Six moments that changed CS:GO

The rise of international rosters re-shaped the path to success, ELEAGUE brought CS:GO to broadcast television in North America, and the release of skins caused a viewership boom and created controversy that echoes through the industry to this day.

The landscape of CS:GO was ever-evolving for 11 years, shaped by game updates and the explosion in popularity of esports. From the rise of legendary AWPers like kennyS to the international roster phenomenon that transformed the way teams build lineups today, each milestone has left an indelible mark on the game's history.

We reflected on six of those significant moments in time, including CS:GO making it on broadcast TV with ELEAGUE, the release of skins and subsequent saga of CSGOLounge, and the creation of the Louvre Agreement. These moments not only altered the way the game was played but paved the way for the game's development as an esport, and some continue to have lasting effects as we head into Counter-Strike 2.

kennyS' Magic Stick and the AWP nerf

CS:GO's top ranks has often been defined by its superlative snipers in contemporary years: Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz's ever-present consistency for much of his career has been a pillar to look toward for those looking to establish themselves in the role, and recently, the raging battle for No. 1 between Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut and Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev has given us some of the most entertaining and bodacious highlight plays to date, particularly for CS:GO's greatest-ever player.

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Take a trip back to 2013 and 2014, however, and there were three others whose names couldn't be left out of the conversation: Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub, Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell, and Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács. The Frenchman, in particular, was widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, AWPers in the world, and it was his style with his "Magic Stick" that completely changed how teams had to approach the game: His incredibly quick and precise flick shots, paired with aggressive plays that were later emulated by Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo and attempted by a number of other AWPers, defined a unique and impactful style of AWPing that forced teams to respect close quarters engagements more than ever before.

It was definitely a task made easier by the state of the AWP in that era of the game, and it's a testament to the way that kennyS wielded the Big Green during those years with such a boisterous energy that he was almost single-handedly the reason that Valve had to address the way the rifle performed.

The scoped sniper rifle in those early years allowed skilled users of the gun to be highly mobile and lethal thanks to a faster movement speed, with scoped-in movement and repositioning being much easier due to a lower movement penalty window, and the Frenchman utilized that to the extreme with close-quarter battle AWPing and superbly quick repeeks.

In March 2015, Valve issued an update that nerfed the performance of the gun significantly by drastically reducing its scoped movement speed, making kennyS and JW's hyper-aggressive playstyle more difficult, and significantly more risky.

The Frenchman was heavily affected by the change, and although he won the DreamHack Cluj-Napoca Major in 2015 after the nerf and remained a top-rate player, the impact of that update devastated that hyper-aggressive playstyle to a point where he and others who tried to wield the sniper in such a manner never fully recovered. The update was perhaps the most significant single nerf to a gun to date, and one that brought about a seismic shift in the way the majority of players used the sniper rifle.

FalleN stood out in the year that followed the nerf by utilizing kennyS' unorthodox, aggressive style and pairing it with supportive, close-range rifler setups, something that helped to mitigate the nerf somewhat, while device's more methodical, thought-out openings showed teams the value of preserving the expensive sniper to grant early 5v4s, even in save rounds. The Danish player's style quickly became more prevalent among top AWPers and is the one that more players employ nowadays while hyper-aggression became much less frequent, with s1mple being one of the only ones to defy the odds and continue using the sniper in more of a hybrid-aggressive role in the current iteration of the game.

G2 and FaZe kick start the international craze

In late 2015, G2 signed Kinguin, a roster that brought together talented players from different nationalities into an unconventional whole. The lineup marked a departure from the traditional and consistently successful path pursued by top organizations in Counter-Strike that revolved around piecing together — and in some cases, recycling — players in national rosters.

It was a bold decision as, in a game so reliant on concise, specific information, the language barrier issue posed by forming rosters from a myriad of different countries already made the task difficult. Combine that with cultural differences between players and the challenge of creating an international contender only became more formidable, but it was something the team succeeded in after moving to FaZe and signing Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen, Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, and GuardiaN.

