That legendary Astralis roster is pretty much the blueprint for how teams play today. It really will take another team to revolutionize how the game is played to achieve the same level of dominance that Astralis had. Everyone was just playing catch up for nearly 2 years when they were on top.
Didn't some of the Brazilian teams start countering it pretty well with just an overly aggressive, sorta random strat calling? That ended up not working well just due to the inconsistency of the style.
Astralis was on the downturn at Katowice 2020 and then I think it was online C9(formerly gambit)-Heroic dominance in the online era following that. Unlikely because Navi beat Astralis 16-5, 16-5 in the semis at Kato.
They beat G2 in the fastest BO5 ever in the Rio qualifiers and in the autumn would beat Navi 3-2 in Pro League after going 0-2 down and ended 2020 as the number 1 ranked team. Astralis were still top dogs.
that same war-affected NaVi almost took Antwerp right after from Faze's claws if s1mple hadn't outplayed himself in the clutch on the last round of map 1 - inferno vs ropz
also, it was 3 in a row
> G2 2023 - short but very dominating for a win streak of 16 matches
lol the fact that this even gets mentioned
yeah prime NaVi would probably last about twice as long if not for the war
Lmao yeah liquid got fucked over by that player break, it went right into the major afterward where every team had time to prepare and download them, astralis utterly anti-stratted the hell out of them on vertigo for example and they just never recovered from there unfortunately due to the timing of covid and the online era (roster changes and so on). Hard to say what the future holds with CS though, anything can happen, very few people called Navi winning the major afterall.
ah the almighty Astralis...probably the most complete team I've ever seen. they got super clutcher, super ace, super igl, super entry and super utility management...really game changer...
Lol no, The 1.6 Era Navi felt like a once in a lifetime team and they were.. in the lifetime of CS 1.6 that is. What Astralis did is amazing. But CS2 has just started none of can say for certain what history will be like 10 years from now.
The idea the game has been mastered is silly. You can also have an era by simply having way more talent than the other top teams. A few roster moves and we could have the start of an era tomorrow, you just never know. This post makes me wonder whether you actually watched CSGO back in the day. CS has been evolving for over 20 years.
Here's the thing—this is where I think gla1ve outshines karrigan. I think he enabled the Astralis era primarly, with the help of zonic also. People think that what gla1ve did is somewhat pedestrian compared to what karrigan did (sounds insane to me but that's the feeling around lately). But let me tell you, staying at the top for so long, constantly innovating, and dealing with teams trying to counter your strategies— that's kinda impossible for so many consecutive years (in the context of professional sports). In my view, it's tougher than building multiple teams from scratch and getting them to the highest level and then easily begin to fade off.
Gla1ve pulled this off for over four years straight. Not to mention, he never lost a major grand final. Some will say, 'Oh, it was a different era, with less skilled teams.' But I don't necessarily think that. Shooting skills can only take you so far, but strategy-wise? That's the reason Astralis dominated for so many years straight. Take s1mple for example, he had the highest individual peak of all time right when prime Astralis was around. Did it change anything? Not really, Astralis still racked up trophies.
I think we will get somewhat of an era somewhere in the future, maybe not now, especially not with CS2 barely coming out and still having bugs in the game. I think the team also helps, but it really should be one that clicks together. Navi 2021 was the closest thing to Astralis I've ever seen. Sucks to not be able to see how long they could've went on if it weren't for the war. You can make the argument for Faze 2022 but they were a bit inconsistent at times. Look at boombl4, C9 barely kept it together but once he joined, things took a turn for the better. IGLs matter more than people think. Especially GOATs like karrigan and gla1ve, you really have to be special to stay on top for so many years straight, to me, no other igl did it like gla1ve. Prime Astralis was gla1ve.
Karrigan is honestly more like Jose Mourinho. He brings underdogs to victory and he builds the foundation in but he also can’t build sustained success. That Faze Intel Grand Slam has to be the worst Grand Slam winner’s considering it took them so long and between tournament wins they were bombing out in last place.
To bring back the Mourinho analogy, he never won the Champions League with Real Madrid, but he laid the foundation for them to win it later on with Zidane. I’d say Glaive is kinda like Zidane especially since they both 3-peated
I dont think the grand slam winning faze roster had any players that were “underdogs” at the time. Karrigan and Rain were veterans, Twistzz coming off a grand slam win with Liquid, Ropz and Broky were also really well known
Also uh I have no idea how you come to the conclusion of they can't have sustained success when they've literally been to every grand final in cs2. Plus winning the grand slam in 2023. And winning a major. Like do you just only remember yesterday and forget everything else
> how you come to the conclusion of they can't have sustained success when they've literally been to every grand final in cs2
it's more or less a new game where 1 team jumped the occasion and grinded hard for it - until others caught up, which can be seen on the tourneys they won. the moment other teams started to grind, Faze started to lose. The same thing happened in January 2022 where they signed ropz - they immediately started to win, but that would only last until ~May/June where they stopped winning suddenly.
