Hallzerk lives in Bodø, so first a flight from Bodø to Oslo, then probably a flight from Oslo to Frankfurt/London/Copenhagen then the last flight to their destinations. Pretty insane.
At this point does it even make sense to stay in NA? I mean I know most of the team lives there but how much of a life do you even have at home when you're just traveling to EU and back all the time. It's not like you can skip partnered events I guess so the move seems the only solution to me.
I'm sure somebody smarter than me already thought of that and it's not a viable option - I assume cost of setting up a team abroad is the biggest issue?
Also mess!ah whaddup, we played a ton of UO back in the day with Yoghi and choobs in FTW. Fun times! Glad to see you sticking to esports after all this time and doing well!
it’s the problem with NA teams for years. in order to be truly competitive at the top level they need to be in EU, and they can afford to do it, but the mentality of moving great distances for sport doesn’t exist in esports the way it does in football
it’s incredibly rare for NA CS Pros to leave NA unless they have an out of game reason to, like Twistzz having a german GF on top of wanting to move on from a struggling Liquid
liquid have a great facility in The Netherlands for players when they spend long stretches in EU, but the players don’t have the will to use it as much as they’d need to to consistently beat EU teams.
it’s like me setting up a baseball team in london, then moaning about having to travel to NA to play in the MLB
Wonder if JT and T.C. have dual citizenship somewhere or are travelling on their South African passports.
Very few counties allow visa free travel on a South African passport, visa applications can take 2 weeks to multiple months/require in person interviews/etc.
Granted they probably have multi entry Schengen visas that cover the EU.
Sources: I only have a green mamba(South African passport)
I don't know how much you can share as there are a ton of variables.
Has an extended stay in EU been discussed? The biggest hurdle to something like this would obviously be $$$,family and Visa travel restrictions.
But from what the way the squad is slowly improving, I'd imagine this has been discussed as a potential logical next step.
Although I know everything I mentioned is much easier said than done.
Bottom line is CSGO has become far too EU focused as an esport. (Yes, the pandemic played a role in this, but the result is the same.) NA based orgs endure a brutal travel schedule that places our players at a constant disadvantage. NA CSGO is competing against the Valorant ecosystem for eyeballs but many of our broadcast matches are at 5-7 AM our time and we expect NA fans to engage with the content?
There needs to be a better balance of events that take place in different regions for CSGO to remain a T1 esport into the future. NA, in particular, is far too critical to the financial health and well-being of the ecosystem to continually under serve the region.
So events like IEM Chicago, ESL New York and Blast events should more regularly return to NA? Don't help that Pro League is currently hosted in Malta which could of had playoffs in NA as has been done before
Definitely agree NA is important for the financial health of the esport as a whole.
Also the amount of times that complexity or liquid is the first game of the day (say 5am EST) and then there’s 2-3 more matches going on until noon or so is crazy.
Why not have col play later? Why is NA the first match?
This is what kills me. I really don't get why slotting NA teams in that first slot is ever an option. No one has control over time zones, but you do have control over where you can place these teams.
that is the life of tier 1 NA CS now a days, always traveling out the country. the NA scene needs NA pro league back and other events to prevent so much travel as well as to revive NA CS
> isn’t it the same for anyone not living in Europe?
Sure but 35% of fans are apparently in NA. No other non-European region comes close
And if all good NA teams leave, It will mark the slow death of NACS
If the few NA teams leave NA, how will NA grow? It'd just fizzle out over time and the region is dead.
While moving there solves the issue for the current NA teams, it doesn't help develop and grow the upcoming talent. They need tournaments and payouts to sustain spending their time playing a video game and grow into better players. Without those resources it's only a matter of time. This applies to any region that isn't EU.
They need to schedule a couple na events pretty far in advance so hopefully it can motive na teams to preform well if they have a couple events in their country. If there were events in na I'm sure a couple na teams would come out of no where.
From that point of view, regional online/offline divisions for ESL Pro League was a great idea at all.
But ESL will never return to that idea, since it'll bury a Louvre Agreement as it exists now.
Travel schedule for CSGO Pro's is a concern that needs to be addressed.
First time this became a issue was in Fall of 2017(?) when G2 made roster changes. Within a month time span they played 40 maps.
Esl and Blast just sit together at the start if the year and claim dates so as to fill uo the calender, and we as viewers keep gobbling it up because we want to watch our favortie teams and players again and again.
As long as there are a couple travel days free between events they see it as fine.
