CS:GO – In Cologne, the top team is facing embarrassment when a professional freaks out and yells an insult

earthpressnews

The IEM Cologne 2023 esports tournament in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is currently taking place in Cologne. The nominally strongest team, Heroic, actually had an easy match against a team from Mongolia. But that threatened to derail the favorites, so “psychological warfare” ensued.

This was the situation:

  • The Norwegian team Heroic plays with 5 Danes and is a well-oiled machine. The core of the team has been together since 2020, they have been ranked No. 1 in the world for 36 days.
  • They took on “TheMongolZ”, a team based in Ulanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, in a best-of-three in Cologne on July 28th. They are 41st in the world rankings
  • What seemed like a pretty straight-forward thing for Heroic wobbled heavily after the underdogs won the first map 16-11.

    • Counterstrike has been on the upswing since CS2 was announced:

    Counter-Strike 2 heralds a new era – The most important changes in the video

    More videos

    Professional yells at opponents and insults them as “Fucking Noobs”

    What was the freak? When Heroic was up 4-1 on the 2nd map, CS:GO team captain Casper “cadiaN” Møller roared at the top of his lungs, “Wohoo! You fucking noobs. You fucking noobs.”

    The freak seems to have been unprovoked, so the horses probably ran away with the 28-year-old Dane, who has already won almost $600,000 with CS:GO in his career.

    The man has a pulse:

    This is the discussion about it: As the website Dotesports points out, the freak out caused a discussion in the scene because it just seemed like one-sided trash talk. Also, the Mongolian players didn’t do anything to justify it, other than daring to win a map against the favourites.

    Players say: It’s okay if both sides do trash talk, but that was a bit over the top from cadiaN.

    But many protect the Dane and say the criticism is exaggerated. He is only criticized because the player is considered a “villain” in the scene and is therefore often in the crosshairs.

    One user even says: The people who criticize this are wimps. They should go to Riot Games esports. Another says: Something like that is “psychological warfare and is part of e-sports.”

    How did that turn out? The “psychological warfare succeeded”:

  • Heroic won the match 2-1. The team also won the next game and is in the Group A Upper Bracket Final. They are favorites to win the tournament and the $400,000 prize money.
  • The MongolZ lost the match, then lost a 2nd match against “GamerLegion” in the lower bracket and are now eliminated. They fly home with $10,000 in prize money.

    • This is what the player says: cadiaN apologizes sarcastically on Twitter: He is very sorry for the trash talk. He knows he’s the only player who still yells at his opponents.

    He will try to improve.

    I’m very sorry about the trash talk mid game. I know I’m the only player who still yells at my opponents.

    However this was my last time. I’ll try to do better. 🙏🏼

    — cadiaN (@caspercadiaN) July 29, 2023

    This is behind it: Even if e-sports adapts to traditional sports in some aspects, the fans still want to keep their “peculiarities”. They do like fair play and despise cheaters. But for many, trash talk is something that should be part of esports.

    What you can also see here and what is unusual for Twitch viewers: CS:GO can actually be played. So far, many Twitch streamers have only operated it as a “loot box simulation”:

    Twitch: MontanaBlack shows how much money he spent on CS:GO in 5 months and can’t look himself

    mmod-game