Every iteration of Counter-Strike has had its share of overpowered weapons, and the never-ending cycle of buffs and nerfs seemingly continue in CS:GO. The latest culprit is the SG 553, often mislabeled "Krieg" due to it's predecessor's name, which has attracted all kinds of nasty attention.

Now, we can all agree that the SG 553 is dogshit, and that it allow scrubs like us around GN2 to outfrag our more skilled mates. But for those saying that it is the most overpowered gun ever in Counter-Strike, we beg to differ.

Not convinced? Don't worry, because we've gathered some of the recent years most hilarious updated and re-works to show exactly what it is the SG 553 is up and against.

The (FNATI)CZ

It's not an understatement to suggest that the CZ75 has been one of the hardest pistols, or even weapons, for Valve to balance. In 1½ year between the Summer of 2014 and December 2015, the CZ75 received 6 (!) nerfs and buffs. That's more than the M4A1-S has had in its entire lifetime of CS:GO.

Today the gun has been nerfed into the ground and rarely sees any play. It's about as useful as JDM without an AWP. Wait, it's about as useful as JDM, period.

RatatataTec-9

Talking about one-trick ponies, the Tec-9 was another infamous pistol that could swing a game of CS:GO in an instant. No bombsites were safe when the Terrorists were force-buying, because this T-only pistol was so insane in it's efficiency that Valve nerfed ALL pistols into the ground in 2017.

Consider this statement for instance:

"Shipping initial changes to pistols with the goal of emphasizing skillful use of the weapons, beginning with the Tec-9."

Not even Valve believed that the Tec-9 was skillful back in 2017.

Augmented imbalance

In no way, shape or form was the AUG anywhere near useful for the longest time. That is, until Valve put down the price to $3.150 in order to incentivise players to pick it up more often, and oh did they pick it up.

Apparently the gun had been overpowered all along, but no one had really figured it out. That went on for 5 months until everyone and their mom had complained about the price, at which point Valve poked fun at the doubters when they upped the price:

"Now that players have had an opportunity to learn to love the AUG, returning the weapon to its original price of $3.300".

Our translation: Suck on that scrubs.

Of course the insane price jump of $150 made no impact at all, so three months later Valve did the most Valve thing in the World: Nerfed the gun into the ground by lowering the fire rate, and reducing it's unzoomed accuracy, sending all the pro players back to the M4A1. We can't get ourselves to label the M4A1-S users as pro gamers, sorry.

R8 MY B8 M8

Sometimes game developers do something so utterly baffling that everyone are left in part shock and part awe. Shocked that they cannot fathom the consequences and awe that they're actually trying to defend it.

The introduction of the R8 Revolver was that moment in CS:GO. Commanding the same loadout-slot as the Deagle, the Revolver had 1 more round in the chamber, more damage, better recoil control, better ranged accuracy and better armor penetration and killed with one shot. No we're not joking, it was THAT bad.

Instead of going "hm, we might have made a fubar gun here, let's pull it and re-work it", Valve used hapless CS:GO players as guinea-pigs, putting them in their wheels and watched the carnage. We mean, you could shoot the gun while defusing.

Luckily it only took them two days to figure out their initial mistake, but by then the gun was already banned from competitive play and after that rarely used. As an anecdote, the R8 has since been lowered to $600, but so far it's been in as many pro games as m0e since 2015.

The ultimate "What the hell happened?"

Okay we'll admit it, we're cheating with this one, because it hasn't ever been in Global Offensive (if you're going to be splitting hairs about Danger Zone, we'll kick your ass), but we just couldn't write a blog like this without mentioning it: The Tactical Shield.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to introduce an invulnerability-potion in a FPS game is probably the same that believed the R8 Revolver was a great idea. The Shield, which did cost a hefty $2,200 and could only be utilized with a knife or a pistol, was fast to equip, making you impenetrable from the front, essentially becoming a sort of roadblock.

In an era of no molotovs and where lobbing HE grenades took real skill, you were by and large immortal with the shield if you knew how to handle yourself. For some reason it never saw any pro play...

Not many examples exist today, but this one represents a pretty good example of a typical pub from that time HEADPHONE WARNING

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