It's all happening in Counter-Strike. While traditional sport is no stranger to a workplace stoppage or a season-shortening lockout, Esports is now following their example, as several teams have decided to abstain from playing their matches during BLAST's recent tournament.
This has forced Vitality, mousesports, and other professional organisations to react, leading to teams requesting that BLAST, the tournament organiser for the current event, respond to questions issued several weeks prior. These questions concern the fact that BLAST records the audio and video from all players PoV for every tournament match. In principal, BLAST requires teams to do this in order to flesh out their broadcast and ensure that no teams are cheating. Yet according to official sources, certain corrupt members of BLAST previously allowed other teams to access this confidential resource.
Left in the dark, professional players publicly requested that BLAST sign an agreement on how they would use this information through an announcement released by the Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association (CSPPA). Remaining tight-lipped, but forced to respond under the pressure of further strike action, BLAST promised to open a dialogue on the matter as soon as possible, leading to discussions between both parties.
Vitality would go on to win 2-0 against mousesports on the back of a rotation of players, with misutaaa and shox sharing a spot in the matchday squad, whilst NaVi came out on top against Astralis with a score of 2-1. The fact that NaVi and Astralis both made substituted players between maps may seem like a piece of novel but useless information, but in reality it proves that 6-man squads are quickly becoming the norm in CS:GO.
Finn Andersen has played Counter-Strike competitively for more than 15 years. Having represented some of the biggest orgs in the scene — Fnatic, Astralis, FaZe Clan — he currently plies his trade in mousesports. The 30-year old Dane has seen it all, but Covid-19 has caught him off-guard
Photo: HLTV
