CS:GO shuffles of the week #3

Yesterday, we were so happy that we could finally announce the complete list of teams which will be participating in our very first WePlay! Lock and Load CS:GO tournament.  From now on, only 24 hours remaining to the start of the group stage where Latin American team FURIA Esports will open our tournament against Russian team Spirit in best-of-one series with a variety of language streams, so make sure you will be with us when this show will begin, okay?! In the meantime, we can shorten the waiting with our weekly rubric CS:GO Shuffles and changes of the week number 3.  As always, there are so many things to talk about, so settle down comfortably, the show just begin! :)

The Legend is back, or?

The first topic I choose is a legendary 28-year-old player from North America who is one of the most experienced, funny and stable guys in our game. Yeah, you probably already know who I am talking about. Jordan Gilbert alias n0thing is a true legend of Counter-Strike. If you never heard about him (you probably lived in the cave), this guy started his career when he was only 14-year-old, in Counter-Strike 1.6 when he was shining like a sun for middle-teams such as CheckSix Gaming or X3O Gaming. Later that time, he got his first professional offer from Evil Geniuses and that was the time when the "n0thing, but headshots" era just began. Still, don't know what I am talking about? Alright, I will fresh your mind, check this out.

This is just f*cking classic man! Never gets old... 

Anyway, I would love to talk about n0thing's past more, but I have more topics and you know, I need to get to my point, so move on to the present where Gilbert announced (5 or 6 months ago) he is stepping out from Cloud9 CS:GO roster and "probably" will end his career as a professional esport athlete there. 

For a few months, we really didn't hear about him too much since 2 weeks ago, when the legendary NA organization compLexity unveiled a new CS:GO roster. And guess what, n0thing is back, back again! This line-up is created for IEM Katowice Major this year where the organization secured a spot from FACEIT Major London 2018. What will happen after this event we can't say, however it seems that n0thing will be part of our community for more than he even expects, and I wish him n0thing, but only headshot for his another chapter in his career. Long live the King! 

Czech and Slovak hope is gone  

The Czech and Slovak scenes have never been among the best, we all know that. Sure, they have two AWPers in TOP20 world-wide ranking of 2018 - Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács (11) in FaZe Clan and Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný (14) in Mousesports - however, as a team, they still waiting for the first big step in the adult CS scene. The one and only possible roster who could step out in the scene was line-up build around 16-year-old prodigy from Slovakia David "frozen" Čerňanský in Czech organization eXtatus. At the beginning of 2018 organization signed a new contract with Czech e-commerce store Alza.cz as a general sponsor and for the first time in CZ/SK history, players get an opportunity to play full-time. 

At the start, the things went really well for them. The squad won their first international event, Cross Border Esport in Denmark and qualified for MDL League in New York where they ended up on the 3rd place. After that, the squad get to the TOP-30 worldwide ranking for 2 weeks and Czech and Slovak's fans were expecting the first Major attend from them. Unfortunately, the opposite was true. The team start struggling both online and offline and except for local event's they could not win any international event at all. 

In April 2018, the organization also announced that they lost their general partner and one era end just like this. The team stayed together and played under the Majestic Lions jersey for one month while the squad joined team Gunrunners later that year. At the beginning of 2019, the main star of the squad frozen announced he is joining International line-up NoChance (Maikelele, kHRYSTAL, nukkye, Radifaction) and the whole team broke down. 

The remaining players are now waiting for the International offers but as a team, the Czech and Slovak scene is now still waiting for their first big step in our industry. However, I spoke personally with Oskar and he told me a wish that one day he would love to compete with the Czech or Slovak team once again, so don't give up on this region, one day they will maybe re-wrote the Counter-Strike history!

Girls are gamers too!

Most people think that compete on the highest level can only boys. Well, wake up guys! It's 2019 everything is possible now. More girls joining esports industry than ever before and not just streamers, but also as professional gamers. My last topic is exactly about these girls. 

One of the most successful girls' squads in the modern history is team build around legendary Swedish gamer Zainab "zAAz" Turkie. This girl competed also in Counter-Strike 1.6, however the "girls scene" get more visibility in CS:GO while organizations are giving more chances to show their potential while the industry is more open at the moment. 

The International team, including names like Juliano, vilga, zAAz, kr4sylya and Petra get an opportunity to play full-time for Turkish soccer club Besiktas at the end of 2018, while the contract in Team Secret expired. Since then, girls (considered to be the best in the world) started struggling with their performance which culminates in Russian entry-fragger Ksenia "vilga" Kluenkova exit. An only week ago, the portal hltv confirmed a new singing of 23-year-old French Meyssa "Missa" Bellouati and from that moment the team (as a first one) qualified for an upcoming IEM Katowice Major 2019. Beautiful story, right? I think so too. Only time will show what this change brings on the table but moreover, this story should show that all girls out there waiting for their chance can make a big step in "man-focused-industry" one day.   

I hope you enjoyed a third CS:GO Shuffles rubric and don't forget that tomorrow at 12:00 CET our WePlay! Lock and Load tournament will start with world-class teams on board, so stay with us and enjoy the show! :)