With the release of CS2, third-party matchmaking services like FACEIT’s Pro League were supposed to lose relevance. Yet, with the amount of server issues and cheaters plaguing the Premier mode, FPL content seems to be stronger than ever.
Owen “smooya” Butterfield demonstrated just how good watching FPL streams can be with a sick double knife clip in the first pistol round on Mirage.
Not only did smooya snag two knife kills, but it was during a 1v3 to win the all-important pistol round, which has an even more outsized importance in the new MR12 system.
If you don’t want to get blown out in CS2, you have to at least get the bomb down on the T side, or prevent the bomb from going down on the CT side. Either way, it will put the money at a reasonable enough state for your team to be able to force buy in round 2, even after a loss. The pistol win will put the winning team at an extreme advantage, as they could convert three rounds off the financial hit the opposition will take, guaranteeing them half of the rounds needed to at least tie the half, which is extremely impactful in the shorter CS2 matches.
Smart CS fans aren’t happy with how influential the pistol is. It exemplifies precisely none of the aspects that make Counter-Strike great, like the precise gunplay or smart utility usage. Instead, it promotes brainless rushes and site floods with little to no utility, with everyone sprinting while spamming their Glocks, praying for a headshot.
If Valve is insistent on MR12, the economy of the game needs to be tweaked. As it stands, plays like smooya’s essentially guarantee early AWPs or overwhelming firepower for the winners. Having one-fourth of the game’s rounds effectively decided by subpar fundamental CS is a recipe for boredom, not hype.
