The stage was set as Natus Vincere (NAVI) met FaZe Clan in the finals of IEM Cologne 2022. What started off with 24 teams earlier this month now trickled down to only them. The two teams clashed with guns blazing as FaZe Clan emerged as the victor.
Rosters of the Finals
FaZe Clan
Finn “karrigan” Andersen (IGL)
Håvard “rain” Nygaard
Helvijs “broky” Saukants
Russel “twistzzz” Van Dulken
Robin “ropz” Kool
Natus Vincere
Denis “electroNic” Sharipov (IGL)
Oleksandr “s1mple”Kostyliev
Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy
Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi
Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev
Map Picks
FaZe bans Dust2
NAVI bans Vertigo
FaZe picks Inferno (First map)
NAVI picks Overpass (Second map)
FaZe picks Ancient (Third map)
NAVI picks Mirage (Fourth map)
Nuke left (Final map)
First Map (Inferno)
With Inferno being FaZe’s first pick, you’d expect them to win it. Right from the get go, they played accordingly. FaZe Clan won the first 5 rounds without flinching at all. For the first time in the map, things went NAVI’s way and they won the next 4 rounds thanks to team efforts. Things went back and forth a little before NAVI picked up the lead for the first time making the score 6-7 in their favor. The two finalists kept going at each other as the scoreboard read 12-12. FaZe put it into fifth gear to win 3 rounds back to back making it 15-12. There was a little bit of resistance but FaZE picked up the first map 16-13.
Second Map (Overpass)
It was the first map pick for Natus Vincere but FaZe took the first round. S1mple then took the risk of buying an AK despite losing the first round and it paid off. They picked up the second round thanks to his brilliance. For the first time after the 2nd round, the scores were levelled 5-5 between the two teams. The first half of the second map ended 8-7 in favor of NAVI. After the half, it continued to be balanced for the next few rounds as well and things started tipping in favor of FaZe. But the lead didn’t last for long as NAVI took 7 consecutive rounds. While things seemed a little shaky as FaZe Clan won the next two to make 15-13, perfecto stepped up and defused the bomb right in time to win the map.
Third Map (Ancient)
Right from the start, FaZe’s pick seemed to have been NAVI’s. NAVI won the first 8 rounds straight without any problem whatsoever. The form continued as the scoreboard read 15-4. It should’ve been moments before NAVI picked up their second map in a row but this is Counter-Strike! When it matter the most, FaZe responded. They won 11 rounds consecutively to tie the map and head into overtime. Natus recollected themselves and won it in overtime thanks to a 200 IQ defuse by b1t. They were now just one map away from becoming champions.
It was NAVI’s pick again in the fourth map of the finals of IEM Cologne 2o22. They started off well as they picked up the first 3 rounds, no issues whatsoever. But then issues started arising out of thin air. FaZe levelled it 3-3 and then went on dominate the rest of the first half. They ended the first half 10-5 in their favor. NAVI did show some fight in the second half but it just wasn’t enough. FaZE picked up the fourth map winning it 16-9.
Interested in CS:GO betting? Check out our recommendations for some of the top CS:GO betting sites!
Fifth Map (Nuke)
The fans asked for a fifth map and the finalists, FaZe and NAVI delivered it in the grand finals of IEM Cologne 2022. NAVI started off the best way possible picking up the first 5 rounds. However, they couldn’t hold onto their lead for long as FaZe Clan responded drawing the map 6-6. But the first half ended 8-7 in favor of Natus Vincere. FaZe turned the map around in their favor and had a 4-point advantage making it 13-9. NAVI responded and won 4 straight rounds, the 4th being a clutch by perfecto. 13-13 soon turned into 14-14. And just when it looked like it’ll go into overtime, twistzzz and karrigan stepped up to pick up the next two rounds. And that is how FaZE Clan finally won it all at Cologne!
With yet another major under their belt, FaZe Clan are now the best CS:GO champions of the entire world.
https://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FX5aS6mXwAQU72l.jpg10801920ryan nowehttps://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/43049735_2190022561248158_4641806417915805696_n-277x300-80x80.pngryan nowe2022-07-17 21:09:062022-07-17 21:09:06FaZe Become Champions of IEM Cologne 2022
Cologne has witnessed the best teams from across the world clash to win the Masters. With the competition at its final stages, few remain to become a victor. We now finally have our first pair of semi-finalists with Astralis facing NAVI today.
Team Astralis
Astralis has always been one of the most fierce teams in the Counter-Strike world. The pride of Denmark- Astralis has picked up multiple titles, the last notable one being the BLAST Pro Series: Global Final 2019. While 2018 and 2019 served as their prime years, Astralis is still a force to be reckoned with. They surely have proved so with their current run at IEM Cologne 2022.
