NA/SA CS On A Rise Again (CS Enjoyers Come)

#1

Do you think teams and talents are rising again? This is a great chance to put NA and SA teams back on the international scene seriously again since there are no clear top teams with mixed results from every team being super competitive.

https://www.hltv.org/events/7441/esl-pro-league-season-20
https://x.com/SyykoNT/status/1833626250130161720

-Liquid looks very solid, deep playoffs team and title contenders with more experience.
-M80 bringing up tier2 NA CS talents like Lake and Reck, playing great CS beating EU teams and into playoffs. Truly the goated NA org investing in NA talent unlike EG which was a disasterclass.
-CoL looks shaking and inconsistent at the moment, but they are always still in the tier1 scene without heavy investment which matters at the end of the day. Elige is still a world-class player and probably will get at least top 10 player of the year.
-Wildcard even though they are out of the tournament, they played decent CS and showed they can hang with their EU counterparts.

For SA/BR teams, I don't really follow them closely but know they are doing great recently as well. Teams like Furia, Pain, MIBR, Imperial, 9Z are showing great results. Maybe someone who is from there or is following it closer can dive deeper.

Even though we have long ways to go, its hard not to get excited from the upward trend. All it takes is a breakthrough player or team to really put a region back on the map again like the Mongolz for Asia.

#2

nihso

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allat

#3

Rocky54

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Is not gonna happen as long the import rule don't exists

#4

IAmRichYouAreNot

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wym

#5

Rocky54

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The na and sa could've had teams with na players like valorant because you can only import 1 player from other regions in CS that don't exist you can have players from other regions as much as you can that's why faze are all eu and other na orgs
If CS want other regions to shine gotta have an import rule

#6

IAmRichYouAreNot

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I dont think that matters at all as long NA talent is being invested into. When the teams and region matures, it will naturally gain more NA players in a team

#7

Rocky54

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Look at overwatch years ago no import rule all the game become Korean
Now they changed it and look at the game now it definitely matters

#8

IAmRichYouAreNot

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u still need a NA core in order to be a NA team, which means three players. Also, compared to CS, Overwatch esports is a joke

#14

dandann

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Overwatch isn't a good example since its esports ecosystem differed so much compared to CS esports ecosystem

#19

Nef0r0

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there is nothing stopping the orgs from changing regions bro :D Vitality can just sign a 3rd israeli on the team and Zywoo will farm Asian RMR

#38

uwukitten

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wdym? all the top teams in ow are still korean

#15

Nef0r0

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except that it does exist, the org isn't locked to the region, the region changes depending on what players the team has.
3 or more players from the region = locked to that region FOR THAT time frame
2-2-1 split = the org chooses the region

#29

Rocky54

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Exactly and that’s why you need a rule or else it’s always going to dominated by eu

#31

Nef0r0

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it's actually a good midterm solution
full region teams drop their 2 worst players for imports = retain region BUT get stronger
those 2 players who didn't cut it in tier 1 drop down into tier 2 where they are the best players.
tier 2 team gets an upgrade and therefore pushes its competition to grow.
undiscovered talent makes its mark and goes into an upwards trajectory. has been working in cs for 20 years bud. NA CS didn't die because eu killed it, na killed itself by going for the same 4 tier 2 teams but with these people mixed in another way

#9

thetruthspeaker

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Hello! New here

Yes
NACS is slowly coming back. It's not just reck, Lake and JBa but there are more and more solid talents right now in NA ECL and below who can actually make a difference for NA

All NA needs is more CCT and tier-2 tournaments for players in NA to grind for. Look at Brazil and South America, all of the teams are solid because they are constantly playing tournaments all year. They have the highest amount of tournaments outside EU and it shows. Hope things look up for NA in 2025

#10

IAmRichYouAreNot

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If there is a NA TO like Eleague back then, oh then we would be so back. Same for Asia as well, I think Perfect World would be great.

#11

thetruthspeaker

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Yes, Not even Eleague level but something on a smaller scale like Beyond the Summit would also be helpful. Funnily enough NA right now has tier-3/4 LANs in Fragadelphia and Launders LAN. Fragadelphia is giving a lot of experience for a lot of NACS players but it's nothing that's taken seriously IMO. A step up in the prize pool, and more to win events is what will bring the hardcore fans.

Unironically NA CS is going to be a lot stronger than it was before, NA did lose out on the veterans to VALORANT but it has forced NA teams and players to rethink their positions and invest smartly. And we can already see the results in local NA orgs like M80 and Wildcard building up things from the bottom up instead of throwing cash around.

