Sold a dream

If you ask 100 Counter-Strike fans for the most disappointing Major, I suspect you’ll hear a lot of Rio 2022 responses.

It’s an obvious answer and one that is largely unchallenged in the CS sphere, and one I don’t think is entirely unfair. The hype going into Rio was absolutely insane and I think we all fell prey to believing this was going to be the best tournament of all time.

ESL went all out to make this special, and we all know how wild the Brazilian fans can be. It felt like it was going to be the Major to end all Majors. That’s how it was marketed to us. That’s the dream we were sold.

That isn’t the dream we got.

There were big, big problems with Rio, and only some of them were ESL’s fault. There were problems with the arena and concerns with the city itself that might have been better mitigated, but they couldn’t control all of the big teams simultaneously dropping a big ‘un in their respective pantaloons.

If they could, they absolutely would have stopped the mass browning of underwear. Would have been much better for their, erm, bottom line.

However, I’m here to posit that it really wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t the best Major, by any shot, but there was plenty of enjoyment to be had if you can take that stick out of your derriere. I am biased - I liked Outsiders, and Rio was an event where I had a big role in a small part of the event that was a personal career highlight. I was the Assistant Producer on the NA RMR, and got to witness first hand FalleN qualifying for a Major in Rio, back when it looked like he might retire soon.

Let’s start with the bad news

Gaules, man. That bloke is like f–cking Hypnotoad.

How did he convince so many Brazilians to stay outside in the fan park with him while the arena remained half full?

I don’t speak Portuguese, so maybe there’s something I’m missing. Maybe Gaules is the funniest bloke on the planet. Maybe he is so insightful he makes karrigan and gla1ve look like dexter. Maybe he’s absolutely drop dead gorgeous and people watch him in the hopes he gets in the hot tub next time, and I’m the only one who doesn’t see it.

Whatever magnetism he has, ESL wanted a piece of it and it backfired spectacularly. Getting him involved to rile up the Brazilian fans seemed like an easy win, but instead all the fans stayed in the fan park, eyes spinning at the great Hypnotoad, missing the event they paid to go to.

That impacted the feel of each game, but it also killed the vibe on stream. The arena was half empty, the games felt like they mattered less, and the sound for us back home didn’t come out right either.

It felt like a DreamHack Open at times.

It didn’t help that the playoffs were a little underwhelming. As you may recall, the final was HEROIC vs Outsiders, two teams that were not only unfancied, but pretty unpopular too. VP weren’t popular before they had to lose their branding (this was back at the time when TOs forced teams to not play under their names if they had ties to Russia), and under the Outsiders tag they really were not very well-liked.

It didn’t help that their style was so grindy, either.

HEROIC were a bit more popular, but not without their controversies either, and had a reputation as big, big chokers when it really mattered on LAN. They were unplayable in the online era but the switch back to offline had been unfavourable for them, and they were never able to quite replicate their success. Winning the Major could have helped that, but even if they had have done, nobody would have taken it as proof of concept of them being an elite team all of a sudden, because all of the elite teams went out in groups.

FaZe absolutely bombed, Vitality went out to ENCE in a 1-2 game, Liquid went from 2-1 to 2-3 by losing both their BO3s while NAVI, who were fourth in the world, at least made it to the quarter-finals.

Oh, and they still would have looked like arena chokers, because the arena was half full.

Whoever won was getting a giant asterisk next to their trophy, and that ruined the final for a lot of people. Especially, apparently, the paying crowd, who couldn’t even be arsed to show up.

All of this culminated in lower viewership, fan disappointment and ultimately, economic impact for ESL. No wonder they put their next Major in a tried and tested city: Cologne.

It’s not all bad

Why should I care about ESL’s bottom line?

Unless they hire me, of course.

The top teams going out early doesn’t necessarily make for a bad tournament. I don’t care what HLTV Confirmed have to say, I know what I like. How many times did we have to watch Astralis vs Liquid in 2018? Vitality vs MOUZ last year and this? It’s boring, and especially boring when those top teams are fraudulent.

One of the strengths of the Major season is that you actually have to prove that you’re good. You have to play against a wide variety of teams, you get a bunch of games, and your flaws are magnified. If you’re really a top team, you’ll have no issue breezing through the raft of tier two teams that come your way.

Nowadays, through the miracle of seeding, Vitality and FaZe, being the best two teams in the world, would probably avoid having to play anyone good and prove themselves worthy before the playoffs. Mind you, if they went out in groups at any other event, everyone would be angry at them, not the format.

It’s only the Major where big teams losing is apparently Valve’s fault.

This time around, though, FaZe lost to C9 and Vitality, two of the top 8 teams in the world, and Vitality lost to both NAVI and MOUZ. Those are pretty good teams, and there’s no shame in losing to them - but also, you probably then can’t bitch about how you should have won if you can’t beat them.

Was that a ‘fluke’? A ‘format issue’? No, of f–cking course not. Not every time a “”top”” team loses three games in a row against teams ranked lower than them can we blame the format, even though people want to. Sometimes you just have to win your b-stard games.

The Major season exposes the fraudulent top teams, and none were left more bare than FaZe, who were handed an ignominious 0-3 exit against a rampant Bad News Eagles who’d soared through the first stage.

To me, that top teams aren’t given a free pass is (or was) a huge boon for the Major. Yes, FaZe lost to some top teams, but they also lost to Bad News Eagles - not in a BO1, not in a game that didn’t matter, in an elimination BO3.

Moan all you want about your draw - everyone else managed to beat BNE in this stage. You should be beating them if you’re the second best team in the world. They got exposed by a team who lose to anyone good; ergo, they were not good at this event.