Astralis Roster
Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander (IGL)
Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth
Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke
Benjamin “blameF” Bremer
Asger “farlig” Jensen
Martin “trace” Heldt
Astralis’ Run at IEM Cologne 2022
Astralis was one of the 16 Play-In teams that made it thanks to their ESL World Ranking. Following a Bo3 format, the first opponents to face Astralis at the lower bracket were Complexity and BIG. Both Complexity and the winners of the 2022 Roobet Cup lost to the Danish squad. Placed in Group B, Astralis faced some big, big names of the Counter-Strike scene. In round 1 of the upper bracket, Astralis clean sweeped FURIA Esports. They went on to do the same to Cloud9 in round 2 of the upper bracket. Their first loss came against FaZe Clan in the following round. While FaZe directly proceeded to the semi-finals of the competition, Astralis faced MOUZ (formerly known as mousesports) in the quarter-finals.
Astralis vs MOUZ
MOUZ was not at all expected to make it this far at IEM Cologne 2022. But they did. They beat the likes of Heroic, Team Vitality and Ninjas in Pyjamas to name a few. With new recruits torzsi and JDC, MOUZ gave Astralis a run for their money. MOUZ started off strong winning their pick of Mirage 16-8. Astralis took Nuke as their first pick and they leveled the series 1-1 winning 16-9. Ancient was the decider and Astralis just clinched it 16-12 ending what can be considered as a dream run for MOUZ. While Astralis have done a good job at taking care of Mouz, their biggest challenge yet awaits- NAVI.
Natus Vincere
NAVI has proven many times in recent years that they will destroy anyone that comes their way. Before we look into what may be in store for us, here’s how NAVI is lining up this Major:
Denis “electroNic” Sharipov
Oleksandr “s1mple”Kostyliev
Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy
Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi
Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev
Astralis vs. NAVI Preview
Astralis vs. Natus Vincere will be taking place at 19:30 ALMT today. It will be streamed live on Twitch right from Cologne. Since 2020, the teams have faced each other a total of 11 times. Astralis has only won thrice out of those 11 matches. NAVI has a win rate of 70% in the last 30 days while Astralis has won 62% of their matches. So, the odds are heavily in favor of Natus Vincere.
https://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FXye7aIUYAErBRn.jpg10801920ryan nowehttps://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/43049735_2190022561248158_4641806417915805696_n-277x300-80x80.pngryan nowe2022-07-16 15:17:462022-07-17 15:23:02Astralis to face NAVI at IEM Cologne 2022 SemiFinals-1
BIG Clan secures their first massive title of the year winning the Roobet Cup 2022. The German team beat FaZe Clan 2-1 at the finals to pick up the title. This is their first trophy since winning the Funspark ULTI 2020 which took place last year.
BIG’s Roster
BIG showed up to the event with their ever strong lineup.
Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz (IGL)
Nils “k1to” Gruhne
Florian “SyrsoN” Rische
Karim “Krimbo” Moussa
Tizian “Tizian” Feldbusch
The entire roster performed well throughout the event. Even as a stand-in player, k1to turned quite a few heads throughout the tournament. But it was syrsoN who won the MVP of Roobet Cup 2022.
SyrsoN put BIG on the map with his phenomenal performance throughout Roobet Cup this year. The German was awarded the HLTV x BitSkins MVP of Roobet Cup. Over the 14 maps that BIG played on their way to winning the tournament, SyrsoN obtained a 1.23-rated performance. This was SyrsoN’s personal best performance since the PGL Major Antwerp Europe RMR. This isn’t his first MVP, however, as he won his career’s first one at DreamHack Masters Spring back in 2020. While there were quite a few players with higher overall ratings, the AWPer was a crowd favorite in the late-tournament matches. It was Cloud9 in the semifinals and FaZe in the finals that witnessed the wrath of SyrsoN.
BIG’s Journey at Roobet Cup 2022
BIG started off their journey facing Entropiq and FaZe Clan at the group stages. The German team picked up two 2-1 wins against both of them progressing to the knockout rounds. They then faced Eternal Fire and maintained their streak of winning 2-1. At the semi-finals, BIG faced their toughest opponents yet. Cloud9 topped Group B and convincingly defeated 9z Team. Despite that, BIG defeated C9 two straight rounds, winning 2-0 and moving onto the finals. Surprisingly, it was FaZe yet again that stood between them and the Cup title.
