — Nuke hasn’t really showed what it’s worth yet.

If anything, both the community and the pros haven’t reached a consensus on the new version, and the criticisms crystallize around some key points: the ability to plant on the silos, the revamp of the B bombsites with more entrances and a different toxic, the new vents, and the outside area that underwent massive changes (with changes to boxes, the additional catwalk above Mini, Mini and Locker’s roof with a lot more covers, etc). So far, there’s been a couple of patches which fixed some of the bugs and addressed some of the criticism. The most recent one notably added a ladder to the B bombsite target, reducing the strength of a bomb plant on top of it. There still are issues, some of which have even received some spotlight during official matches, such as this bug during an E-League game between

Flipsid3 Tactics and

Echo Fox. Overall, the map doesn’t feel completely polished and ready, but this will have to do, and the major will use it.

That doesn’t mean the map isn’t generating interest nor enthusiasm. For example,

Astralis stated that they want to make it, if not their best, at least one of their home maps. But even for them the new map is too young and not “ready”. Their danish brothers of

Team Dignitas also favor the map and have actively looked to develop it, as shown during the ESL One Cologne Main Qualifier, where they played it twice out of their five games with mixed results. Then, the choice made by Astralis also comes from the fact that Inferno was one of their home maps, and as a high-tier team, they just can’t let their map pool shrink. They were also relatively good on Nuke before it was removed, so it feels quite logical.

This brings up the most controversial change when it comes to this new map pool: removing Inferno. It was arguably one of the best maps throughout its era in CS:GO, as much gameplay-wise than entertainment-wise. It even sported many great games after the change in the tournaments that still featured the map. Inferno was officially removed from the map pool on April 21st. Since then, it still has been played twelve times in important offline tournaments (mostly StarLadder i-League Invitational, CEVO S9, and ESL Pro League S3 Finals), and many of these were actually very good games from a spectator standpoint. Just as an example, one only has to look at the close and nail biting ESL Pro League finals between

G2 and

Luminosity (now SK Gaming) as they battled on Inferno in a back and forth fifth game that went to overtime.

Removing Inferno seems then like a strange choice out of all the maps that could have used a rework or simply been removed from the map pool; maps such as Cobblestone, which became too much centered around the B site with time, or Dust2, which has been criticized for its lack of strategical possibilities and its heavy emphasis on aim battles, especially in recent times as CS:GO has shifted to a metagame where strategies and tactical play came back more strongly.

But it is done, and teams will have to cope with it. This change won’t be subtle for every team, and one of the first name that instantly pops up is

Team EnVyUs. They were well known for having a great Inferno throughout their period of dominance. This removal won’t help them in the trouble they are going through for some time now. The key issue EnVy has with this removal is that they didn’t have a particularly deep map pool, even during the second half of 2015, where they were at the top. Focusing on Inferno, Cache, Cobblestone, and Mirage, EnVyUs have always counted on these maps to win; but on the rest, they were way shakier. Relying so much on their maps mean that this change impacted EnVy a lot, and they had to find a replacement for Inferno; either picking up Nuke, or drawing from the remaining three that they didn’t play as core maps of their pool. So far, Train seems to be their choice with regard to that.

That kind of adjustment will be the biggest visible impact the change will have. But that doesn’t mean teams who rarely or never played Inferno can just swap it with Nuke in their bans. There will be some confusion for a while until teams can understand how well they fare against each other on Nuke, but it must already be carefully considered during the picks and bans phase. Should a team face EnVyUs, removing Nuke is a waste of a ban right now, as it’s not their focus, and playing maps they aren’t used to is actually a big weakness of their own. On the other hand, facing Astralis poses more of a problem, because they said very openly that they wanted to focus on it and make it a very strong map in their pool. Added to the fact that they haven’t displayed much of how and how well they can play the map, a cautious approach would be to ban it and avoid the risks. In the end, every team will have to change their approach to fit Nuke into it, and it might results in some upsets on this map, if some teams underestimate or get completely caught by surprise against strong Nuke opponents.

All things considered, we will probably not see that many Nuke games at the major if most teams play conservatively and don’t want to take any risk. The last time the map pool changed, following a similar schedule, was actually for the ESL One Cologne 2015 with Train. Only three Train game were played. Yet, it was picked twice, banned once, and not picked by the randomizer as the deciding map in the other cases during the playoffs. Teams weren’t actually afraid of playing the map, and overall, only half the series saw Train banned at Cologne 2015. History could repeat in Cologne, and Nuke should actually show up in more matches than Train back then. It’s a major after all: “high risk, high reward”.

Was it only 3 months since the Brazilians of now-defunct Luminosity Gaming hoisted the trophy high in the heart of Columbus, Ohio? Proving to the world that Yes! Brazil is back on the map!

