When I bring up the Age of Astralis and their dominance in the current era, one of the common opinions thrown around is that there is a weaker field of teams relative to the past. There is a certain truth to this in that all of the other top teams in the modern era have a critical flaw or weakness relative to Astralis. However if we were to look at it another way, there has been no other top team to have reached perfection at the level Astralis have. That perfection in and of itself forces highlights the weaknesses of the other top teams in the modern era in a way that no other top team of the past has ever accomplished.

Just as there can be no shadow without light, there must be a golden standard from which to judge the strengths and weaknesses of the top teams. When we look to the past, each period of CS:GO generally had a top team that was held up as the pinnacle of each period and they became the standard from which all others were judged. There was NiP and VeryGames in the beginning of CS:GO. Later on you had Fnatic from the 2014-2015 era, which is arguably the most competitive point in history in terms of number of top teams with low level flaws. That was followed by the Dennis-Fnatic period, the LG/SK era, the uncertainty era, the triumvirate, the FaZe/SK era and then 2018.

While each of the top teams were unique and incredible in their own way, none of them had the perfection that is exhibited in the modern Astralis period. With the benefit of hindsight and distance, we can now examine each period, their top teams and their flaws.

For now, we will skip the NiP and VeryGames period as the context surrounding that period is too different from the later parts of CS:GO. There was less money, teams, and the Majors system had yet to be solidified. This means that the overall level of the scene was lower outside of those two teams and while both teams are rightfully listed as among the greatest to have played the game, the overall context of the scene makes it hard to compare them to modern Astralis when we are trying to examine the flaws of the top teams in each period.

So we will instead start with the Fnatic era that lasts from September 2014 to September 2015. Throughout this period, multiple teams rose up to challenge the Fnatic hegemony. The most notable was the LDLC/EnVyUs as they could beat every team outside of Fnatic. Other notable top teams included NiP, Virtus.Pro and TSM. All five were at points throughout this period contending with Fnatic the entire way. The amount of LANs Fnatic attended, their overall consistency in placings, and winning the big tournaments at the right times all contribute to the creation of the Fnatic era.

While Fnatic were the best team of that time period and the greatest lineup of all time. This was a team that dominated the world through three key strengths. The first was that they had enough spread of superstar skill that they could shift their team identity around to different players depending on form. Early on they had Jesper “JW” Wecksell as the dominant aggressive AWPer. Later Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer and Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson were the two key players that defined Fnatic for the longest period of time. Robin “flusha’ Ronnquist was a critical component when speaking of their ability to win the Majors. Finally Markus “pronax” Wallsten had the style of leadership that relied heavily on defaults and mid-round calls that allowed this team to flourish. The second was their incredible teamplay which could not be emulated by any other team in the world. Finally, their incredible clutch factor which won them their final Major and elongated their era despite declining results near the end.

It is through their strengths, that we can now see some of their weaknesses. The first was that they were not the greatest tactical team, the second was that they could not innovate or change the meta. Outside of having different players carry the team as stars, they weren’t giving new looks every tournament. So when you examine the Fnatic era in detail, you will notice that there were particular teams that had good matchups against Fnatic and upset them at different times abusing these weaknesses. Titan did it early on at Gfinity G3 and DreamHack Invitational II. TSM were the most notorious for doing it as they beat Fnatic at three separate tournaments. Both Virtus.Pro and NiP were able to upset Fnatic at different points during the era.

So while Fnatic were the best team of that period and are rightfully hailed as the greatest lineup of all time, they weren’t the perfect team. They had their flaws and because these flaws existed other teams showed areas in which they could be superior or close to Fnatic, despite their own flaws. The LDLC/EnVyUs were never able to beat Fnatic during this period, but they could beat everyone else. Virtus.Pro were hot and cold, but when they were on fire even Fnatic had to pull out miracles to stop them. NiP were an aging beast that could still produce incredible magic moments, but were never good enough to win tournaments. TSM consistently beat Fnatic, but couldn’t win the big tournaments. Fnatic were the best team, but their strengths were asymmetrical and because of that, the flaws of the other top teams were less exposed.

Then we go into the Dennis-Fnatic era when they replaced pronax with Dennis “dennis” Edman and won the six LANs in a row. While the victories look great on paper, the reality was that this lineup was even more asymmetrical than the previous. They were losing the structure that had put them to the top and instead doubled down on their skill, composure, and the teamplay of the squad. While people think this was a dominant squad because of their victories, many of the other teams had better tactics than they did. Most notably Na`Vi and LG. However neither team had the necessary composure or clutch to defeat them. Na`Vi never got it and the LG side had yet to develop it.

Now let’s go to the LG/SK period of 2016. This spans from Major to Major, from MLG Columbus to ESL One Cologne. In that time they won five tournaments including the Majors. While they had the best player in the world in Marcelo “Coldzera” David, skill wasn’t what won them that era. They had the best teamplay, structure, and fundamentals of any team during that period. They understood power play situations better than any team and they understood how to play the small man scenarios better than any team because of each player’s understanding of their own roles and how to play off of each other. This was also the period in which they developed their incredible clutch ability, which eventually went supernova by the end of 2017.

