Reasons to hate each of the top CS:GO teams

July 22, 2021

Telling tales of esports, one word at a time, six years and counting

Sometimes we all want to be haters, even if only just for a little while. While fandom is a strictly emotional thing, we very much like to rationalize our dislike of others. Like a customer who held up the line at the register for twenty minutes because of a single mispriced biscuit, we love to know we’re always right. So if you ever get into an argument about why a given Counter-Strike team is actually the scum of the earth, here's a set of totally serious and reasonable observations you can rely upon to win the debate.

Team Liquid

Have we ever had a more boring top team in CS? Astralis revolutionized tactics, FalleN and coldzera broke new ground in what you can expect from an IGL and a star player, the Frenchies were always in your face with non-stop force-buys and crazy lurks, Fnatic had insane mental fortitude and disgusting pistol plays. These North American cowboys just keep clicking on heads, over and over again until the event ends and they leave with another trophy. It’s not even funny. Literally. It’s boring as all hell. Next!

Vitality

Ah, yes, ZywOo and the washed-up have-beens. Who would have thought the solution to all those pointless French shuffles was to unearth a generational talent and let him carry your ass to finals? Management MBAs, here we come! Yeah, yeah, French CS is back, conveniently ignoring their British IGL. Besides, Senegalese Counter-Strike would have just the same sort of renaissance off of a world-class AWPer.

Read more: The rise of Vitality

Astralis

How they held on to a top three spot on HLTV heading into the player break I’ll never understand, but oh Lord I’m glad they finally got their comeuppance. Remember this?

Turning 24 today and I think everyone knows what my biggest wish is 🔥!

I want to win the next Blast Pro Series tournament even though we arent going 🏆

Playing @NiPGaming today at 11 CET aswell 😜
— Lukas Rossander (@gla1ve_csgo) June 7, 2019

That’ll teach you to bore everyone with your grenade strikes and BLAST bonanzas!

ENCE

If I hear EZ 4 ENCE once more time, I’m going to go to the closest liquor store to throw off every bottle of Finlandia from their shelves. There’s nothing more annoying than an underdog making it to the top five, and you know why? Their fans become absolutely insufferable, spouting nonsense about how they knew it all along and that it was written in the stars. (Or, in this case, that it was EZ and GG like they are the five-year olds with zero social skills I’m stuck with in matchmaking.)

NRG

Fresh off the back of the laziest logo redesign in esports history and backstabbing their good in-game leader to bring in a guy who’s last good showings date back to the ice age, NRG are perhaps the most annoying of the bunch. If you force out the guy who recruited the players who enabled your rise, what’s left to support the team for? I guess if you were a fan of Game of Thrones and want some more brutal treachery to enjoy now that it’s over? Shame they’re strictly Season 8 material.

FaZe

In a way, picking up NEO makes perfect sense: their new brand identity seems to be “aging stars over the hill”, with appropriately bad tournament performances. Forcing out karrigan was as good a strategic decision as invading Russia in the winter. It’s fitting that Niko is a lot like a Tiger tank: massive, powerful, yet breaks down all the time. (By the same token, GuardiaN is a Moskvitch 2140, olofmeister is a Trabant and NEO is a rusty shopping cart.)

Na’Vi

You mean the team with s1mple and the four clowns? My grandmother could reach the playoffs of CS:GO tournaments with that guy on her side. It’s ridiculous that the best player of the world hardly ever wins trophies because he’s surrounded by clay pigeons and Zeus, the IGL equivalent of an underwear worn for over a week while suffering from diarrhea. Also, their org is scummy as all hell – remember when MiBR matched s1mple’s buyout and were willing to take flamie along for the ride and they were like “nah, actually we’d rather not”? Even if you like the team, you should hope they lose so that they finally invest enough resources to re-build the core. For everyone else, let’s keep hoping that someone saves s1mple from this terrible, dark, yellow place.

G2

Just because kennyS and shox still manage to frag out occasionally, this hasn’t suddenly become a good team, OK? See also: Senegalese Counter-Strike.

FURIA

The best part of having FURIA in the top ten is that MiBR are not there anymore. Boo hoo, “exciting” and “aggressive” Counter-Strike? All I see are gullible little kids who sold their souls for a five-year contract to an opportunistic org who are already starting to get found out by such masters of the game as *checks notes* Team GamerLegion. Enjoy them while they last, I guess?

mousesports

Say what you will, but moving to a kindergarten as an undercover officer wasn’t a good career move for Schwarzenegger and it wasn’t a good one for karrigan either. It’s a team full of kids, which means that all the sycophants will rave about their almost-wins and nice tries against top teams and outright call a major slot a massive accomplishment. You know, that thing they used to have locked down?