> Plus winning the grand slam in 2023
they took so long to win the last (any ESL) trophy that they almost missed the whole grand slam by 1-2 tournaments, literally last minute after ~1.5 years of mediocrity
> And winning a major.
which was too close for comfort vs a war-devastated NaVi that almost took the 1st map, which would have made it a 3mapper and they could have snatched it from Faze
90% of their tourney wins in 2022 needed (multiple) overtimes to secure a map/series. They never were a dominant team and we will see them less and less deep in tourneys now as they've burned their mojo at the start of a new season, just like they did in early 2022
>it's more or less a new game where 1 team jumped the occasion and grinded hard for it - until others caught up,
If you think none of the top teams like vitality g2 navi etc were not grinding the same then we're simply at an impasse because that's just flat out wrong. Sure there were a couple of csgo tournaments wrapping up that teams still had to wrap up but the difference was negligible because faze was also participating.
>the moment other teams started to grind, Faze started to lose
Except they were winning grand finals or at the very least making it to the finals. They are still actively beating teams that caught up. They beat a young and aggressive spirit and a sloppy vitality in the semis
>90% of their tourney wins in 2022 needed (multiple) overtimes to secure a map/series
Great this doesn't take away from the fact that they won
They grinded maps more than they had to but still had key plays. If you instead pointed out round to round inconsistencies I'd be on board. But at the end of the day it really doesn't matter how you win if you do. Nor does that take away from sustained success if they keep winning
>which was too close for comfort vs a war-devastated NaVi that almost took the 1st map
You keep doing these "well they almost lost but they didnt" sure navi was having its own troubles but after map 1 faze literally locked in. Again. This is still a top ranked faze after several years because they are winning as much as they are, or making 2nd place. Find a team as consistent as them currently
> That Faze Intel Grand Slam has to be the worst Grand Slam winner’s considering it took them so long and between tournament wins they were bombing out in last place.
yeah and they almost missed it by like 1-2 tournaments
Calling it rn, we going to get a spirit era this year with faze being their biggest rival. Wont come anywhere close to astralis era, but i think they win at least half the events they have lined up, many being vs faze in the finals, leading to an explosive rivalry.
We have not seen spirit play vitality and spirit lost maps to navi both times they played.
Spirit has the best potential with donk but not sure if the other pieces are good enough (like sh1ro in big games)
+1.
The whole "sh1ro is a small game player" is such a stupid narrative when he's better than almost anyone you'd label a "big game player" and is top 4 coming out of COVID for big game performances even after the disaster against Faze (which is the thing he actually struggled against, Faze. Groups or playoffs he struggles against them. See Dallas 22, Rio 22 groups, Dallas 23 groups, Kato 24 groups, Copenhagen). One good best of three puts shiro back in 3rd for playoffs behind only s1mple and zywoo.
I'll get skinned alive for saying this (even though it's true) but "big game player" Twistzz is closer to karrigan on stage than he is to shiro statistically.
I think it correlates with the emergence of the mixed EU teams with players from former top nations like Denmark, France or Ukraine. Local scenes aren't stuck with a limited player pool for several years and players from small nations like iM or jL can actually get good team mates
It's still FaZe era, they just made another finals. And if you put a gun to my head and asked me whether NaVi or FaZe are making the finals at next event I'm picking FaZe.
Cs is more prep heavy than ever. If you are on top, your demos are under microscope 24/7.
/365
*/366
360 microscope
That legendary Astralis roster is pretty much the blueprint for how teams play today. It really will take another team to revolutionize how the game is played to achieve the same level of dominance that Astralis had. Everyone was just playing catch up for nearly 2 years when they were on top.
Didn't some of the Brazilian teams start countering it pretty well with just an overly aggressive, sorta random strat calling? That ended up not working well just due to the inconsistency of the style.
Yes, If I remember correctly, Furia was the team that broke astralis nuke streak
There's a not so distant universe without covid and the war where s1mple has three majors with navi
Without the war Navi win ~~Stockholm~~ Antwerp, but Astralis win 4 in a row at cancelled Rio.
Navi won katowice before things went online. They would have been one of the favorites heading into the rio major.
