The first upper echelon tournament of Counter-Strike 2 is just around the corner. Groups were unveiled today for IEM Sydney, beginning on Oct. 16. And from a quick look at the groups, it really looks like group A is the proverbial “group of death.”
The group boasts Team Vitality, who won the final CS:GO Major (BLAST Paris) in front of a hometown crowd. MOUZ is the esport’s most recent champion, throttling ENCE in the ESL Pro League Season 18 grand finals 3-0. NAVI is somewhat underperforming as of late, but a retooled roster could have them competing for titles again. FaZe Clan has been an upper tier team for years, and can never be completely counted out of any tournament they enter. Apeks is no slouch either.
The other side of the bracket isn’t completely out of it, but definitely looks a tad lackluster. ENCE recently played in a grand final, and won IEM Dallas. G2 is a great team, but are inconsistent. Cloud9, expected to be a top-tier team in 2023 after an all-Russian rebuild, haven’t looked great, but maybe their new roster can bring them back to the top. Currently, Complexity is North America’s best hope, but they’re still very raw as a team. Monte made the semifinals of Pro League as well.
Don’t misunderstand the point: Making it out of the group stage in IEM Sydney will be difficult no matter what group teams are in. However, on paper, group A is looking more difficult than the other.
And now, a personal request. Now that we have MR12, can we please move away from best-of-ones? It definitely seems silly to make all this fuss about the games lasting too long, then take steps to shorten them, only to still run best-of-ones against the much better best-of-threes.
Either way, here’s to the start of the CS2 era. Let’s hope some of the minor bugs are patched before the tournament begins.
