Editorial: The dangers of too much Counter-Strike

Will the endless stream of tournaments exhaust the very fans that fuel the scene?

Counter-Strike is magnificent. It's an esport that has stood the test of time and graced our monitors for over two decades, filled with outstanding highlights and tournaments, and has, perhaps most importantly, positively affected the lives of many.

The game has cultivated a healthy ecosystem for years, at least compared to other esports where more hands-on developers try to influence growth less organically, and its consistency has brought millions of eyes to the biggest events of the year. Majors, Cologne and Katowice (soon to be Krakow), and a plethora of other tournaments stand out on the calendar, with fans eagerly awaiting their beginning every time a new tournament rolls around.

Could we lose all of that?

Let's take the start of the 2025 fall season as an example. Just two months have passed since the end of the summer break in July, and we have already seen seven tier-one tournaments take place — and I don't blame anyone who fails to name all of them.

The season began at FISSURE Playground 1, an event held during the mid-year break, and three days later, IEM Cologne began without a lead-up worthy of one of the yearly hallmark events. The calendar has not taken a breather since. Brief pauses between events leave little time for fans and content creators to digest emerging storylines. Underdog wins like TYLOO's at FISSURE Playground, budding rivalries, or redemption arcs for struggling players lose momentum as the spotlight shifts to the next competition during the constant churn.

A recent example of this are Spirit, who won IEM Cologne in their debut with Ivan "⁠zweih⁠" Gogin before their celebrations were cut short by the online BLAST Bounty beginning a mere two days later. Now, after a weekend of two simultaneous events, FISSURE Playground 2 and Starladder Fall Budapest, the Counter-Strike circuit has a rare six-day gap before ESL Pro League S22 gets underway. That's for teams not fighting for a spot in the Major, of course, as they'll be traveling to small LANs on the prowl for any extra VRS points they can get.

Teams will have the chance to use that time to refresh their playbook after being on the road for such a long time, but can we really expect them to be at the top of their game at such an excruciating rhythm?

It’s easy to forget that players are human beings with lives outside of the server. Some have young families that naturally take priority on their rare days off, leaving little time to grind out new Ancient B site executes. Others simply need a break from Counter-Strike after stretches of non-stop tournaments and travel, using that downtime to rest and recharge, which further cuts down on the time available to refresh their playbook.

A lot has been said about the same problem in football, where players even discussed going on strike due to the ever-increasing number of games. While the difference in physical effort required to compete in both disciplines is stark, it is safe to say that the non-stop nature of games is harming the quality of Counter-Strike played at the top events as teams grapple with the hectic schedule that makes displaying a consistent level almost impossible.

One of the best examples of this are Aurora. The Turkish team began the year under Eternal Fire and had an extremely busy start to the season, during which they were a constant playoff attendee, but that last push towards a trophy eluded them during their purple patch.

"I'm a little scared about burnout, but we are professionals. I think with the help of our organization and my boss, my manager, my coach, and everyone on the team, we will do our best to keep our players healthy, because it's important," Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli told HLTV at PGL Cluj-Napoca, a tournament right in the middle of their six-event streak that lasted almost four months.

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While there is no guarantee that more rest and practice could push Aurora to a trophy, a quick refresh of the playbook and some time away from the constant travel could have been just what the team needed to kick on. They were one of only two teams to beat Vitality in the first half of the 2025, after all.

Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski also lamented the lack of practice days following the mid-season signing of Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov. While the decision to shake up their roster during a busy part of the season was Falcons' own doing, they threw their new superstar straight into IEM Melbourne and BLAST Rivals with minimal time to practice.

Even after skipping PGL Astana, the Macedonian IGL was honest about the tough process the team was going through. "There are still some strats where I have to remind him what he needs to throw," he told HLTV at IEM Dallas. "I'm not blaming him because he joins the team, and after two days, we have an event in Melbourne, so there's no time to go through the whole playbook."

Whether it was the lack of practice, too much pressure, or a curse that eventually cost Falcons in Austin, the lack of repetition certainly played a part — but in their defense, you don't say no to m0NESY.

Can't teams just skip events to improve? While there is some logic behind that decision, it is an incredibly risky one. Skipping a tournament to count on a better result in the next is a sound decision, but what if the gamble doesn't pay off? The VRS is a cruel mistress, and a lack of points at consecutive tournaments might steal future invites or the all-important Major sticker money while grinders toil away in the Sisyphean point chase.

This is where another big problem comes in: Most events feature the same field of teams, and repetitive matchups produce a feeling of deja vu. Only that this time, the suspicion that one may have seen this before is reality rather than an illusion. Even in the recent case when IEM Chengdu and PGL Bucharest were expected to overlap and force teams to choose between them, PGL changed the dates to allow teams to attend both.