This is how the results turned out
Map 1: Dust 2 16-13 win for BIG (BIG Pick)
Map 2: Nuke 14-16 win for FaZe (FaZe Pick)
Map 3: Mirage 19-17 win for BIG (BIG Pick)
With $150,000 in the bank, BIG are going home with nothing but smiles on their faces. But the team don’t have time to rest as they’ll be facing Order soon at the IEM Cologne 2022 Play-In.
https://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FWh4g6YWQAElG1--scaled.jpg25602048ryan nowehttps://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/43049735_2190022561248158_4641806417915805696_n-277x300-80x80.pngryan nowe2022-07-01 14:18:382022-07-01 14:18:38BIG wins the Roobet Cup 2022
https://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/image1-3.png369671ryan nowehttps://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/43049735_2190022561248158_4641806417915805696_n-277x300-80x80.pngryan nowe2020-11-10 10:17:492020-11-10 11:41:11what makes the best CSGO Betting Sites
In early 2016, Counter-Strike:Global Offensive was becoming more and more popular mainly because of the CS:GO skin gambling, buying, trading, and betting. A lot of people were creating inventories filled with luxury knives and other weapon skins, and they were always coming to play the game mainly because they invested a lot of money into it.
However, not everyone acquired expensive inventories by purchasing skins, a lot of people earned their first knife by gambling on numerous different websites.
In late 2016, Valve started sending out cease and desist letters to all of the popular skin gambling websites, and this was the downfall of skin gambling industry.
However, in mid-2017, many moved to other types of skin betting sites like the ones where you can trade in a cryptocurrency called Skincoin, or CSGO gambling sites where you are required to do all sorts of skin gaming tasks to acquire skins for CSGO.
So, despite the projected downfall, the industry started to recover in the years that followed and is still going strong to this very day.
Before we continue and tell you all about skin gambling and buying we don’t advocate skin gambling at Gamopo.com. We only recommend trusted CSGO betting providers , 99% of trusted providers don’t offer skins gambling. If this is your thing please be careful as most providers have no licenses and may only be out for your money. With that said lets get into it.
HOW HUGE WAS THIS MARKET?
Some reports say that CS:GO skin gambling related to esports was worth over $5 billion dollars in 2016. This is a ridiculous amount of money for a market based on virtual skins.
Ever since skin gamblers had a chance to turn their skins into real money, they started playing more and more. Websites like bitskins.com and opskins.com were blooming, and they were stacked with skins 24/7.
Sometimes, Valve would ban a couple of bots on certain gambling websites, thinking that they could seize their operations if they lose money, but that never stopped anyone. You can only imagine how much money they earned that they had no problem if their bot gets banned with over $300,000 worth of skins on it.
However, things have cooled down as of late, mainly because trade ban for each skin has been introduced. Basically, if you trade a certain skin you will get a 14 days trade ban on that same skin, and you will not be able to trade it for that period of time.
Skin gambling websites were earning so much money that they decided to sponsor different Esports teams and organization. For instance, Hellraisers were sponsored by csgopolygon.com. On the other hand, hellcase.com was one of the biggest sponsors of StarSeries i-League, and they even added drops to the live stream. They tried to create a similar atmosphere to the Major with those skin drops.
Due to bans and controversies, the skins betting industry began to decline in 2017, but this was not the end by any means. Players continue to bet on skins to this day, without much trouble.
It was first thought that the industry would fall apart, but in reality, it just continued to grow, albeit at a slower rate. At first, the predictions were that it would be worth more than $20 billion, but it is now estimated that the CS:GO skin betting industry is worth $13 billion in 2020.
This is still significantly higher than the $5 billion back in 2016, which certainly shows a lot of promise that the industry will continue to grow despite the many controversies and problems.
NOT ALL OF THESE WEBSITES SEIZED THEIR OPERATIONS
One of the most popular gambling websites is definitely CSGOFAST.com. They have been live ever since skin gambling was introduced to the scene. However, ever since trade bans were put in place, their business has been very bad. So they followed other popular websites and decided to offer real-money gambling.
So yes, there are a lot of operational websites that used to offer CS:GO skins gambling, but almost all of them have switched sides and now they are offering real money wagers.
TYPES OF CS:GO SKIN GAMBLING
CSGO skin betting is not as simple as some believe it to be, and one thing that proves this is the size of this industry. However, more importantly, the answer lies in the many types of CS:GO skin gambling that exist.
In the following sections, we’ll talk about methods like Counter-Strike; Global Offensive skin jackpot, CSGO match betting, Counter-Strike roulette, and many others. Keep reading to learn all about them.
COUNTER STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE SKIN JACKPOT
csgofast.com
Almost all of the skin gambling websites had skin jackpot put in place. You are probably wondering how did they earn so much money if they only provided jackpot and other players competed in it. Well, they would take 5% minimum commision, some of the websites even 10-15%. The math is simple if there is a $1000 pot and the commision is 10%, that is $100 every 60 seconds or so. Now you can imagine how much money there were able to earn.
CS:GO SKIN BETTING
Another very popular skin gambling method was betting on Esports events and in particular CS:GO match betting. A lot of websites started adding this section of gambling, simply because people were enjoying betting on numerous Esports events. Needless to say that viewership was insane in every single tournament.