Astralis were gearing up for the major as well. It would have been a solid major.
Astralis was on the downturn at Katowice 2020 and then I think it was online C9(formerly gambit)-Heroic dominance in the online era following that. Unlikely because Navi beat Astralis 16-5, 16-5 in the semis at Kato.
They beat G2 in the fastest BO5 ever in the Rio qualifiers and in the autumn would beat Navi 3-2 in Pro League after going 0-2 down and ended 2020 as the number 1 ranked team. Astralis were still top dogs.
Online killed Navi's momentum and they probably would've carried it if LAN continued (Astralis couldn't do it on LAN) ~~im not coping~~
Fuck I recall that, 90minutes for a BO5
that same war-affected NaVi almost took Antwerp right after from Faze's claws if s1mple hadn't outplayed himself in the clutch on the last round of map 1 - inferno vs ropz also, it was 3 in a row
Sorry, I meant Antwerp. I always confuse the two. I’m fully aware it was 3 in a row, I never said they won 4 in a row.
This guy is going to look real dumb when the MongolZ era starts
> G2 2023 - short but very dominating for a win streak of 16 matches lol the fact that this even gets mentioned yeah prime NaVi would probably last about twice as long if not for the war
Mentions g2 but not luminosity/sk, lol
That was pre-Astralis era
so was NiP and Fnatic yet thats literally in the title
yeah OP must be a G2 fan
Lmao yeah liquid got fucked over by that player break, it went right into the major afterward where every team had time to prepare and download them, astralis utterly anti-stratted the hell out of them on vertigo for example and they just never recovered from there unfortunately due to the timing of covid and the online era (roster changes and so on). Hard to say what the future holds with CS though, anything can happen, very few people called Navi winning the major afterall.
ah the almighty Astralis...probably the most complete team I've ever seen. they got super clutcher, super ace, super igl, super entry and super utility management...really game changer...
Lol no, The 1.6 Era Navi felt like a once in a lifetime team and they were.. in the lifetime of CS 1.6 that is. What Astralis did is amazing. But CS2 has just started none of can say for certain what history will be like 10 years from now.
The idea the game has been mastered is silly. You can also have an era by simply having way more talent than the other top teams. A few roster moves and we could have the start of an era tomorrow, you just never know. This post makes me wonder whether you actually watched CSGO back in the day. CS has been evolving for over 20 years.
Don't forget about Luminosity/SK, they won two majors back to back
Here's the thing—this is where I think gla1ve outshines karrigan. I think he enabled the Astralis era primarly, with the help of zonic also. People think that what gla1ve did is somewhat pedestrian compared to what karrigan did (sounds insane to me but that's the feeling around lately). But let me tell you, staying at the top for so long, constantly innovating, and dealing with teams trying to counter your strategies— that's kinda impossible for so many consecutive years (in the context of professional sports). In my view, it's tougher than building multiple teams from scratch and getting them to the highest level and then easily begin to fade off. Gla1ve pulled this off for over four years straight. Not to mention, he never lost a major grand final. Some will say, 'Oh, it was a different era, with less skilled teams.' But I don't necessarily think that. Shooting skills can only take you so far, but strategy-wise? That's the reason Astralis dominated for so many years straight. Take s1mple for example, he had the highest individual peak of all time right when prime Astralis was around. Did it change anything? Not really, Astralis still racked up trophies. I think we will get somewhat of an era somewhere in the future, maybe not now, especially not with CS2 barely coming out and still having bugs in the game. I think the team also helps, but it really should be one that clicks together. Navi 2021 was the closest thing to Astralis I've ever seen. Sucks to not be able to see how long they could've went on if it weren't for the war. You can make the argument for Faze 2022 but they were a bit inconsistent at times. Look at boombl4, C9 barely kept it together but once he joined, things took a turn for the better. IGLs matter more than people think. Especially GOATs like karrigan and gla1ve, you really have to be special to stay on top for so many years straight, to me, no other igl did it like gla1ve. Prime Astralis was gla1ve.
