Is Chinese Pro CS:GO on the Rise?
With all the tournaments and wins by Chinese teams, is it likely that they'll take the top spot of EU teams soon?
When you ask the majority of CS:GO fans about which region of the world leads in professional tournaments, most would probably say EU. It has been a running joke in CS:GO that EU CS will always be better than NA CS, and to a certain point, that's not very far from the truth. EU teams simply train more and take the game more seriously than most NA teams which is one of the reasons why Liquid did so well when they played with s1mple. NA teams just don't play as much as they should. As summit1G says in his Twitch rant, "[NA pros] don't play nearly enough Counter-Strike... every top NA pro should be consistently playing FPL on top of team practices. Treat your fulltime job LIKE a fulltime job". However, the one region people seem to forget when it comes to professional Counter-Strike is China, and it's easy to see why.
Picture courtesy of Starladder.tv
To start with, there are no MM servers in China and players are forced to play on community-run servers unless they like getting 150-200 ms ping. The second reason is that CS:GO just didn't take off in China. Games like Starcraft 2, Dota 2, and LoL are more popular there due to mostly being free to play and easy to obtain in internet cafes. This can be clearly seen by the way Chinese teams hold high world rankings in both of those games, while in CS the handful of Chinese teams are somewhat low in the world ranking. Another reason is that most Chinese credit cards are not usable on Steam as a method of purchase and as such most people make do with SC2, Dota, LoL...and F2P Counter-Strike rip-offs/spin-offs.
Of course, in a world where CS is inaccessible for many, there have to be alternatives. One such game called Crossfire, is extremely popular in China and as such has become the equivalent to CS for many Chinese gamers. In 2013, the game was one of the most popular games in China, and raised almost $1 billion. It was also the world's top grossing game of 2014 at $1.3 billion. With such a revenue and popularity, it is no wonder that Crossfire has such a big following. There are, of course, Valve-authorized games such as Counter-Strike Online published by Nexon, which give Asian players a taste of real CS:GO, however it is nowhere near as popular as Crossfire. Despite these setbacks however, Chinese teams have begun to have an uprising in professional Counter-Strike in recent years.
Towards the end of 2015, China established 3 full time CSGO teams: TyLoo, CyberZen, and Born of Fire. Since then, a couple more teams have formed such LGD Gaming, AllGamers, and FIVE, however these three are the ones most known by fans of the game. As of now, TyLoo holds a 9th place world ranking as well as a 1st place Asia & Oceania ranking, with CyberZen in 17th and BoF bringing up the rear in 60th place world rankings. While these results are fairly decent with 9th place being certainly admirable, these teams, particularly TyLoo, have brought in some pretty good results given their rather recent arrival on the scene. In the Dreamhack Masters Malmo tournament, TyLoo not only beat Team Liquid in a double overtime, arguably the best NA team, but also knocked out the top world team, the Brazilian Luminosity Gaming. On top of this, a newly created Chinese-only CS:GO tournament by the name of NEA Beijing Electronic Sports Open pits top teams in the regions against each other for the grand prize of $100,000, or 640,000 Chinese Yen, with the four finalists announced last week being TyLoo, BoF, VG.Cyberzen, and a new arrival Team B.O.O.T.
In conclusion, the Chinese pro CS:GO scene is certainly not the unknown, unexplored realm it once was. The Chinese are bringing their top talents to the show and with more and more opportunities for these young champions to show off their skill, it's a sure thing that it won't be long before these previously unknown warriors take top places in world rankings. While previously only giving birth to RTS champions, China is now showing that they are an FPS nation after all and with recent performances, it seems they are a force to be reckoned with
Image Courtesy of Dreamhack Flickr
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