Best CSGO Skin Gambling Sites
There are plenty of sites where you can bet on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins, but not every one of those is the best CS GO gambling site. Only a couple of them can be considered as the best in the business, and we wanted to share the ones we believe to be the best for all players:
Unikrn
Pinnacle
GG.bet
Betway
CyberBet
How to Bet on CSGO skins?
If you are one of those players who are new to the world of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skin betting, you are probably quite confused with how this type of betting works.
It’s actually quite simple. There are plenty of third-party betting sites where you can gamble your skins on CS GO tournaments and matches. You only need to use the software tools offered on the site, which are always extremely simple to figure out. The software of the site is the mediator that will take away your skin if you lose the bet, or award you with one if you win. It’s essentially the same as any other form of betting, so you don’t have to worry about the actual controls, only about finding a great CSGO betting site.
www.drakelounge.come
CRASH
As the time passed by, everyone got fed up with skin jackpot and similar games. So a new idea was needed to attract more and more players, new and old ones. The crash game was introduced to almost all of the gambling sites. And it was a big hit. The game itself was very simple, the bar would start at 1.00, and the longer you stay in the game before withdrawing the more you can win. The trick is to hit the collect button before the bar crashes, and everyone who did not collect their money would lose their initial bet. This was a very interesting and tense game mode, but its downside was that the game can crash at 1.00 and everyone can lose their money before the game even started.
csgocrash.com
COUNTER STRIKE ROULETTE
This is probably the most popular gambling game in the entire world. A simple jackpot with red, black and green. However, there were alternations on various sites, where they introduced x2, x5, x10, x100 lines. Not much else to say about this game, very simple and easy to understand.
csgoroll.com
CS:GO CASE OPENING WEBSITES
Just like crash game mode, case opening became very popular after players got bored of old games. Someone did the calculation and it turned out that Valve was earning a lot of money on case opening(the official one). There was only 0.20% chance to get a covert skin(red), while websites like hellcase.com, farmskins.com, and many others offered a much higher chance of winning a rare skin.
However, the official case opening was also banned in numerous countries around the world.
hellcase.com
CS:GO SKIN TRADING SITES
Even though this is not considered as a gambling method, most of these sites got their bots banned as well. If we take csgojar.com as an example. Their bots got banned with inventories worth around $250,000. To be honest, they were not offering anything illegal, it was a simple procedure of skin trade. If you do not enjoy your skins anymore you can trade them on this website for another one. Of course, the price of selling was way lower, and the price you were paying was a bit higher but still, this was a fair and square deal. I personally used this website a lot, and I never had any problems with it. But, they were tampering with Valve’s profits and they had to go.
cs.money
How Did CS:GO Skin Gambling Start?
The first skin gambling website was csgolounge.com. Once this website was launched, it was mostly considered as a trading post where people could trade skins between themselves without any fees. However, after some time, they introduced the first skin betting platform related to Esports. All of the matches were based on a percentage wins, so there was no way that website will lose money. The more money you place, the more will the percentage drop. Very easy to understand and yet a perfect way to earn money without any risk.
Csgolounge.com is the first website that got cease and desist letter from Valve, and ever since they stayed out of the business.
CSGOFAST.COM
This skin gambling website has been a go-to place for a lot of high rollers. Most of the popular skin gambling YouTubers played on it, and their pots were insane. At their peak, their average daily pot was well above $600. You can imagine how much money owners of this website made.
You can also find a lot of videos on YouTube were people won crazy amounts of money with a very low chance of winning. Overall, csgofast.com started off with skin jackpot, but after a while, they had a big variety of games to play on. They have also introduced skin betting to their website, followed by slots, case opening, crash, hi-lo, and many others.
To conclude, csgofast was one of the most popular skin gambling providers, and after the series of cease and desist letter, bot bans, and other trading restrictions their traffic is lower than ever. But still, they are average around 3000-4000 unique players every day, even though they switched to gambling with real money.
csgofast.com
CSGO500.COM
Another very popular website that had over 7000 unique visitors per day back in 2016. They were the first website who introduced a different method of roulette to the skins gambling industry. Instead of ordinary, black, red and green roulette, csgo500 decided to introduce something that is more rewarding to their players. Black(x2), red(x3, blue(x5), gold(x50).
Ever since it was released players were swarming to play there, and to be honest, it was not that easy to win there, simply because there were a lot more options to bet on, and logically you had bigger chance to lose. Just like csgofast, this website was one of the first ones on the Valve’s list, and their bots were banned all the time.