That’s not ESL’s fault, either.

Speaking of BNE, if you didn’t enjoy watching them in Rio, you have no soul. You are a husk, a drone, an NPC. Them knocking out FaZe in an 0-2 game was up there in terms of Major highlights in history for me. A true underdog vs a true underperforming elite team. David vs Goliath. The layman vs the corporation. A proper FA Cup tie.

Their run was magical, albeit cut short, and their unique style of play was a joy to behold. This was what the Major was all about before they killed the magic. This was Major history, and the fact that underdogs could still make things happen should give us all a lot of hope.

Okay, yes, it can still happen. But there won’t be another BNE.

The whole first two stages had drama - more so than most playoffs do, more so than most group stages do. ENCE vs Vitality was a genuinely great game that had the #1 seed going out early. NIP went 0-3 after losing to Sprout. IHC (now The MongolZ, heard of them?) knocking out coldzera in front of the Brazilian crowd to kickstart their own story. FalleN going 0-3 to C9, who recovered from 0-2 to go 3-2.

The HEROIC choke gave new life to their story as a team of nearlymen. Cloud9 too, and MOUZ proved once and for all that no matter how good their talent was, they weren’t able to win even winnable playoff brackets with dexter at the helm.

Which we all knew, but semi-finals on paper was a great result. It’s just… look at the field, and then at torzsi, xertioN and frozen.

You can say that torzsi was inconsistent at this point. You can say xertioN always choked on stage, and that winning a game on stage here for them was huge if you want. It’s true, and that only advanced their story to the point we’re at now where these players are excellent.

But look at these players now, and tell me they couldn’t have won that event with a real IGL. I dare you. Yes, semi-finals was a good result. As long as you ignore that it was extremely winnable.

I mean, Outsiders won it, for crying out loud.

Hell, having a new winner is a good thing. Everyone has the chance to win the Major (or at least used to, thanks VRS) and seeing new people win it should inspire younger players that maybe it could be them one day. When Astralis won three in a row, it felt like the Major was a waste of time. Liquid could never beat them, no matter how many times they tried.

You can say that plenty of Danes were inspired by Astralis being great, but look where that has got Danish Counter-Strike now.

Everywhere you look there was a story. The two Swiss stages were absolutely insane, some of the most dramatic ever. So what if they led to a weaker playoffs? Playoffs are the dessert - a short, sweet, satisfying end to a great meal, but the Swiss systems take up more of my time, more of my energy, and fill more of my belly - and I have a big belly.

When the main course is 2lbs of smoked brisket, who cares that dessert is just vanilla ice cream?

Maybe that’s just me, and maybe for those paying fans in the arena the playoffs are the big event. But given they didn’t show up to any of them but there were plenty there for the earlier stages…

To me, the Major is about more than just the final few games. The winner, of course, matters. Of course it does. But there’s like four good Major finals ever, and we still remember fondly nearly every Major for something.

You can’t just disregard 80% of the tournament and write the whole thing off as bad.

It’s not even like the playoffs were that bad. The FURIA vs NAVI game is one of the best quarter-finals ever in terms of an experience. It was a sensational game, but the atmosphere bleeding through the stream as FURIA rose to the occasion of the biggest game of their lives was something that beggared belief, and those inside the arena can’t even talk about it without doing the Vince McMahon hand thing.

Outsiders winning was unglamorous, but they were not a bad side. They were a very dangerous team at the time who were horrible to play against and could beat the top teams. Them winning was not a complete fluke in the way, say, Evil Geniuses winning would be. They were on the brink of being a great team.

They won the event before the Major. It wasn’t the best field, but they came in in great nick, and a top form Outsiders were notoriously difficult to play against with Jame at peak pervert levels.

Just because you don’t like the winner doesn’t make them undeserving. I didn’t like NAVI in 2024, but I don’t think them winning was a fluke. In fact, they were around the same level going into the Major as Outsiders were in Rio.

Bottom line: Rio was a lot of fun up until the last few games. It’s basically How I Met Your Mother - just skip the ending, and it’s a joyful watch.

So, John Writer, was it that bad or not?

Yes, but also no.

The crowd did kill the hype a little bit in the arena, but they were present largely during the group stages where all the fun stuff happened. Playoffs had some proper dud games (there’s a reason I didn’t talk about the Major final in any detail) but it also had one of the most memorable games ever. The favourites bombed out, but in fun and hilarious ways, and we got a cool underdog story, the Brazil double 0-2 to kick us off, IHC, and many other great moments.

ESL hyped up the Rio Major so much that anything other than every game being FaZe vs Spirit from Antwerp was going to be underwhelming, and the whole Gaules situation was a sucker punch. They sort of sabotaged themselves with their own hype, but it’s kind of natural for a business to oversell.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter doesn’t even taste that much like butter. But that’s not a very good product name.

The Grand Final was crap, but most of them are. I’d argue there’s been more poor Major finals than good ones, and the Swiss systems elevated this Major past most of the other Majors. The three tournament stretch where Astralis won all three were all awful, Austin was pretty forgettable, Paris had a similarly underwhelming playoffs field and they even let a French team win the trophy occasionally.

Ugh.

For me, personally, there was plenty to enjoy about Rio. I came out of the playoffs with a bit of a shrug, but the first two stages I enjoyed greatly. That’s not to say we should go back there any time soon and repeat the errors of the past, and probably don’t let HEROIC near a Major playoffs again (not much danger of that right now), but that doesn’t make this one a complete failure.

On the whole it was a boatload of fun, and it’s easy to let a weak ending sour a great opening and middle.

Nobody is mad at Eminem ‘cause his new stuff sucks - they just remember The Marshall Mathers LP.