The Counter-Strike Major is returning to North America for the first time since the start of 2018. But while an NA team managed to lift the trophy then, it doesn’t feel like any team from the region is in the realm of contending for the BLAST.tv Austin 2025 trophy.
In the past couple of years, Counter-Strike fans have seen young phenoms like Danil “donk” Kryshkovet and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov emerge. Why isn’t it happening in North America? CS2 caster, analyst, and former coach Jason “moses” O’Toole spoke to Gaming World Media about the state of NA CS, and what is needed for the region to properly compete with Europe.
‘When Was The Last Time We Had a Phenom?’
It’s been a long time since a North American player truly broke into the upper echelon of professional Counter-Strike play. When Moses spoke to GWM at the media event for the BLAST.tv Austin Major, he laid out his hopes that the event could reignite NA CS with new talent and new events.
When was the last time we had a phenom? When was the last time we had a new player burst onto the scene? If you look at the players at the top of the list [of NA players] you’ve got Twistzz and EliGE and they’ve been playing since 2015. I always wonder: all the talent in the country, but where’s it going?
Moses pointed out a country like Mongolia, which has managed to produce tier-one-ready teenagers like Azbayar “Senzu” Munkhbold and Ayush “mzinho” Batbold, saying “if they can do it in Mongolia, we can do it in North America.” The former coach of Team Liquid says the NA scene isn’t structured right to produce that kind of talent, and that the biggest issue if discovering that talent.
We exist in that weird space where we expect North American players to go to tier one events in Europe, but we have no ability to find out who they are because we have no events here. And that’s what I hope, in one sense, the Austin Major solves. A shot in the arm of North American Counter-Strike that brings some events back, bring some energy back, so we can develop those circuits and figure out who the players are that we should promote to a top team.
Moses isn’t the only person who cares about developing talent in NA. Complexity owner Jason Lake told Gaming World Media about the importance of “staying loyal” to NA, saying the region won’t grow if organizations keep “recycling the same big names from Europe and other regions.” Acquiring new player talent isn’t solely an issue with NA or Counter-Strike. François-Xavier Deniele, the VP of Global Esports at Ubisoft, told GWM at the Six Invitational that games die without new talent coming in.
Is the Austin Major going to reignite the North American Counter-Strike scene? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more Insider Gaming esports, check out the news about Epic Games publicly shaming a Fortnite cheater.
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