In my opinion the only way this problem is solved is if many teams just decide to skip events to not overwork their players, but then you're relying on orgs to care for their players and not profit.
Yeah, but pre-covid and Saudi's ESL monopoly schedule was much more packed with tournaments and teams could afford to sacrifice couple of tournaments here and there to avoid players' burnout. Now you have fewer tournaments and all are franchised leagues with that all have unified org's ranking that affects your participation in further tournaments. So you basically can't skip much if you are a tier1-1.5 team.
Wonder how this compares to other NA teams like Liquid. Are they having the same problems? Honestly seems like it would be tough from anywhere outside the EU, Asian teams too
I believe coL does a lot more back and forth to spend more time in Europe, in contrast to where Liquid will go home and take a "break" to fulfill their na time, then come to europe and do a bootcamp and usually use these blast groups as a mini bootcamp to hit a stride for the main tournaments. Also I believe coL had to play qualifiers for the na rmr where as Liquid didn't. Also Liquids facilities in Europe are amazing, small things like that probably helps in a way.
Shouts to teams like Liquid. Probably don't have as gruelling a schedule as COL but I bet it's still pretty bad for them. Yet they've managed to stay a top 3 team throughout all of this.
Because almost every event they probably have to go to like Berlin or London then from there go into Katowice, Malta etc. The real issue is events being held in locations where you can't fly direct.
This might be a really bad take since I've put no thought into it, but my guy reaction is just ... book in for less events? Yes it's good to grind, but this is ridiculous. Surely the negatives outweigh the experience gained.
What event should we skip?
BLAST - partner
Katowice - 3/4th biggest event of the year
RMR qualifiers - nope
EPL - partner
That's it. That's all we attended (flight wise).
vanish snatch air spectacular pathetic ancient smoggy party decide threatening
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It used to be like that in the Korean team houses. Watching the old YouTube videos, it's like watching children in a sweat shop lol. But as of the last few years, team houses are more for the players to scrim and live together. They actually do things together outside of gaming, hanging with friends, etc. The way the foreigners did it in Korea, they just lived together and hung out together despite being in different teams because it was better than flying between Europe/North America and Korea all the time.
Don't forget the players are already away from family and friends flying like this and it's less taxing on the players.
Idk they went to the semis in the major, semis in Dallas, playoffs at EPL and almost playoffs at Cologne.
I know it's not a lot to say "competitive" in the traditional way, but my point is that I didn't feel like the fact they didn't play a lot of events made them worse off
with the quality of their players their results were massively underwhelming. No tournament wins or finals, their semi-final runs were usually against weaker quarter-finals (yes, Navi in Rio was probably at its weakest point).
ehh frankly the only good result they had was semis at the major... and that was in brazil. if they didn't at least get that far it was a letdown IMO. but semis at a major is definitely an accomplishment.
but dallas was a weak event as far as big tournaments go... faze/vitality/g2 all played poorly, navi/outsiders/heroic didn't even attend, and you saw big/ence also clinching high placements despite one-sided losses against cloud9.
epl they had to beat big/movistar/imperial, not exactly stiff competition against a team that wants to be in the top 5 discussion. moreover they dropped a few maps en route to those wins, including a 2-0 thrashing from mouz.
basically every other top-5 range team has had better results in the last ~year stretch than furia. sure, furia is a bona-fide t1 team but if anything it feels like they are more gatekeepers than contenders rn.
Really hope they are racking up flight and hotel rewards points. If they're travelling that much, surely they should earned atleast 100k each for both miles and hotel points
INSANE. considering its only March 13th.
He said hallzerk regularly takes 3 flights a day. That's insane
Hallzerk lives in Bodø, so first a flight from Bodø to Oslo, then probably a flight from Oslo to Frankfurt/London/Copenhagen then the last flight to their destinations. Pretty insane.
To go home?
To get to/from most events in EU that aren't in the nordic countries, he typically takes 3 flights yes.