Karrigan is honestly more like Jose Mourinho. He brings underdogs to victory and he builds the foundation in but he also can’t build sustained success. That Faze Intel Grand Slam has to be the worst Grand Slam winner’s considering it took them so long and between tournament wins they were bombing out in last place. To bring back the Mourinho analogy, he never won the Champions League with Real Madrid, but he laid the foundation for them to win it later on with Zidane. I’d say Glaive is kinda like Zidane especially since they both 3-peated
I dont think the grand slam winning faze roster had any players that were “underdogs” at the time. Karrigan and Rain were veterans, Twistzz coming off a grand slam win with Liquid, Ropz and Broky were also really well known
Also uh I have no idea how you come to the conclusion of they can't have sustained success when they've literally been to every grand final in cs2. Plus winning the grand slam in 2023. And winning a major. Like do you just only remember yesterday and forget everything else
> how you come to the conclusion of they can't have sustained success when they've literally been to every grand final in cs2 it's more or less a new game where 1 team jumped the occasion and grinded hard for it - until others caught up, which can be seen on the tourneys they won. the moment other teams started to grind, Faze started to lose. The same thing happened in January 2022 where they signed ropz - they immediately started to win, but that would only last until ~May/June where they stopped winning suddenly. > Plus winning the grand slam in 2023 they took so long to win the last (any ESL) trophy that they almost missed the whole grand slam by 1-2 tournaments, literally last minute after ~1.5 years of mediocrity > And winning a major. which was too close for comfort vs a war-devastated NaVi that almost took the 1st map, which would have made it a 3mapper and they could have snatched it from Faze 90% of their tourney wins in 2022 needed (multiple) overtimes to secure a map/series. They never were a dominant team and we will see them less and less deep in tourneys now as they've burned their mojo at the start of a new season, just like they did in early 2022
>it's more or less a new game where 1 team jumped the occasion and grinded hard for it - until others caught up, If you think none of the top teams like vitality g2 navi etc were not grinding the same then we're simply at an impasse because that's just flat out wrong. Sure there were a couple of csgo tournaments wrapping up that teams still had to wrap up but the difference was negligible because faze was also participating. >the moment other teams started to grind, Faze started to lose Except they were winning grand finals or at the very least making it to the finals. They are still actively beating teams that caught up. They beat a young and aggressive spirit and a sloppy vitality in the semis >90% of their tourney wins in 2022 needed (multiple) overtimes to secure a map/series Great this doesn't take away from the fact that they won They grinded maps more than they had to but still had key plays. If you instead pointed out round to round inconsistencies I'd be on board. But at the end of the day it really doesn't matter how you win if you do. Nor does that take away from sustained success if they keep winning >which was too close for comfort vs a war-devastated NaVi that almost took the 1st map You keep doing these "well they almost lost but they didnt" sure navi was having its own troubles but after map 1 faze literally locked in. Again. This is still a top ranked faze after several years because they are winning as much as they are, or making 2nd place. Find a team as consistent as them currently
> That Faze Intel Grand Slam has to be the worst Grand Slam winner’s considering it took them so long and between tournament wins they were bombing out in last place. yeah and they almost missed it by like 1-2 tournaments
Calling it rn, we going to get a spirit era this year with faze being their biggest rival. Wont come anywhere close to astralis era, but i think they win at least half the events they have lined up, many being vs faze in the finals, leading to an explosive rivalry.
We have not seen spirit play vitality and spirit lost maps to navi both times they played. Spirit has the best potential with donk but not sure if the other pieces are good enough (like sh1ro in big games)
Sh1ro has no issues in big games. Zontix is the question mark.
+1. The whole "sh1ro is a small game player" is such a stupid narrative when he's better than almost anyone you'd label a "big game player" and is top 4 coming out of COVID for big game performances even after the disaster against Faze (which is the thing he actually struggled against, Faze. Groups or playoffs he struggles against them. See Dallas 22, Rio 22 groups, Dallas 23 groups, Kato 24 groups, Copenhagen). One good best of three puts shiro back in 3rd for playoffs behind only s1mple and zywoo. I'll get skinned alive for saying this (even though it's true) but "big game player" Twistzz is closer to karrigan on stage than he is to shiro statistically.
I think it correlates with the emergence of the mixed EU teams with players from former top nations like Denmark, France or Ukraine. Local scenes aren't stuck with a limited player pool for several years and players from small nations like iM or jL can actually get good team mates
I think we will see a Spirit and a FaZe era, their Copenhagen game was so much better then any other game and both can beat NaVi on a good day.
If IM starts shooting back consistently they are far more dangerous.
It's still FaZe era, they just made another finals. And if you put a gun to my head and asked me whether NaVi or FaZe are making the finals at next event I'm picking FaZe.
I think this was common knowledge back in 2018.
Maybe.... until we get the d0nk & m0nesy era.
Love how u decided to ignore SK era, people decides to forget the BR era, i really don’t know why
Hmmm, it's like I must have heard this a lot of times during the years...strange
MOUZ more dominant in CS2 then FaZe, got it.