Title victories and deep runs at events in 2017 and 2018 showcased to the wider Counter-Strike world that the international formula could be a success, even with the caveat that this team had the benefit of karrigan's leadership and absurd star power. That formula forced other teams and organizations to reevaluate their approach to roster formation in the years that followed, and ever since, more and more teams have pivoted to housing international lineups.

Vitality, G2, MOUZ, ENCE, and Natus Vincere — the top five teams in the world as of October 9, 2023 — are multi-national lineups, one has won a Major, and the top four have all won trophies within the last year. FaZe also finally had their flowers nearly four years into the project and truly sealed the mold for the success as an international roster: The karrigan-led side won PGL Major Antwerp, IEM Cologne, and IEM Katowice, becoming the first team to win all three events in the same calendar year.

Skins, betting, and CSGOLounge

In the annals of CS:GO, few developments have had a more profound impact than the introduction of skins in 2013. The skin marketplace, facilitated through the Steam Community Market, allowed users to trade, buy, and sell these virtual items.

The infusion of real-world value into the virtual realm was a paradigm shift for the CS:GO community. Suddenly, rare and coveted skins became commodities, some fetching staggering prices. This dynamic gave rise to an intricate virtual economy, incentivizing players to invest in the game and providing a unique revenue stream for those who could acquire sought-after items.

The economic upswing from the skin marketplace had a ripple effect on the burgeoning CS:GO esports scene. With skins now carrying significant value, interest in the game swelled. More players entered the competitive arena, viewership numbers soared, and sponsors flocked to support tournaments and organizations. The allure of valuable skins added an extra layer of excitement for fans and players alike.

At the epicenter of this skin revolution was CSGOLounge, a third-party platform that allowed users to wager and trade skins on professional and amateur CS:GO matches. It became a cultural touchstone for enthusiasts, blending the thrill of gambling with the excitement of esports. However, the platform also faced its share of challenges, navigating legal gray areas, prompting regulatory responses, and often being mired in controversy as players were accused of betting on or fixing the results of their own matches. Four of the infamous iBUYPOWER lineup received historic bans after they fixed one of their own matches and still remain banned from Valve's Majors to this day.

Gambling through skins was rampant in the CS:GO industry and helped balloon interest in esports tournaments, but the lack of regulation also created its own problems. Issues of scams, fraud, and underage gambling arose over the years that followed, necessitating intervention from Valve. The company introduced measures such as trade restrictions and trade holds to safeguard users and curb fraudulent activities, and dealt cease and desist letters to a myriad of skin marketplaces and platforms, including CSGOLounge.

The change came too little, too late, however, and though a number of those websites and platforms shut down, the impact of the skins marketplace and influence over CS:GO's esports scene was here to stay. To this day, websites that offer skin trading still remain sponsors of prominent tournaments, and underage gambling still remains prevalent and a legal gray area when it comes to dealing in virtual skins.

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Valve cracks down on skin betting

CS:GO makes it on TV with ELEAGUE

The arrival of Turner and ELEAGUE marked a watershed moment in history for Counter-Strike, returning the game to television screens in the US for regular programming for the first time since Championship Gaming Series (CGS) in 2008.

The organizer hosted four seasons of Counter-Strike on TV (S1, S2, Premier 2017-2018), and two Majors, ELEAGUE Major Atlanta and ELEAGUE Major Boston. Both tournaments ended with two of the most memorable Major grand finals (Astralis-VP and FaZe-Cloud9) and set viewership records at the time.

ELEAGUE and its television leagues marked a climax in the growth CS:GO had experienced over the preceding years, and brought about a revolution in the way matches are produced and presented today. It set a new standard for player treatment, production value, and attached major, non-endemic sponsors to the game, which helped further legitmize Counter-Strike and esports to a mainstream audience.