So when we look at the other top teams of this period, the two that stood out for me were Na`Vi and G2. Na`Vi had a similar lineup to LG/SK, but didn’t have the clutch. In that sense, they are very similar to Liquid in the modern era when compared to Astralis in that because they were so similar, their great weakness looked even more exposed. As for G2, they had the better raw duo of Richard “shox Papillon and Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom going off. Their individual form at the time eclipsed what LG/SK had and because of that they were able to play SK close and even beat them at the ECS Season 1 Finals.

Soon after, the uncertainty era begins. This was a period where different teams started to win different tournaments. Virtus.Pro, NiP, Cloud9, Na`Vi, Dignitas, OpTic and Astralis all won tournaments during this time. As this doesn’t pertain to the argument, I’ll skip over it to the triumvirate.

The era I call the triumvirate is the period from the end of 2016 to the first half of 2017 to the PGL Krakow Major. At this point, there were three top teams that looked above the rest: Astralis, SK, and FaZe. This was an incredibly competitive era as the teams below them like G2 or Virtus.Pro were at different points contending with these top three teams as well. Like the Fnatic era, there were a bunch of top teams, however each did have a flaw. Each of the top three teams had an asymmetrical strengths and flaws that exposed each other. FaZe’s brawl style and Finn “karrigan” Andersen’s ability to disrupt Astralis’ schemes made them a good matchup against that team. Astralis’ control play allowed them to have an advantage against SK’s heavy default play and even outplay them in small man scenarios. SK’s heavy default and small man specialization allowed them to crack open FaZe’s weakness in team chemistry. So while all three teams were competitive, none of them were what you’d term as a perfect team.

The FaZe/SK that followed this were just even more extreme versions of that pattern. FaZe got even more skill and less team chemistry whereas SK got even more team chemistry and clutch ability during this period. Both were asymmetrical teams. FaZe didn’t have the team chemistry and this probably had an effect on their inability to win big pressure games. As for SK, they didn’t have the form in skill as they were riding off their two superstar players: Coldzera and fernando “fer” Alvarenga for all of 2017. By the end of 2017, his style of play had been figured out and his form didn’t reach that level again. As for Astralis, their other flaw of diminishing skill due to both form and roles made them drop off during this period. A this point we’ve gone through multiple years of CS:GO: The Fnatic era, Dennis-Fnatic era, LG/SK, the uncertainty period, the triumvirate and the FaZe/SK period.

As I’ve pointed out, each period’s top teams were all asymmetrical in some way. There is no team that was good in all categories that make up CS:GO and until the creation of Astralis this year, I had assumed that none ever would. However Astralis broke that belief. As a team they have filled almost every category of what it means to be a good CS:GO team.

In terms of tactics and innovating tactics, they are the best we’ve ever seen. They shifted the paradigm like the LDLC/EnVyUs squad of 2014-2015, but have continued to innovate. They can play the powerplay and map control styles of LG/SK or Na`Vi from 2016. They can do fast paced tactics, 4-1’s, AWP heavy, mid-round calls, advanced executes, there is nothing that is outside of their playbook.

In terms of teamplay, they are right up there with Fnatic and the SK squads of the past. In terms of skill, they don’t have the best players in the world, but they have some of, if not the best players in each individual role. Among the top echelons of teams that have inhabited the top spot of CS:GO, we can only say this about two other teams, Fnatic in 2015 and LG/SK of 2016. There were other teams that had more skilled players, but didn’t fit their individual roles as well as Astralis does. Finally, this is a team that can legitimately play every map in the map pool. The only thing that this Astralis lacks is that they don’t ascend to another level in high pressure matches like the Fnatic of 2015 or the SK of 2017. However, that only becomes a weakness if a team can get them that close. Even in those circumstances, Astralis have shown that they can still close it out as they did against MIBR at BLAST Istanbul.

It is that very perfection that makes the flaws of the other top teams so apparent to us. Let us look for a moment at the other top teams of this period: Liquid, FaZe, and Na`Vi. Liquid are the best NA team we’ve ever seen. Better than the Cloud9’s summer of 2015, better than the OpTic during the uncertainty era, and better than the Cloud9 that won the Major. Despite that they are criticized for their inability to close out high profile games. When we look at FaZe, they are the most skilled lineup in history, but all we can think of is their lack of teamplay, structure, and composure. When we see Na`Vi, we recognize that they have the best duo in the world, but their lack of team chemistry looks terrible when in comparison to Astralis.

If we were to take out any of these teams and transport them into a different era, we’d likely have a completely different view of them as teams. In a period like the uncertainty era, Liquid could have easily been the best team of that period. Na`Vi with the Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Denis “electronic” Sharipov duo have enough firepower between those two and a coherent enough style to at least be competitive or best any team from any period. FaZe’s raw skill alone likely could have netted them multiple tournaments if they drew against the right opponents.

However, they all exist in this era, in the Age of Astralis. Even during the Fnatic or the LG/SK era, there were teams that had stylistic matchups that favored them against the best teams. That in other periods, there were teams that had asymmetrical strengths different from the reigning champion of the day. So when they were compared to their competitors, it looked closer because they had different strengths in different areas. In the case of Astralis, they seem to have mastered everything related to CS:GO, so in comparison all we see are the areas in which every other team is lacking.

While I don’t think this is the strongest period ever in terms of top level competitive teams, I also don’t consider it a weak era that is easy to dominate. It just feels that way because Astralis have reached perfection and in the shining light of their brilliance, all we see are the flaws of the other top teams in comparison.

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