Do CS:GO upsets suck?

Here at TL;DR there are different opinions about almost anything, but we recently had an outright beef break out between North-fan #2, aizyesque, and device fanboy #2, NER0.

They couldn't agree on whether or not upsets in CS:GO is a good or a bad thing. We guess that for aizyesque, who has a soft spot for bad teams like North and Birmingham, there's a certain quality in upsets, because well... they're the basis for seeing his favourite team win anything.

NER0 on the other hand, hates upsets. He believes that bad teams are always bad, even when they do upset the better teams, he loves Cristiano Ronaldo, and he is still mad about Gambit and Immortals facing off in the Berlin Major:

Astralis, after beating SK (good seeding PGL, really good work), was the only one of the top six teams to see the semi-finals. FaZe, G2, NaVi and Cloud9 were all eliminated in the Swiss System group stage. And then Astralis inexplicably choked against Gambit anyway, leaving us with a final that had 370,368 less viewers than ELEAGUE’s Major 5 months earlier.

And this is where we join the conversation:

aizyesque:

Yes, dear Harry. Gambit and Immortals did make the final, and it was not the greatest final of all time - but how often do we see terrible finals between big teams? I know you’ll talk about this later, but finals are usually disappointing.

Truly, Gambit’s Major win is probably not the one to hang your hat on. That was one of the most interesting Majors we’ve ever seen, and mou destroying Astralis in the semi-final saved us from a one-sided Astralis stomp, saved us from another final we’ve seen one hundred times before.

NER0:

Ok. Maybe I focused too much on Majors where teams are often playing with ‘dead’ rosters, making upsets more likely.

But finals being boring is just a narrative you’re projecting from football. Of Gamelife’s top 10 CSGO series of all time (an undebatable and objective list since it suits my narrative, 7 are grand finals. And that’s because generally finals have the best teams.

aizyesque:

Gambit’s Major win is one of the best finals of all times, because the story outweighs the supposed low quality of the final. Who cares about how many viewers there were? If we wanted the most viewers we could, we’d become a MOBA, or a K-Pop band.

NER0:

If you want a nice storyline go read Homer’s Odyssey. Stay out of my high skill ceiling sport. There’s a reason the only people who watch League 2 are locals who want to get in fights at away games – sport is about being the best. Story is secondary.

aizyesque:

We’ve seen FaZe in a Major final, we’ve seen NaVi in ‘em too, and it isn’t pretty. Might as well give someone else a go, so we don’t have to watch NiKo flounder around going negative against NA teams again.

NER0:

Well, we knowmy thoughts on NiKo but that final (red: FaZe vs Cloud9) was the greatest of all time and was between two of the top 5 teams in the world at the time.

And NaVi had GuardiaN, on a higher sens than my recently introduced to CS CoD fan of a friend thought was suitable, so that doesn’t count either. Next.

aizyesque:

Bemoaning the quality of the loser will only make you jaded and cynical. Do you pore over 1v4’s and say “well the other team played it so badly, 2/10”? Whilst it may be objectively correct, it’s a depressing way to look at some of the most hype moments in any competitive discipline.

NER0:

Yes, I'm jaded and cynical. That’s what having to hear EZ4ENCE again and again does to you. And that is why single highlights are not for the cultured Counter-Strike fan. Give me hawka breaking down an Astralis execute anyday. That’s counter-strike, not players looking the wrong way and somehow bottling a 4v1 – I’m looking at you cadiaN.

aizyesque:

Nerd. That’s my only comment. Wanting to see FaZe do better than going 0-3 to WayLander = nerd.

NER0:

You’re 38 years old and make your living off talking about video games. We’re all nerds.

aizyesque:

Their rivalry didn’t warrant a crowning moment if they flopped when it mattered most. You don’t deserve things you don’t earn. At least in competition, not like love or shelter, or good teammates in matchmaking.

NER0:

This is capitalism baby. It's not about ‘deserved’. It's not about ‘earnt’. It’s about me sitting down with a massive bag of popcorn and being entitled to some good new-fashioned free entertainment. And an even more important entitlement to moan about results when they don’t go the way I want.

aizyesque:

My viewing experience is ruined every time I have to watch device not attempt to retake 3v3, or every time an NA team wins a game, but I’m reliably informed those things are ‘good for the game’. Suck it up, buttercup.

NER0:

Sorry for preferring two gun rounds instead of my favourite team going for one unwinnable retake against four smokes, eighteen molotovs, and 3 Monstered-up CIS Counter-Strike pros holding the only free chokepoint, and then having to eco straight after. We're not all masochists here, Elliott.

aizyesque:

My viewing experience was ruined by Astralis that tournament, so we need more upsets, IMO.