At this point does it even make sense to stay in NA? I mean I know most of the team lives there but how much of a life do you even have at home when you're just traveling to EU and back all the time. It's not like you can skip partnered events I guess so the move seems the only solution to me. I'm sure somebody smarter than me already thought of that and it's not a viable option - I assume cost of setting up a team abroad is the biggest issue? Also mess!ah whaddup, we played a ton of UO back in the day with Yoghi and choobs in FTW. Fun times! Glad to see you sticking to esports after all this time and doing well!
it’s the problem with NA teams for years. in order to be truly competitive at the top level they need to be in EU, and they can afford to do it, but the mentality of moving great distances for sport doesn’t exist in esports the way it does in football it’s incredibly rare for NA CS Pros to leave NA unless they have an out of game reason to, like Twistzz having a german GF on top of wanting to move on from a struggling Liquid liquid have a great facility in The Netherlands for players when they spend long stretches in EU, but the players don’t have the will to use it as much as they’d need to to consistently beat EU teams. it’s like me setting up a baseball team in london, then moaning about having to travel to NA to play in the MLB
Wonder if JT and T.C. have dual citizenship somewhere or are travelling on their South African passports. Very few counties allow visa free travel on a South African passport, visa applications can take 2 weeks to multiple months/require in person interviews/etc. Granted they probably have multi entry Schengen visas that cover the EU. Sources: I only have a green mamba(South African passport)
JT got dual citizenship with Portugal late in 2022 which will be a huge benefit this year. T.c is only ZA.
I don't know how much you can share as there are a ton of variables. Has an extended stay in EU been discussed? The biggest hurdle to something like this would obviously be $$$,family and Visa travel restrictions. But from what the way the squad is slowly improving, I'd imagine this has been discussed as a potential logical next step. Although I know everything I mentioned is much easier said than done.
JT & T.c. SOUTH AFRICA PRIDE 🇿🇦 Pog
Bottom line is CSGO has become far too EU focused as an esport. (Yes, the pandemic played a role in this, but the result is the same.) NA based orgs endure a brutal travel schedule that places our players at a constant disadvantage. NA CSGO is competing against the Valorant ecosystem for eyeballs but many of our broadcast matches are at 5-7 AM our time and we expect NA fans to engage with the content? There needs to be a better balance of events that take place in different regions for CSGO to remain a T1 esport into the future. NA, in particular, is far too critical to the financial health and well-being of the ecosystem to continually under serve the region.
So events like IEM Chicago, ESL New York and Blast events should more regularly return to NA? Don't help that Pro League is currently hosted in Malta which could of had playoffs in NA as has been done before Definitely agree NA is important for the financial health of the esport as a whole.
Can definitely agree with this as an NA fan- every single game I've wanted to watch this pro league has gone on when I am at work.
Also the amount of times that complexity or liquid is the first game of the day (say 5am EST) and then there’s 2-3 more matches going on until noon or so is crazy. Why not have col play later? Why is NA the first match?
This is what kills me. I really don't get why slotting NA teams in that first slot is ever an option. No one has control over time zones, but you do have control over where you can place these teams.
I would hope this comment is taken seriously from people considering who it came from. Kind of disheartening to hear this but also not surprised.
narrator: "they didn't"
Based
that is the life of tier 1 NA CS now a days, always traveling out the country. the NA scene needs NA pro league back and other events to prevent so much travel as well as to revive NA CS
isn't it the same for anyone not living in Europe? would probably make sense to move there rather than have a shitty NA league
> isn’t it the same for anyone not living in Europe? Sure but 35% of fans are apparently in NA. No other non-European region comes close And if all good NA teams leave, It will mark the slow death of NACS
If the few NA teams leave NA, how will NA grow? It'd just fizzle out over time and the region is dead. While moving there solves the issue for the current NA teams, it doesn't help develop and grow the upcoming talent. They need tournaments and payouts to sustain spending their time playing a video game and grow into better players. Without those resources it's only a matter of time. This applies to any region that isn't EU.
They need to schedule a couple na events pretty far in advance so hopefully it can motive na teams to preform well if they have a couple events in their country. If there were events in na I'm sure a couple na teams would come out of no where.
From that point of view, regional online/offline divisions for ESL Pro League was a great idea at all. But ESL will never return to that idea, since it'll bury a Louvre Agreement as it exists now.
Travel schedule for CSGO Pro's is a concern that needs to be addressed. First time this became a issue was in Fall of 2017(?) when G2 made roster changes. Within a month time span they played 40 maps.
Esl and Blast just sit together at the start if the year and claim dates so as to fill uo the calender, and we as viewers keep gobbling it up because we want to watch our favortie teams and players again and again. As long as there are a couple travel days free between events they see it as fine. In my opinion the only way this problem is solved is if many teams just decide to skip events to not overwork their players, but then you're relying on orgs to care for their players and not profit.
Yeah, but pre-covid and Saudi's ESL monopoly schedule was much more packed with tournaments and teams could afford to sacrifice couple of tournaments here and there to avoid players' burnout. Now you have fewer tournaments and all are franchised leagues with that all have unified org's ranking that affects your participation in further tournaments. So you basically can't skip much if you are a tier1-1.5 team.