However, after trade bans and limits, they decided to switch to the VGO, cryptocurrencies and other Dota 2, H1Z1 skins, but you can still deposit Counter-Strike:Global Offensive skins. Furthermore, most of their business is now made through BitCoin deposits and withdrawals.
csgo500.com
CSGOLOTTO.COM
Probably all of you know what happened with csgolotto. For you who are not that familiar with it here is the quick breakdown. This skin gambling website was owned by two YouTubers, Trevor “Tmartn” Martin, and Tom “Syndicate” Cassel. They were both promoting it on their YouTube channels without ever disclosing the part that they are running this gambling website. And we are not talking about small YouTubers. They even played on the site, and they were winning crazy amounts of money, and you can guess why. Because they rigged the system in their favor.
Ever since that information became known to the public and to the CS:GO community, csgolotto closed and never opened again. But they still made an insane amount of money, as they attracted all of the popular skin gambling YouTubers, and their pots averaged around $800 per day.
csgolotto and one of its owners, Tmartn
CSGOSHUFFLE.COM
Another scandal related to skin gambling. The most popular twitch streamer at that time, James “PhantomL0rd” Varga was primarily a gambler on twitch. He barely played any games on twitch, and he was attracting over 50,000 concurrent viewers. He was always doing crazy giveaways, giving back to the community, and most of his YouTube videos are based around him giving away luxury knives to the underaged kids. You can only imagine how it must feel when a 15-year-old kid gets a $2000 knife for free.
However, everything was not so perfect for James. Most of the time he spent streaming, he was gambling on csgoshuffle.com. But at one point, his skype was hacked and hackers got his chat logs. That chat was between him and his developer of csgoshuffle. It can be clearly seen from the messages that he was adjusting odds so he can win. It backfired massively on him and he had to flee the country. No one heard from him for a long time, and he recently came back to streaming. Furthermore, he can not stream on twitch anymore, and now he is streaming himself PLAYING video games on YouTube. And guess what, he is averaging 100 viewers per day.
If all of this weren’t enough, for the past two years, James and Twitch have been in a lawsuit limbo. Varga wanted $35m in damages for the fact that Twitch banned him, while Twitch argued that the damages should be capped at $50,000. The trial is set to begin in October 2020, and hopefully, it will be resolved soon after. As for the site csgoshuffle.com, it’s no longer in operation.
phantomL0rd playing on csgoshuffle.com
Of course, csgoshuffle seized its operations and it never reopened again.
DRAKELOUNGE.COM
After csgolounge.com stopped offering betting content someone had to step up and take their players away from them. Drakelounge was a part of “drake” series of gambling websites. They were operating with numerous different websites, mostly based on roulette, case opening, and their latest addition drakelounge.
What players mostly enjoyed is odds betting. No more percentage bets where you would see your winning potential shrink everytime someone places a big bet. Alongside decimal odds, they were one of the first skin gambling websites that offered 24/7 live support. They were never involved in any scandals and they were always rewarding their players and community overall.
Even though skin gambling is not as viable as it was in the past, this website is still going strong, as they switched to the direct skin deposit through opskins.com, gift cards, and BitCoin deposits.
To conclude, in my personal opinion this was the best skin betting website on the entire scene.
drakelounge.com
HELLCASE.COM
This is not mainly a skin gambling website. They offered exactly the same thing as Valve itself offered. They publicly stated that they are offering much higher odds to win more expensive and luxury items than Valve is.
This is the main reason for their popularity. But they have taken this one step further. They invested a lot of money into hosting numerous smaller tournaments where lower tiered teams could compete and prove themselves on the scene. However, they did not stop here, they are the main sponsor of StarSeries i-League, and that says a lot about owners of this website.
At the moment, they are still alive, and they are doing okay. They were always around 2000-3000 unique visitors per day, and that number did not get any smaller despite recent events and restrictions.
hellcase.com
CS.MONEY
Last but not least, cs.money is a trading platform, but the second party is the website itself. So technically you can not call this a skin gambling website because there is no game of chance attached to it.
I feel sorry for cs.money, because their bots were banned on regular basis, and they did nothing wrong. Yes, their values were higher once compared to other websites like opskins and bitskins, but still, people could use this website to exchange their old skins to get new ones.
No one ever had any problems with websites like this, and it feels like they are treated unfairly. But to this day, they are still offering quality skins. And also, some of the rarest skins can be found on their bots. For instance, while I was writing this they had one of the most unique skins on one of their bots. Souvenir Factory New Dragon Lore with a JW sticker. They are selling it for a whopping price of $27,000.
cs.money
How do you feel about scandals related to some of these skin gambling websites? Also, do you justify CS:GO content creators on YouTube sponsoring some of these shady gambling websites? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.
CONCLUSION
The biggest problems that skin gambling occurred was underaged gambling. There was no way of stopping kids from taking part in the gambling scene. The only way to limit them from visiting these types of websites was not efficient. The only thing they could do is add a box to confirm that you are 18 or older, which is totally stupid, and it does nothing. But still, on the legal sides of things, they did the correct thing.
Furthermore, skin gambling really ignited the community, and it was growing rapidly. But the money they were acquiring from these websites and the amount of scamming that was flooding around the game and its community was unreal, so I understand why this had to be done by Valve.
