Tough times for the CIS region

For many of us, it’s been a crazy year - but not as much as it has been for many in the CIS region.

For those in Ukraine especially, it’s been a brutal year; but it’s important to remember the effects it has had on the innocent Russian people, whose lives have been made harder because of the decisions from their overlords.

Admittedly, that sounds like most jobs in esports.

But when it comes to the RMRs, the Russian players might have irrevocably damaged. Visas are becoming harder to come by, and good luck explaining to the border patrol that you need to travel across the border to play a video game.

One that involves blowing up bombsites and killing people at that.

Four teams - 1WIN, Aurora, K23 and Benched Heroes - are potentially looking at visa issues, and maybe having to play with subs, or pull out of the RMR.

On a similar vein, Virtus.pro look like they might be back, and Outsiders might be no more. They were allowed to use the name at a Valve-sponsored DOTA tournament, as they have entered into a new management deal.

A shame, in some ways. We quite liked the Outsiders name; it was very fitting.

s1mple, too, has clearly had a very difficult year. He hadn’t seen some of his family pretty much all year, and had been living essentially without a house for part of the year.

It’s understandable, in that case, that he’s gone back to being angry on Twitter - though he definitely had a point here. That hotel does look genuinely disgusting, and definitely bad for his health.

We’re not going to say it’s more dangerous than being at home, but it’s certainly not the safe haven he probably hoped for.