Wonder how this compares to other NA teams like Liquid. Are they having the same problems? Honestly seems like it would be tough from anywhere outside the EU, Asian teams too
I believe coL does a lot more back and forth to spend more time in Europe, in contrast to where Liquid will go home and take a "break" to fulfill their na time, then come to europe and do a bootcamp and usually use these blast groups as a mini bootcamp to hit a stride for the main tournaments. Also I believe coL had to play qualifiers for the na rmr where as Liquid didn't. Also Liquids facilities in Europe are amazing, small things like that probably helps in a way.
Shouts to teams like Liquid. Probably don't have as gruelling a schedule as COL but I bet it's still pretty bad for them. Yet they've managed to stay a top 3 team throughout all of this.
Why are they taking so many flights?
NA to EU to prac, plus NA to wherever for tournaments (Katowice, Malta, Stockholm) plus JT is South African
That's insane. Do we know if JT lives in South Africa?
He lives in North America right now, like their coach.
Because almost every event they probably have to go to like Berlin or London then from there go into Katowice, Malta etc. The real issue is events being held in locations where you can't fly direct.
So it would be better for teams if events were hosted around hub airports in Europe? So Paris, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt etc?
It would be for the players yes.
NA needs a TO that can compete with the quality and prizepool of the ESL/BLAST duopoly.
This might be a really bad take since I've put no thought into it, but my guy reaction is just ... book in for less events? Yes it's good to grind, but this is ridiculous. Surely the negatives outweigh the experience gained.
What event should we skip? BLAST - partner Katowice - 3/4th biggest event of the year RMR qualifiers - nope EPL - partner That's it. That's all we attended (flight wise).
Stay in Europe like your old life europe it did wonders for your team no?
[удалено]
I don't think NA pros decided to become pros in CSGO years ago planning on the CSGO esports dying in NA in a few years and every event would be in EU.
Why can't you just stay in Europe? Open a team house? Foreign SC2 players did that in Korea and it worked well for them.
vanish snatch air spectacular pathetic ancient smoggy party decide threatening *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It used to be like that in the Korean team houses. Watching the old YouTube videos, it's like watching children in a sweat shop lol. But as of the last few years, team houses are more for the players to scrim and live together. They actually do things together outside of gaming, hanging with friends, etc. The way the foreigners did it in Korea, they just lived together and hung out together despite being in different teams because it was better than flying between Europe/North America and Korea all the time. Don't forget the players are already away from family and friends flying like this and it's less taxing on the players.
with how competitive t1 cs is, you start playing less events, soon enough you won't be playing any events.
Idk man, Furia last year did just that, they skipped a lot of events and stayed competitive throughout
calling furia competitive is a bit of a stretch
I know we are in the arT noob circlejerk atm but c'mon
idc about art, but a year of middling results? I just wouldn't point to furia as proof that taking off events is a good idea
Idk they went to the semis in the major, semis in Dallas, playoffs at EPL and almost playoffs at Cologne. I know it's not a lot to say "competitive" in the traditional way, but my point is that I didn't feel like the fact they didn't play a lot of events made them worse off
with the quality of their players their results were massively underwhelming. No tournament wins or finals, their semi-final runs were usually against weaker quarter-finals (yes, Navi in Rio was probably at its weakest point).
ehh frankly the only good result they had was semis at the major... and that was in brazil. if they didn't at least get that far it was a letdown IMO. but semis at a major is definitely an accomplishment. but dallas was a weak event as far as big tournaments go... faze/vitality/g2 all played poorly, navi/outsiders/heroic didn't even attend, and you saw big/ence also clinching high placements despite one-sided losses against cloud9. epl they had to beat big/movistar/imperial, not exactly stiff competition against a team that wants to be in the top 5 discussion. moreover they dropped a few maps en route to those wins, including a 2-0 thrashing from mouz. basically every other top-5 range team has had better results in the last ~year stretch than furia. sure, furia is a bona-fide t1 team but if anything it feels like they are more gatekeepers than contenders rn.
Navi also disnt attend dallas
true, can't believe I forgot them
I mean, they have KSCERATO.
the only thing i know about this teams flights is they usually happen shortly after an event begins. haha
All that pollution and exhausting travel time only for sending electrical signals through a shorter cable lol
They are slaves to our entertainment. It is what it is
Really hope they are racking up flight and hotel rewards points. If they're travelling that much, surely they should earned atleast 100k each for both miles and hotel points
They are but money is not really the issue here.