#18

Nef0r0

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I feel like some TO will come into the American scene. PGL took international, Blast took Europe, I feel like there is just that juicy NA market left for the taking

#20

thetruthspeaker

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Highly unlikely, if any of them were going to come they would have already announced it given they have to announce the calendar till 2026. So for the next two years except the Major and IEM Dallas ( if it even will exist next year ) are going to be the only tier-1 NA events. NA market while is profitable is the most expensive to run so the profit margins aren't much

BLAST is hosting a major in Austin because they have a deal with the tow's government to host events there IIRC, similar reason as to why they are hosting the World Finals in Singapore this time. Unless more TOs use this approach for the NA market, it's impossible for NACS to grow at a faster pace than what they are currently growing with

#21

Nef0r0

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I feel like NA CS can somehow turn into a sequel to CIS scene. reason why CIS is so cracked INDIVIDUALLY right now is because some of those kids attended lans since they were 8. There still is a lan culture in russia and ukraine, w0nderful (major winner for navi) spent his free time after praccs in the beginning of his career farming lans in his hometown (he got banned from attending cuz he was too good). Launders lan, NA revival series, CCt are those events, just FFA to enter and wreck noobs

#22

thetruthspeaker

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Yeah the death of LAN culture is what destroying scenes. Funnily enough NA is doing that very well, there's consistent tier-3, tier-4 LANS in NA right now with Fragadelphia, Launders LAN and a few more local cups that teams in ECL and below attend. Lake is one of the highlights of this, given that he won Launders LAN. One of the reasons he's pretty comfortable in LAN was because he used to attend Fragadelphia too so Pro League Studio environment is not a big deal for him with the way he's showing up .

In the long term when we look back we'll know that this is what kickstarted the NA revival ( if it does happen )

#23

Nef0r0

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It's looking promising. as a rule of thumb of how good the region appears is a question if that team was good if you assembled a region only team, would it do well compared to navis g2s mouz, spirits.
twistzz - IGL
elige - 2nd entry
naf - anchor
lake - entry
slump - AWP
the only one you doubt for this category is the awper, osee is inconsistent, junior just doesn't have any lans to prove himself, slump is the newest kid on the block. I feel like when complexity implodes, jason lake needs to get slump and maybe, sadly, raid wildcard for JBa

#25

thetruthspeaker

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God I hope slump is not a hacker, attend some LANs and show he's legit is all I need. If he is truly legit then it's going to be such a big deal given he's an AWP prodigy after a long time

#26

Nef0r0

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imagine col with JBa and slump instead of hallzerk and grim, maybe even get stanislaw if you want full NA

#12

VibsTV

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Blast austin is the chance for NA CS to comeback. Hopefully NA teams will do well in that tourney

#17

Nef0r0

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and Shanghai has a huge chance to become that next step. Right now americas has 7 team slots, asia has 3, europe has 14. Given that europe will likely have shaky teams like falcons, virtus pro, astralis and NA+SA+asia has teams like liquid-m80-wildcard-9z-imperial-pain-mibr-mongolz-furia-complexity barging in, I am sure americas and asia have a chance to claim more slots

#13

dandann

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The fact that Spirit needs Donk to break a World Record to win in a very close fashion against Wildcard is very telling that NA CS is healing

#16

Nef0r0

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I mean spirit aren't at their best rn, but I am sad for wildcard, only a historical game stopped them from the biggest upset of round 1

#24

h1gh_fall

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i stopped watching after furia superteam went wrong, what's happening?

#27

IAmRichYouAreNot

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Furia doing Furia things, I think Pain is the better team lmao.

#28

thetruthspeaker

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Except FURIA every other Brazilian/SA team is doing VERY good lmao. Compared to VAL, Brazilian CS is super fucking solid right now

paiN, Imperial, 9z, MIBR, Red Canids, Legacy to an extent (can't judge because they smurf in NA ) are all teams that can beat any team in EU except top 5

Brazil along with Argentinian CS right now is having a revival, and they have enough talents to assemble 3 superteams that can rival the best EU teams currently.

#30

Nef0r0

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furia assembled all the hype talent and that gave way for pain mibr imperial to just get everyone else and now imperial has beaten mouz at pro league, mibr has beaten spirit and pain are like top 10 team rn

#32

idkbro

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both are improving just like Asia and even Australia, specially SA looking very solid and good depth, NA still only 2 decent teams and m80 has only really been good this event while having EU igl/awp (surprise surprise two most important roles), although NA is improving and building a decent grassroots scene unlike in the golden era there is still a lack of investment and interest in the game and ofc not enough talent, NA cant produce igls or awpers, some decent riflers in complexity and m80 but not worldclass and would be t2 players in EU, Naf/Elige/Twistz only worldclass players from NA rn

#33

Nef0r0

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I feel like this initial push might sway some tier 2-3 talent in NA valorant to CS. NA teams in valorant have 30 slots in franchising (possibly 35), yet no way to get into that closed club. It makes more sense to grind an open circuit

#34

idkbro

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no valorant player can transition to CS the way CS players can to valorant unless they were pro in it before, only hope for NA is that kids who start playing FPS choose CS, those pros who left CS for valorant because they were washed 3-4 years ago will be even worse now that the level has gotten so high in EU and they havent played for 4 years

#35

Nef0r0

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I mean nitro wasn't that bad, autimatic isn't that bad. I feel like what can theoratically save NA CS is the VCT NA baloon popping. There is no stable org in VCT NA, I just feel like the baloon might pop

#39

idkbro

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nitro was dogshit when he cameback, washed as player and IGL, autimatic was decent but nothing special against EU competition, the thing is that before valorant NA only had liquid and EG, EG players are dogshit now and liquid ones are good but in different teams, only hope for NA is tarik/other big excs streamers going back to streaming CS and the game growing there again so they start producing some talents in 3-4 years

#40

Nef0r0

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who knows what happens, we will just see

#36

Jivko

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allat but I can assure you Europe will always be the best in CS

#37

Nef0r0

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the best doesn't mean there will be no rivalry from NA/SA/asia