https://www.cybersport.ru/counter-strike-go/articles/2020-i-byl-uzhasnym-godom-dlya-counter-strike-ot-otmeny-lan-do-skandala-s-trenerami

Without LAN, esports doesn’t make sense

If you love football and follow the conditional Champions League, then the current season (and the end of the past) is unlikely to be very memorable for you – or at least did not bring the proper emotions. And all because most of the matches were played without spectators, which gave the feeling that the best teams in the world were not playing at the strongest club tournament, but a regular training match. The same thing happens in non-LAN esports. Of course, being angry about the lack of tournaments is like yelling at the clouds. But in any case I want to swear.

It’s scary to think, but in a year only six more or less high-profile LAN tournaments took place in CS: GO, and even less with spectators. The first was DreamHack Open Leipzig 2023, which took place at the end of January. Tournament won BIG, which at that time had just changed the composition and was far from a favorite. But, as the year has shown, it was the start of a great season for the German team, which eventually settled into the top 5 of the HLTV.org rankings.

January-February passed DreamHack Open Anaheim 2023 (won it Gen.G), GG.Bet ICE Challenge 2023 (won mousesports), as well as the regular season of the spring BLAST segment, where the participants of the future finals were determined. A kind of COVID-culmination became IEM Katowice 2023, where with empty stands and sad Carmac confidently won Natus Vincere… And then the online era began …

The pros and cons of online in the COVID-19 era are endlessly debatable. Some will complain about the lack of motivation among cybersportsmen and the general randomness, while others will complain that everyone is in the most equal conditions, which means that the outcomes of matches and tournaments are natural. And everyone will be right. But at the same time, hardly anyone will argue with the fact that without the LAN, the change landscape has changed a lot.

Getting on the LAN has always been a measure of success – it’s not for nothing that the CS player’s glossary has always included the word “onliner”, which originally had a negative connotation. Now everyone has become online, the chances have leveled off, the concept of “Counter-Strike elite” has blurred – and this is bad. Of course, conditional Astralis It hasn’t gone anywhere, but other top teams, who have always successfully performed in LAN conditions, suffered a lot. Take the same mousesports, which had a shock 2019 and a good start in 2023 – as soon as the quarantine began, the team simply fell apart. The same can be said about Fnatic and G2 Esports…

Tournament operators and thematic sites can adapt the formulas for calculating their ratings as much as they want, but they still cannot adequately rank teams by strength, since everything is checked on LAN and only on LAN.

The most pressing question for today is when will offline tournaments return? Valve, as usual, does not give any forecasts at all, and other TOs expect to organize a LAN not earlier than spring, while laying the possibility that there will be no offline championships at all in 2023. To be honest, I don’t even want to think about such a development of events.

North American scene is dying fast

Just a couple of years ago, the top clubs in North America were serious about launching a local competitor. ESL Pro League, and now one by one they are leaving CS: GO – only a few are moving their teams to competitive Europe. Over the past year, American squads were abandoned (or even left the discipline) Team Singularity, eUnited, Chaos and 100 Thieves, and Gen.G put up a lineup with autimatic…

Alas, North America simply lacks teams. The region has support for tournament operators (ESL and DreamHack championships with serious prize pools were stably held), but there are no players: all the “oldies” went to Valorant (which we will talk about later), and no one wants to take risks and collect rosters from young local FPL and Rank S players.

ESL already announcedwhat plans to save the American scene, but whether these measures will help is a huge question. American clubs are clearly not ready to contain expensive squads during the period of uncertainty associated with the coronavirus. Even such a large organization as 100 Thieves, represented by its owner Nadeshot, almost plainly stated: AZR we can’t afford it. What can we expect from lesser-known clubs like Chaos, which parted ways with their team, despite a series of successful tournaments in November-December.

At the same time, we must pay tribute to the most status teams in North America – Complexity Gaming, Team envy and Team Liquid… The clubs and players themselves were not afraid to move to Europe to compete with the best. It would seem, what is so wrong here – to move to another region? I got on a plane, arrived and sat there playing. But not all e-sportsmen are capable of this – remember the same oBo, who could not stand so much time away from family. In addition, do not forget that for exactly the same reason, at one time, Liquid did not stay s1mple…

But let’s digress a little from the bad. The problems of the American scene do hurt the entire discipline, but at the same time open up opportunities for young players – when, if not now, will those who have not heard of the general public be able to make themselves known? The region is still one of the main ones in Counter-Strike, which means that it will still be supported by major tournament operators. There will still be enough chances to prove yourself – and to hell with them, with organizations, a lot can be achieved without their help.

Valorant pockets media players

In English, there is a term washed up, which is used to describe e-sportsmen who have won back their e-sports. When the first well-known CS: GO players started leaving Valorant, everyone joked that the Riot Games shooter lured just washed up players, and all the strongest esportsmen continued to play CS: GO. But time passed, and all those who had “played their own” really switched to a new discipline, and in North America, for example, there are now no more players left who could be of interest to local organizations.