In the last two years of competitive CS:GO, an overwhelming trend has become apparent in the game's meta for the Counter-Terrorist side (which I will refer to as the CT-side and the T-side likewise). That the m4a1-s (which I will refer to as the a1-s) is too powerful and the m4a4 (which I will refer to as the a4) is not powerful enough. This created a large imbalance within the CT-side weapon choices as next to no-one chose the a4 over the a1-s.

Obviously, valve noticed this. Yet even after constantly nerfing the weapon almost every patch, it was still the most used rifle on the CT-side, until now. Valve has recently released the “Re-animated patch”. Which as well as changing hitboxes and fixing bugs, has put the a1-s in its metaphorical grave.

The changes to the a1-s are as follows;

- Price decreased from 3200 to 3100.
- Minor accuracy increase.
- The RPM (or BPM) has decreased from 667RPM to 600RPM (equivalent to the AK-47)
- The bullets spray pattern has been made slightly smaller.

These weapon changes are catastrophic to those who used the a1-s as a “spray and pray” weapon. As now, it is almost useless in that regard, the RPM decrease has made it almost useless in that style of play, but has opened up new avenues for players who are more interested in accuracy than spray control. Those like the infamous Adil 'ScreaM' Benrlitom, who are known to have incredible aim could use this new update to their advantage due to the accuracy buff, slower RPM and smaller spray pattern.

In a perfect world, this new style of play with the a1-s if utilised correctly creates a new dynamic within the CT-side weapons, as the a1-s will be more deadly at longer ranges for those who are accurate enough to hit the shots, but less useful in sudden CQC. While the a4 doesn’t succeed that a1-s in long range, it is a lot more useful in those quick, spray-and-pray moments. This makes the CT side weapons a lot more situational than they were before, but allows for the a4 to be a more relevant counterpart.

Sadly, the world we live in isn’t a perfect world and the majority of professional players and average competitive players have abandoned the a1-s due to this sudden nerf to their once-favoured CT rifle. This truly saddens me as I personally would love to see a more varied CT side rifle choice for specific players who enjoy and thrive with their own individual style. Whether you be a spray control player (like Adam 'Friberg' Friberg) or a one-tap headshotter (like the aforementioned 'ScreaM'), there is a rifle on CT side for you, that gives you exactly what you want and desire.

Yet this is not the case, which could be due to the a1-s being too situational, but I believe it is due to the nerf seeming so drastic and the overwhelming opinion being that “The a1-s is ruined” slowly snowballing to the inevitable a4 dominance over the CT side rifle choice. Of course, I could be wrong and there is always space for discussion, but I believe that this radical switch doesn’t allow the a1-s to truly fulfil the purpose it seems it was made for, to kill players in two accurate shots, rather than to kill players in 20 quasi-accurate shots.

Another point of discussion must be raised surrounding the recent nerf. With both CT-side weapons becoming so situational and being objectively worse than the AK-47, does this create a more T-sided meta game? For me, the polls are still out on that one, as there have simply not been enough professional tournaments yet to see any significant change or trend, but it is still a concern. With this new change, could it have caused an entirely new problem, the dominance and importance of T-side? The standard way to think about CS:GO used to be that CT-sides almost always have the advantage, but now with this recent update. The AK-47 seems to be completely dominant among the rifles, creating a paradigm shift towards a possible T-sided problem that could completely reverse the initial understanding of CS:GO’s balance. This is making quite a large jump from pure theory-crafting but is still a thought to put out there in my opinion.

The a1-s has become a more situational weapon, but has also seemed to be stomped down by the community. Making (in my eyes) the CT side rifle choice a very dull affair once again. Could there not have been a way to nerf the a1-s less, while buffing the a4. To create a situation where the a1-s is a unique yet not overpowered CT-side rifle, while also making the a4 just as viable for different players of different play-styles? Possibly, but who am I to judge. The most damning thing that worries me the most is the rumours drifting around reddit of the possibility that the a1-s’ armour penetration was meant to be decreased, but was bugged and therefore wasn’t. This would break the a1-s completely and in doing so, destroy this dynamic I want among the CT-side rifles.

But all we can do for now is wait, hold upper B tunnels and hope to god that no enemies peek out next to you, making your 20 round pea-shooter useless against the might of the ak-47’s 30 7.62 calibre bullets, which fill both the a1-s’ and a4’s roles quite splendidly.

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