On the first day of June, the minor circuit began for the eleventh Counter Strike Global Offensive major in Beijing, China. To the casual or even the hardcore Counterstrike esports fan the Asian minor may be a foreign and secluded scene, scaring them off from watching it. Those who did witness the event would know that it was full of amazing highlights, star players and interesting production, just like any other tournament. Luckily for all those fans watching ESL pro league finals and skipping out on the minor, I have the perfect summary for you.

Renegades with a Nifty tournament

Going into the tournament, many analysts and fans were afraid that renegades wouldn’t be able to win the minor, or even make it to the finals and be forced to return to America empty-handed.Their group stage performance did back this claim up as they suffered a heavy loss to the newly formed Flash Gaming and nearly went out of group to the Thai team Signature Gaming.Luckily for the fans down under Australia did start to show up post group stages and have two close series against one of the favorites to win, and rival Tyloo. A surprise to many, as it has always gone the other way in that rivalry for the past year. While the average fan was watching the Demolishing of NA teams in Dallas, the star of renegades actually hailed from the U.S.A . Nifty was given the role of AWP and according to an interview with teammate AZR, he is also given the burden of in-game leading due to Nexa being uncomfortable calling in English. Despite these two heavy burdens Nifty had an MVP worthy performance at the minor, destroying opponents with incredible counter terrorist aggression while being able to do a coin flip on the terrorist side and commit great executes and having great reads. An example of this would be knowing the infamous Asian aggression and lack of discipline on CT side,countering this by playing slow some rounds to insure picks. But as Niko learned, you can’t just have one player dominate and expect to win a tournament. The king of Aussie CS Justin “jks” Savage showed his talent in this tournament and was the key force behind their third map win which went to a 19–17 scoreline. After this tight series, the question for the land down under is wether they be able to translate this into a major qualification and use their tactics against higher caliber teams such as G2 and Hellraisers? Either way, the Aussies will be oi oing once again after this tournament.

Indonesian Superstar

At the beginning of 2017, there was a lot of drama surrounding Tyloo’s contracts with the players which caused a fractious breakup of 2 players and their praised coach. Many questioned the future of Tyloo and whether they would go into obscurity by picking up sub par Chinese players. Instead, they surprised many by picking up BnTeT, a player who absolutely destroyed his Indonesian brethren. Tyloo eventually picked up this player and honestly, whoever scouted this player should get a raise from the org. BnTeT has continued to show his prowess as he tore up the competition at China cup which including western teams such as Fnatic academy. In the Asian minor, BnTeT was able to perform well every game and clinching key rounds for Tyloo and carrying the team to the finals being dubbed as the “Asian Coldzera.” Even when they lost Karsa, Tyloo still were able to crush the lower tier team in the group stage and only loose 8 rounds. After a close loss to Renegades, the team persevered, with DD,mo,and somebody crushing their former teammates in a grudge match against Flash gaming. The team then had to face team Immunity to advance to the finals and clinch a spot to the major qualifier. To put this series lightly, if the VOD’s were uploaded onto pornhub, they would probably be taken down do to how gruesome they were. Immunity look like a shell of their normal play, only getting 3 rounds in total. Unfortunately for Tyloo and their passionate fans, they could not quite clinch the next series, making sloppy mistakes against Renegades. Fans may be hyped for their appearance at the major qualifier, but their magic may have ran out. A crutch for this team is the map Mirage, relying on this map for 66% of their map wins in playoffs and going 4–0 on it. No team was ever bothered to ban the map, which can point out other team’s inexperience and lack of scouting against the best Asian team. They are known for this map and have innovated A site executes which still work to this day against even the Gods of counterstrike. Beyond this map, they do not have any strong map choices that could be used against the likes of G2,Mousesports, or even Godsent. If teams learn for the faults of Immunity, Flash, and Renegades then Tyloo may just be happy with their runner up placing at the Minor.

Out in a Flash

This team has been in the dark from competition, being recently formed in march by the ex-Tyloo players who wanted to reach for the stars and perform betting. Pick up entry fragger LOVEYY, and pulling a Tyloo by scouting out the Phenom AWPer from Malaysia Kaze, their is perfect reason to see why the hype and expectations for this tournament were high. The beginning was a display of perfect aim with minimal tactics against the likes of Signature Gaming and crushing eventual winners Renegades on Cobblestone. Things started to pull a 180 for the high powered team in playoffs by not winning a single map to both Team Immunity and losing a heartbreaking series to former brothers Tyloo. Some reasons to this was a lack of ability to change up their style when it stopped working, demonstrated in the throw of map one against the Aussies. In the Tyloo series, it seemed to be just a simple lack of any players showing up, even their star AWP kaze didn’t have a good time against the Chinese. For the in-game-leader Karsa, it may be back to the drawing boards until the next Asian Tournament.

PGL Bring Some Pizazz to the UI

The in game user interface has for the most part stayed the same with very little changes being made over the years. No tournament host has ever been bold enough to mess with this until this month when the hosts of the major decided to make their mark. On the last day of the tournament, they displayed a new UI, which was a shock to everyone, including the analyst desk and casters. If revamped the scoreboard, the minimap, and the players health/statistics bar. The first appearance seems to be well received by fans and casters alike, hopefully to be returned to the Major in July. But one thing that hopefully won’t come back is the production errors. Every tournament will have some errors to it but there were some crucial events that hindered the viewing of the tournament. On day one of the event a huge internet error happened that was causing Renegades players to have severe problems, causing delays for hours in a heated third map which decided who advanced to playoffs. The game was eventually postponed until the next day where renegades advanced in a 16–11 score.Combine that travesty with a lag in the viewing on the last round of the first grand finals(https://clips.twitch.tv/VivaciousFantasticGuanacoBCWarrior) and you have to question the broadcast quality.

Play of the Tournament : The Nifty 1v5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjGy73u8gMo

Every Tournament has its highlight play and in Asia it’s no different. The one play that stood out of me would be in the grand finals where Nifty was in a 1v5 against asian rival Tyloo. Tyloo had force bought that round, meaning that if they lost the round they would have to eco and give away more rounds to Renegades who were already ahead 6–3. The round started off horribly for the land down under, as they go nearly dry (while having full utility) onto the A site where BnTeT rips two member to shreds with double along with Somebody and Mo getting a kill each, causing a 1v5 scenario for Nifty. Instead of attempting to save the AWP, he decided to go all in and clutch, he picks of each player one by one and wins the round, guaranteeing that they win the first half, which eventually morphs into a 16–11 win for Renegades.