However, this is not the end of skin gambling. Not only that there are websites still going strong, but there are also numerous lawsuits filed against many of these sites, mostly related to the underaged gambling.
Stay tuned for the second part of this article, where we will talk about the most popular skin gambling websites out there. If you are interesting in CSGO betting and learning more about it head over to our CSGO Betting for the best advice and tips.
What do you think, did Valve to a good thing with cease and desist letters? How do you think CS:GO scene and community would look like if skin gambling was still a thing? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, also known as Csgo is a first-person shooter developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve co. CS:GO has been around since late 2012. However, this is not the only Counter-Strike game ever made. Counter-Strike 1.6 and CS: Source were big hits in the gaming community once they were released, but they had one problem, that being old dated graphics.
What makes CS:GO so popular, is its competitiveness. That’s why CS:GO became an eSport. Not only did it become an eSport, CS:GO set a prime example for all the other games. There are a lot of various tournaments and leagues hosted not just by producers, but also third-party organizations decided to host and sponsor some of the most popular tournaments in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Furthermore, there are 2 main tournaments per year, they are most commonly known as Majors. These types of tournaments are able to attract over 1 million concurrent viewers, which is incredible. Prize pools are another must for every tournament. Let’s take FACEIT London MAJOR 2018 as an example, it had a whopping prize pool of $1.000,000.
Now that you are informed of how much money and popularity there is around Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, you will not have to think twice about playing it.
There are numerous teams and players striving to be the best. In order to achieve that, they have to communicate and use certain terminology. Here, you will be able to read about the most popular csgo terms.
BASICS
FRAG: this is a common term not just in CS:GO, commonly used in every shooter game. It means to kill one person.
CALL: to inform your teammates about the positioning of your opponents. Each spot on the map has its own call-out, let’s take map Dust 2 as an example, you can make a call by saying “two guys long”. However, you can also call for someone’s hp, used utility, etc.
IN-GAME LEADER/CALLER: an in-game leader is a person in charge of making different calls. For example, if an in-game leader informs you to push long, you should push it, because he is a person with a plan.
ENTRY KILL: this term is used as a terrorist, attacking side. If you or your teammate is able to kill a person defending either A or B site. You can simply make a call, “I’ve got an entry on A”.
A/B: short for bombsite A or B. Places of the map where the bomb has to be planted by Terrorists or defended by Counter-Terrorists.
C4: used by both sides in a game. Terrorists have to plant the bomb on one of the sites, and Counter-Terrorist has to either not allow bomb plant to happen, or to defuse it.
CARRY: a person who gets the important kills to help his team win a match. Usually, this person is also a top fragger for his team.
K/D RATIO: stands for kills per death ratio. Players tend to compete who will have the bigger K/D ratio at the end of the match.
T/CT: shorten for Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist.
LOW/LIT/LEGGED: Csgo terms used to inform your teammates that one of the enemies has been hit by you. Mainly used to keep information short, it’s easier to say “one is low on A”, then “one has been hit for 75 on A site”.
2K/3K/4K/ACE: this is shortened for 2/3/4 kills. Ace, on the other hand, is something even better. When one player, wipes out all 5 of the enemies, alongside all the wows and chants, we all call it an ace.
CSGO MATCH BETTING: signifies wagering real-life currency or items from the game on the outcome of specific CS:GO matches.
DINK: when a player gets shot in the helmet. The name comes from the sound heard when this happens in the game.
200 IQ: when someone manages to win a round for their team by pulling off a world-class move like killing a player with one shot using a Desert Eagle, for example.
BANANA: the famous corridor in the Inferno map that leads to bombsite B.
FLICK: a quick shot by which a player manages to kill another immediately after they appear in their line of view.
GH: it means good half, and players usually say it when the first half of a challenging match is over.
UTILITY
MOLLY: synonym to molotov. Can only be purchased by Terrorist side. This is basically, a homemade fire grenade, which can be used as an offensive tool, to flush someone out of the position, or as a defensive tool to buy time, while you’re waiting for the help to arrive. It deals damage per second to players standing in it, and it lasts for 8 seconds.
INCIN: shorten of incendiary grenade. You can only buy it on the Counter-Terrorist side. It has the same effects as a molly above.
FLASH: stands for flashbang. Commonly used by both sides. Flash deals no damage but it’s very powerful grenade if thrown correctly. Once it popped, a white screen will appear on the hit players, and they will also cover their faces. However, you can flash your teammates and yourself, so beware. Furthermore, the closer you throw the flashbang to someone’s face, the longer the white effect will last.
SMOKE: stands for the smoke grenade. A common grenade used by both sides to block off view for a 12 second period.
HE: commonly known as frag grenade. It explodes after 2 seconds dealing damage to everyone around it.