COVID and the online era

This list would be remiss to count out the permanent asterisk of 2020-mid-2021: The online era imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The packed Counter-Strike LAN circuit was brought to an abrupt halt as teams were forced to move online amid the breakout of the novel virus, and though we had the benefit of porting play over to online and continuing competition, only playing online for over a year brought about a plethora of changes.

Teams were restricted to playing in their respective regions for months, and the regional disparity in skill level grew larger over the course of the year. The abrupt shift to an online format fundamentally altered the dynamics of play, prompting teams to adapt to new circumstances.

While some thrived in this environment, leveraging the absence of crowd pressure and travel, others like G2 and FaZe who excelled with the pressure of offline games and received a boost in performance when on-stage struggled for consistency. Notably, teams like Gambit and HEROIC rose to prominence, showcasing a tactical finesse that may have been hindered in the traditional LAN setting.

ZywOo, who earned the title of No. 1 player of 2019 after an exceptional debut year in top-tier competition, continued to demonstrate exceptional individual prowess and won the title for a second year running in 2020. However, his second crown came during a year filled with primarily online competition, and it is impossible to ignore that context when discussing the game's best players despite it being no fault of his own.

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Ultimately, the trophies and accolades earned during this period hold their significance, representing the best of what was available in a time of global crisis, but are ones that quickly lose their value after LAN play returned and offline results re-entered the conversation. The online era is one to forget for the majority of fans, but it will forever frame conversations about two of the last four years in CS:GO history, making its impact on the game undeniable.

Organizations enter partnerships with ESL, BLAST

During CS:GO's unparalleled growth period, a plethora of tournament organizers freely held events. The likes of StarLadder, DreamHack, Beyond the Summit, PGL, ELEAGUE, ESL, and ECS all competed for attention in a densely packed calendar, and top teams started to be selective about what events they committed to attending to avoid burnout.

Aggressive posturing from BLAST and ESL saw the two organizers begin to eat up more of the calendar from 2017-2019, with the latter taking up gargantuan amounts of the schedule thanks to their parent company's acquisition of DreamHack in 2015 (which was later folded into ESL in 2020). DreamHack Open events had acted as the proving ground for teams on the come-up for years, and ESL now owned that part of the calendar, too.

An attempt to battle for a share of the market by Flashpoint, a new, team-owned league that featured notable American-owned organizations like Cloud9, Envy, and MIBR, failed after ESL partnered with the most prominent teams and tournament play was sent online just days into Flashpoint's debut season due to the coronavirus. The organizer's plans that revolved around distinguishing itself through its live broadcast offering collapsed as a result.

ESL's Louvre Agreement (their second attempt to tie CS:GO teams down into a form of an exclusivity deal) was announced at the start of 2020, and meant that thirteen organizations would be eligible for invites to ESL's tournaments thanks to their partner status and share in the revenues.

Other, non-partner teams would be able to qualify or earn spots through a public ranking. The move to online play only exacerbated this further as the frequency and density of matches increased from BLAST and ESL, allowing them to gobble up even more of the calendar and leaving little room for other tournament organizers to schedule events with top teams.

Partner invites persisted after the return of LAN play in 2021, and some teams that were dramatically uncompetitive continued to return to top-tier events while others ranked above them missed out, the most egregious example of which is Evil Geniuses. The North American team finished last in three consecutive seasons of ESL Pro League and were so woefully poor that their results triggered a performance clause in the Louvre Agreement. Their spot in the league was put up for review but it was not taken away from them, demonstrating the power of the partner system and showcasing one of the key drawbacks of it.

The system did generally allow for most of the world's best teams to consistently compete in top-tier events and play against one another, and ESL's ranking and qualification system still offered opportunities for non-partnered teams to take part in their events. The change tore at the fabric of the open circuit ethos of Counter-Strike, however, and is something Valve is working to stitch back together by 2025 as we head into CS2.

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