Tournament formats also follow the same vein. It's either a Swiss system or a double-elimination group feeding into a six-team playoff. Exceptions to this are sadly few and far between.

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This rigidity amplifies the broader issue of similar outcomes across different events. When tournaments all follow the same format, the circuit lacks variety and freshness, which gradually fuels both viewer fatigue and player burnout.

The audience also begins to encounter diminishing returns on engaging with tournaments, as their repetitive nature makes them nearly interchangeable, while the large quantity of events compounds the problem even more.

BLAST are one of the only organizers to attempt something different with the Bounty format, allowing teams to wager their prize money and thus some all-important VRS points, but the idea is yet to catch on.

The format gives teams an opportunity to maximize their performance at the high-stakes tournament by putting part of their guaranteed earnings on the line. Since prize money plays a major role in the VRS formula, this could help some teams secure a Major appearance or at least earn an invite to a higher stage.

More skin on the line for teams makes matches undoubtedly more exciting, and some placed wagers would finally put Mike "⁠DarfMike⁠" Winnick out of his eternal purgatory of hearing bounties getting denied time after time. But alas, teams and players would rather play it safe with their money and VRS points, and the tournaments’ interesting design falls flat.

If you allow me to view past events through rose-tinted glasses for a second, I would like to remind you of the flair that used to adorn Twitch streams. ESG Tour Mykonos and the cs_summit series still live on in the minds of many, some of whom find themselves regularly humming the banger theme song of the Greek event.

The cs_summit vibe was also a breath of fresh air for the scene, as players and coaches joined talent on the couch to discuss anything that came to mind. While some people weren't thrilled with the idea of an "unserious" broadcast, whose spirit still lives on in the EPL seasons — although they have failed to capture lighting in a bottle the way cs_summit did —, the event provided a much-needed break from the cookie-cutter tournaments we have grown accustomed to.

But would events like that even work at this point? FISSURE needed to hold one of their events during the summer break due to the packed nature of the calendar. Even if you feasibly could organize a tournament like that despite all the many variations of Frequent Flyer tokens, which force teams to prioritize certain events in order to not forfeit the invite for that TO's next event and receive a bit of extra prize money, the team list would feature a far cry from the eight top 20 teams that entered the beaches of Mykonos back in 2017.

But breaking this cycle is hard. The biggest organizers want as many eyes on their events as possible to receive as much monetary support from sponsors, and will therefore do their best to fill the calendar with cost-effective events featuring as many studio games as possible.

And that is our biggest problem at the moment. TOs found a way to stay afloat by organizing studio or sometimes even online events, with the biggest players swallowing up almost every available day on the calendar to stifle competition from smaller fish.

However, a smaller, unproven organizer could still garner enough attention for their tournament despite high competition. The current VRS LAN frenzy ahead of the October 6 Major invite cut-off, with teams flying all across the world to squeeze out as many VRS points from their season as possible, shows that teams are willing to go the extra length to accrue those LAN win points.

Fans are also proving they are interested when there is something on the line, as they flock to X and the HLTV forums to discuss a recent result that increased BetBoom's chances of making the Major by 0.3%.

That's what makes me believe that if we coupled some smaller events with out-of-the-box thinking and different approaches, whether it's talent, format, or the overall vibe of the event, as well as a wider variety of teams with something on the line, people would tune in and watch.

An increase in the quality of smaller events would also force the biggest players to ramp up their game, despite some already taking some small steps in the right direction. The aforementioned BLAST Bounty format is a breath of fresh air, even though the online portion of the tournament syphons much of the excitement away, and ESL's decision to feature a live crowd in all stages of IEM Chengdu will undoubtedly make the event more exciting.

Still, the fact that we are back to watching tier-one online CS in 2025 is a travesty of the highest order. Tournament days that could be used for an event to get excited about, or at the very least an opportunity for a smaller organizer to showcase their vision to the public, are now filled to the brim with unexciting matches and bedroom casts.

Since the summer break, BLAST Bounty and Open's online group stages hoarded 12 days of an already over-filled calendar, and, in my opinion, added little value. That's the circuit's biggest issue right now.

Too much quality Counter-Strike, preferably played in full arenas, will never be a problem. No one will get enough of Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut clashing in high-octane playoff matches that could decide the tournament winner and tip the scales in their battle to become HLTV's Player of the Year, or watching an underdog swinging at the best teams in the world despite having no business doing so.

An overload of lackluster filler matches might prove to be an issue in the long run, though, because yes, a few of you are true lunatics who will sit in front of your monitors watching Counter-Strike all day, but most will not. And if those people get slowly burned out from watching our beautiful esport, then we’re in real danger. A few fans get tired, a few streams are skipped, a few watch parties don’t happen, and before you know it the excitement is gone.

Even Counter-Strike isn’t invincible, and if we get the same match-ups over and over and they start to lack meaning, even the greatest moments might start to feel like reheated leftovers.