NADE: does not have a specific meaning. Usually, people use it once they are asking someone if they have any grenades left to use.
HERO AK: the term used when one player buys a gun while the other team members only half buy or eco rush. This player is then usually the one on whom the team relies to make the most kills in the round.
STRATEGIES
PUSH: order to advance to a certain point on the map. Commonly associated with term rush.
RUSH: fast play towards a certain bombsite, in order to get a bomb planted. Mostly used by Terrorists.
SAVE: sometimes, you and your teammates will find yourselves in very tough situations. The smartest idea would be to back off to the other part of the map in order to bring the weapons and equipment you saved to the next round in order to make an impact on the next round with the weapons you saved.
BUY: common term for both sides. Simply, it means to buy rifles and/or AWP.
ECO: stands for saving money in order to buy better weapons next round. This strategy is used by both sides. Mostly, on an eco round, players will stick with default pistols.
GLASSCANNON: a person who decides to buy an AWP without kevlar.
EXECUTE: throwing nades to certain places on the map in order to gain control. Usually, Terrorists do different executes, either for mid control, or even to get a bomb planted on the bombsite.
BOOST: Jumping on top of your teammate in order to get a height advantage on your enemies. Boost is commonly used to catch your opponents off guard.
ROTATION: a call to move from the position you were either defending or attacking.
BACKSTAB: when a player kills another player from behind.
BAIT: when a player does an incredibly risky maneuver to draw fire from the enemy team, so his or her team can spot the enemy and counter-attack.
CLUTCH: when a player manages to win while being in an extremely difficult situation.
BHOP: signifies the bunny hop, which is a skilled move that players use to traverse the map faster.
JIGGLE PEEK: a pro move players use to quickly take a peek around a wall to draw fire and see where the enemy is. It’s done by quickly alternating between the left and right mouse buttons.
CSGO WEAPONS
AWP: the sniper rifle some like to call the big green gun. Very expensive, but very lethal. Usually takes only one bullet to kill an opponent.
RIFLE: a term used either for an AK-47 or M4A4/M4A1-S. Standard rifles for T/CT side.
DEAGLE: the most powerful pistol in the game. It kills the opponent regardless if he invested in a helmet or not.
POP FLASH: one of the terms used for a flashbang grenade that blinds players who are in range when it explodes.
A lot of Reddit threads and YouTube videos have emerged about CSGO, all of them were titled “Is csgo dying?” In this article, we will go over some of the statistics and opinions about the current state of Counter-Strike:Global Offensive.
CS:GO PLAYER COUNT
If we take a closer look at SteamCharts, we can see a lot of green and red there. However, before we get straight into the numbers, you have to understand that CS:GO has the most competitive type of player, who invested a lot of hours into the game. On the other hand, there are also a lot of casual players, who will switch between CS:GO, Fortnite, PUBG and other popular titles. That is the main reason why most of the games have their ups and downs when it comes to player count.
PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS vs CS:GO
PUBG has a huge player base, with an all-time peak of over 3 millions players. On the other hand, CS:GO had over 850.000 players playing the game in the same time period. This means that PUBG has 3.5 times more players than Counter-Strike:Global Offensive.
GENRE
Counter-Strike:Global Offensive has been around for a long time now, and it does not offer anything new, especially in the last few years. However, battle royale games are a brand new thing, and they will attract a lot of casual players. But, battle royale games are not as competitive as CS:GO, once you have spent hours on a battle royale type of game, you will definitely get fed up with it, because most it is a repetitive process: jump down, loot, run, shoot. While Counter-Strike:Global Offensive is nothing like this, there are no similarities in each particular match.
From my personal experience, most of the PUBG players give up once they accumulated around 500-700 hours, however, there are players who spent over 6000 hours playing CS:GO. Personally, I have around 3000 hours in CS:GO, and I know every corner of it. However, I tried PUBG, and I found it very interesting at first, but as I said above it got very repetitive and I gave up once I had around 250 hours.
WHAT CAUSED CS:GO TO LOSE ALMOST HALF OF ITS PLAYERS
If you ask me, all the blame is on developers, Valve. They made a lot of unpopular decisions lately, and this cost them a lot of players.
OFFICIAL MATCHMAKING & CHEATING
Firstly, official matchmaking is still stuck with 64-tick servers, which are awful to play on, that is the main reason why a lot of players are switching from official matchmaking to the third-party organizations, such as Faceit and ESEA. Secondly, cheating is a very big problem, not only in Counter-Strike:Global Offensive but in the entire gaming community. CS:GO is using VAC(Valve anti-cheat system). To be honest, it totally sucks. There are a lot of cheaters in competitive games, and they are barely ever banned, which causes people to quit.