The calendar in the top right of my laptop screen tells me so. In the span of 90 days, give or take a couple of days, we have witnessed the tsunami that has warped the Counter-Strike scene into a new landscape. With all the the recent happenings and drama, it’s best to break it down and take a look to where the scene is moving forward.

WESA

The biggest drama over the last couple of months has been seized by the creation and announcement of WESA, a conglomerate of european super teams and ESL to serve as a governing body for the industry. Of course, this was met with fierce resistance from the community alongside multiple numerous pundits who were outspoken in their dejection of such a notion of WESA. Even one of the founding teams,

FaZe, has make a public announcement of their departure from the governing body. Since then, WESA has been memory-holed as other events taken hold of the media, in particular the roster shuffles and trades.

Roster roulette

This roster shuffle season has been quite a ride. The biggest roster shuffle was the kicking of

Kevin "Ex6TenZ" Droolans, spurning the never ending stream of kvetching from

Duncan “Thorin” Shields and fellow pundits -- quite amusing to observe as G2 under the charismatic leadership of

Richard "shox" Papillon proceeds to reach the finals of EPL season 3 and win ECS season 1. Surely the shox and scream meme has to die, right guys? Ex6tenZ was right! Guys, guys? Where did everyone go? Why is no one believing my drivel any more?

Of course, there was a mini roster shuffle in the CIS/EU scene as

HellRaisers,

Flipsid3 Tactics, and

Gambit shuffled some players around. In the grand scheme of things, this would be inconsequential. Unfortunate, but true. Of course,

Dignitas received

Rene "cajunb" Borg from

Astralis for

Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye -- an interesting trade as the Danes try to figure out their fundamental problems with choking and their propensity to drop their Counter-Strike basics in the heat of the moment. Will this work out moving forward? This major will be the preliminary onset of the paths these teams take.

Team Liquid’s

Spencer “Hiko” Martin must have experienced an early Christmas when he got the late night text from

Josh “jdm64” Marzano pleading to join Team Liquid. It conveniently fixes many of the problems that plagued Liquid over the last year. Liquid gains an experienced and actually skilled awper. And with

Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu serving as coach & IGL while

Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev rejoins for one last hurrah before fading back to obscurity, Team Liquid has a serious shot of challenging for the trophy, save for keeping their Legends spot. Too bad

CLG will spiral down into the depths of roster hell.

Kenneth “koosta” Suen can’t be happy with his demotion to CLG. Sure, things didn’t work out on Liquid due to the myriad of problems the team suffered, but CLG has bigger problems to deal with.

Perhaps the roster shuffle that dominated the news were not the aforementioned, but rather the comical debacle between the players of Luminosity Gaming, SK Gaming, and Luminosity Gaming themselves. In the cesspool of PR statements, pundit commentary, and fan outbursts, we get to see the Brazilians perform under the SK banner here in Cologne.

Muddied Future

In spite of all the news and changes in the scene, the elephant in the room has been two things: ELEAGUE and gambling sites. ELEAGUE has heralded the return of Counter-Strike to the television to great applaud of the community. The shows have been entertaining, the matches have been spectacular, and the content produced by TBS and Arbys have been enjoyable to consume. Buffalo Wild Wings definitely falter in this area as reports of franchises not adhering to corporate mandates of supporting the Friday broadcasts have left many disappointed, including yours truly. While ELEAGUE has been fun to watch, it leaves one to wonder about the future of Counter-Strike. The consolidation of teams and leagues into super teams have already onset some problems and the exclusivity demon begins to rear its head. What happens in this supposed arms race of securing teams for leagues? Will Counter-Strike remain as an open bazaar, or function as a cathedral? Only time will tell. Valve will have to get involved more than they wish to.

Speaking of Valve involvement, the recent drama of two youtubers gambling on their own CS:GO gambling site has re-opened the portal of darkness that Valve has been quietly hiding. It is well known that rampant gambling of skins is a crutch of the scene. Sure, it propelled it into the state where it is today, but it is a virus that has to be dealt with. What will Valve do when faced with a class action lawsuit and with potential FEC involvement of lotto sites? Only time will tell -- Valve will need to have a concrete answer and fast.

These past months has been a wild ride for Counter-Strike. The future is bright, yet uncertain. The paths are plenty, yet divergent. What will Counter-Strike do? What will happen? I do not have answers; I only hope that the growth of Counter-Strike continues to be a positive endeavor for esports, and for the game itself.

We are heading for tomorrow, but we don’t know if we’re near!

-- Gamma Ray

Writers: Ragnarork, Wonderful, Akasha, Amazingxkcd
Editors: Amazingxkcd
CSS: FO-nTTaX
Graphics: DearDave