Esports are generally a bit topsy-turvy at the moment, as the ongoing pandemic has shifted matches to be played online which massively shifts how they operate; latency is a massive factor when most titles have historically been played in an offline LAN, complete with a stage, pyrotechnics, and the screaming adoration of fans punctuating desperate attempts to clutch.
The professional scene of Counter-Strike is likely one of the most usurped scenes within esports at the moment, littered with players taking sporadic leave of absences to deal with the burnout, while other scenes entirely simply have players leaving en-masse for Riot’s Valorant.
Yet Counter-Strike has also found a massive upheaval in their global rankings, or seeds, not seen in quite some time: Astralis is no longer a top-five team for the first time in years, Liquid dropped out of the top ten, and PUG stream teams are contesting salaried players all the way to the finals in North America.
It’s a bit of a bizarre time, yet esports must go on, so teams simply need to weather the wild changes that are happening around all titles at the moment.
Yet as some falter, others will conversely rise: the French team Vitality (GS #2) have done such after winning against BIG, making them the first team that holds a confirmed spot at the Rio Majors; a bit odd considering Brazil’s current plight means that the Major’s themselves aren’t confirmed, while teams begin slotting for them.
This bodes well for Vitality, however, which has struggled in recent months with streaky showings; either the massively competent Vitality would arrive and crush everything, or the confused Vitality would log into the server and proceed to get trounced.
This led to NBK being removed from the roster as management thought that having two IGL’s on the team was causing the sporadic performance as ZywOo continued to set monumental records, again and again, leading to Vitality often referenced by opponents as ‘Team ZywOo’.
BIG came out swinging today against Vitality, gaining a map lead after playing on BIG’s pick of Mirage: Vitality picked up the remaining two maps in the BO3 although found themselves constantly contested at every turn. All three maps found both teams scoring double-digits, yet OT never occurred as force-buys turned into lop-sided economies with diminishing returns at pivotal moments.
The question now lies solely at Valve and ESL, and how the Major’s will be played.
It’s unlikely that either organizer looks favorably at having the Major played online, yet current situations may make that the most practical choice unless Brazil can somehow turn the most recent outbreak of COVID-19 cases around. If it’s played online, however, it looks likely that Vitality will have a massive advantage.