NER0:

It wasn’t Astralis’ fault everyone else sucked. When people played to Astralis’ level we got some amazing series and you know it.

aizyesque:

Lightning strikes the same place quite a lot. The Empire State Building is hit like 25 times a year.

C9 were legitimately good at that point, too. They were probably fifth in the world, with one of the most stacked rosters NA has ever seen - it’s a small upset but no more than say, VP beating Gambit now, or Fulham beating Manchester United. That’s a free one.

NER0:

So you agree watching two somewhat-evenly matched teams battle it out is way better than real upsets?

aizyesque:

That final was only a banger BECAUSE FaZe choked, anyway. If FaZe had won it 16-11, nobody would really have cared.

NER0:

Oh come on, you know in that terrifying alternate reality, Ryan would be reposting one round of ‘what could have been’ after Skadoodle missed an AWP shot at 11-11 every week, for the rest of our lives.

aizyesque:

Yeah and he's a nobody. Who’s arsed?

Astralis choking was the best part of the tournament, otherwise it would have been another run-of-the-mill Astralis piss the tournament and make the whole game insufferable for three years, which they just did 2 years later.

NER0:

No, the best part of the tournament was FalleN running into device every single round on his T side of overpass – and losing every duel. Gambit rushing Popdog every round, because you can’t hear flashbang pins in front of a crowd, is a little low brow for us true Counter-Strike fans

aizyesque:

AVANGAR put up as good a fight as Liquid did for about two years, and have since maintained that form.

NER0:

Have they fuck. They’re the most boring team I’ve ever watched. If it wasn’t for Yekindar you would never watch any of their 2 hour maps. And 2 hours isn’t even hyperbole because JAME doesn’t leave his spawn until 15 seconds. AVANGAR/VP are what you said peak Astralis were.

Astralis were boring because they were so much better than everyone else. VP are just plain boring.

aizyesque:

Ooga booga me like Vega Squadron. Another bad example, Harry lad. Vega were the stuff of legends, them taking down NiP and running it down mid at FaZe with Mac-10s were massive highlights in those Major cycles. I’d watch Vega Squadron at a Major 100 times before I watch a single Astralis vs Liquid playoff game.

You can’t tell me Vega Squadron weren’t hype? That they weren’t much more fun than Astralis sleepwalking every tournament?

NER0:

Would’ve been more hype if they had any achievements other than one best of one, 4 years ago, and a terrible matchmaking strat that ruins every FACEIT game. Making your baller thread doesn’t count as an achievement. Yet.

aizyesque:

Goliath lost the only fight he was in, he’s essentially Logan Paul. Iron Man vs Logan Paul doesn’t sound very fair - if anything, David vs Goliath seems more fair.

NER0:

Ok, we can finally agree. Goliath was a fraud. One bloke said he was pretty big and everyone acted like he was MSL in the Globen. One slingshot round for god’s sake, I’m still not over it. Deus ex machina again and again, when will storytellers learn?

aizyesque:

I think you’re over-romanticising the idea of big team vs big team finals, but what more could I expect from a Liverpool-Astralis fan? I mean, even if we go for a football example, when was the last good Champions League final? 2005?

NER0:

Finals do tend to underwhelm in football. But that’s because knockout competitions in football are even more prone to upsets than CS. Jesus, imagine if someone tried a 2xBO1 Round Robin straight into Bo2 knockouts with CT rounds as the decider. Like come on. Tottenham in a UCL final wouldn’t happen in a real (See: Beyond the Summit) format.

aizyesque:

There’s nothing worse than a tournament without upsets as you might as well not bother watching - I barely watch Heroic games, because they never lose to bad teams. Why care about competition when you already know the winner?

NER0:

That’s exactly my point, thank you Elliott. I don’t want to watch bad teams play good teams in unfounded hope for an upset. I want to watch nice, evenly matched teams battle it out and be on the edge of my seat. Not having the cricket on my 2nd monitor being less boring than yet another underdog bottling it once anyone has watched any of their demos.

aizyesque:

I’m sure you and the other Astralis fans can enjoy Astralis 2-0 Liquid for the 100th time, but the rest of us prefer some magic.

NER0:

Magic is a myth. Just like all your favourite onliner ‘ballers’ being competent. See you in Stockholm for sh1ro going 8-18 in a 16-14 loss to my boy device.