CONTENT/NO CONTENT
If you are a veteran in CSGO, you probably do not remember when was the last time something relevant was added. However, as of late, a new gun was added to the game, but it does not provide much of a comfort. We also received a new HUD update, called Panorama, and it brought more harm than good. A lot of people are experiencing fps drops because of it(me included, and I have a decent PC). What I simply can not understand is why go live with something that is not polished, and it is causing problems for most of the players. There has been 344 since the last operation. There are no plans on introducing new one anytime soon, so I am wondering, what are casual players supposed to do when they get bored on matchmaking?
TOXICITY
Developers never managed to solve this mystery. This caused a lot of competitive players to quit CS:GO. It feels like they never had quality support on this topic, as developers were taking no actions against toxic players. If they were to implement certain punishment in order to prevent trollers and toxic players, most of these types of players would probably think about their actions before they ruined the game for others.
Why not do something similar to Dota 2, place toxic and AFK players in the lower priority, and let them climb back with the similar type of players.
SKIN INDUSTRY
Ever since skins were introduced to Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, the game popularity was rising. A lot of gambling websites started popping up. They were mainly prioritized as skin jackpots or roulette websites. They have created a huge market for CS:GO skins, and a lot of casual and competitive type of players were gambling in one way or another. After a couple of cease and desist letters, most of these types of websites decided to seize their operations. But, a new type of gambling emerged afterward, case opening websites were gaining a lot of popularity. Websites like hellcase.com, datdrop.com were earning a lot of money, but after the latest trading update, a lot of these type of gambling websites shut down their services as well.
All that we are left with are trading websites. The most popular one is definitely cs.money. It seems like they are the only type of skins exchange that survived, mainly because of the 8 days trade ban after each traded skin.
SKIN GAMBLING MADE CS:GO EVEN MORE POPULAR
In 2016, skin gambling was very popular. There were a lot of YouTubers(mostly casual players) gambling skins on regular basis. There was a lot of money in this type of industry, and new gambling sites were appearing every single day. As most of these earned tons of money, they sponsored a lot of giveaways made by famous CS:GO streamers, which attracted even more players and viewers.
If we take PhantomLord as an example, he accumulated over 45.000 concurrent viewers while he was gambling. Mostly because he would make a random $1000 knife giveaways on regular basis. However, he got greedy as he started rigging percentages in order to attract players to the site because when he played it seemed easy to win. He might be one of the reasons why certain actions were taken against skin gambling websites, but the main one was definitely underage gambling.
Most popular skin in CS:GO, AWP Dragon Lore
COULD NEW CS:GO(SOURCE 2) TURN THINGS AROUND?
Lately, there have been a lot of rumors about a new CS game. CS:GO was released in late 2012, which makes him 6 years old now. The engine is relatively old, graphics are also kinda out-dated. The only logical explanation would be a new game with a new engine.
It would definitely be a refreshment to all the Counter-Strike enthusiast, a new game would probably attract over 1.5 million players from what I think.
CONCLUSION
Counter-Strike:Global Offensive is a huge title in the gaming world. A lot of people played either original Counter-Strike, or CS 1.6, Counter-Strike Source, or the last addition to the CS family CS:GO.
CS:GO could use some type of refreshment, mainly in the content department. As I mentioned above, the last mission was active almost a year ago. Furthermore, problems with cheaters and toxic players are still not solved, and they need to be addressed in the near future.
However, everything is not so dark for Counter-Strike:GO. The game has a very stable player count, almost every month they average around 300.000 players, which is a great number for a game that is becoming old. A lot of tournaments, leagues and big prize pools are also attracting a large number of professional teams, players and sponsors, and in the end viewers. Let’s not forget that the last major had over 1 million concurrent users watching the final match.
So no, in my personal opinion, I do not think that CS:GO is dying, or that it is going to die anytime soon. There are a lot of new games released, even on monthly basis, and logically some players will switch to those games, but eventually, they will come back to Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, because this is a very unique game. There is nothing sweeter than hitting a Juan-deag, or one tap with an AK-47, no other games can offer that. However, there is a lot of room for improvement, and I believe that something will be done in order to fight versus cheaters and toxic players.
Howdy Troopers, and welcome to another edition of our Busting’ the Oddseports betting preview. I know you guys are excited about the upcoming events so I was thinking it would be good to go over them in more detail and let you guys share your opinions and best picks.
This time we are taking a closer look at the two upcoming premier Dota 2 and CSGO tournaments: Intel Extreme Masters XI and the newly announced Boston Major, which is another in line of Valve’s Dota Major Championship tournaments. Ready? Read more
https://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/IEMvsBostonBlogPost.jpg321845ryan nowehttps://www.gamopo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/43049735_2190022561248158_4641806417915805696_n-277x300-80x80.pngryan nowe2020-08-20 10:00:472020-08-20 07:57:37Busting The Odds: Intel Extreme Masters XI vs The Boston Major
