People check their phone, turn on the TV, turn on the radio, or open up the newspaper everyday to check the weather. This is a process which begins the day for millions, if not billions, of people. People want to know whether the weather is going to be hot or cold, sunny or snowy. When these predictions are wrong, people understandably get upset. If the weatherman tells you it is going to be 50+ degrees—as it has been for the past couple weeks here in the central United States, which is highly unusual for this time of year—then you might only wear a light jacket. Instead, the weather turns out to be single digits and you’re left freezing your ass off in the cold. As a result of the lack of accuracy and frustration from consumers of weather reports, the field of meteorology has improved substantially. Gone are the days of looking at clouds to determine whether it will rain or not, and here are the days of Doppler radar.

Unfortunately, there is a demand, or at least a perception of there being a demand, for analysts to pander to the crowd—a practice akin to telling people that it will be warm, even though it will be cold, because that’s what people want to hear. When analysts give disingenuous predictions, they mislead fans—especially newer ones, like the ones that tuned into CS:GO for the first time on Sunday. These kinds of predictions are not only inaccurate but also devalue results.

The biggest instance of this issue occurred with the final. More than half of the talent at the Major predicted that Cloud9 would win the series. As a new fan unable to discern the difference between pandering to a specific audience, you would believe that Cloud9 are the better team in the match-up when that was not the case at all. Even though C9 beat G2 2-0, even though they beat SK 2-1, they had the smallest of chances to win this Major. FaZe was in perfect position to stomp Cloud9 2-0, especially with how the vetoes panned out. This was FaZe’s Major to lose. No analyst, not even a disingenuous one, would have picked Cloud9 to even be in the final at the start of this tournament. I cannot possibly stress enough how unlikely a result this is.

When a massive underdog like Cloud9 wins a tournament as prestigious as the Major, it should be considered a miracle and come with all the emotions that such a moment would entail. Myself and probably the typical reader of my articles are more than capable of coming to our own conclusions about the importance of this result, but newer fans aren’t. For hours, the post-match Major thread was at the top of the front page of the internet, reddit. That was a huge moment not only for Counter-Strike but esports as a whole. While you and I may be able to feel the most intense emotions—whether it be elation, devastation, or plain awe and disbelief that still persists days after the event—many outside observers will take their preconceived notions, reinforced by patently false predictions, and view this as just another result.

Among the credible experts, Thorin has termed this improbable victory the Miracle in Massachusetts, a reference to Team USA’s win over the USSR in the 1980 Winter Olympics where a ragtag bunch of American amateurs and collegiate athletes took on the best the Soviet Union had to offer. Without knowing the context of the Miracle on Ice, many casual onlookers would say it was an expected result because the US does quite well in a number of other sports. Due to widespread hockey fandom, the Miracle on Ice story is properly understood by a great number of people. As much as we try to make esports sound big, it still is nowhere near as big as hockey; therefore, we cannot count on fans realizing the true meaning of the result.

The importance of accurately portraying a moment in history is not just for the sake of factual truthfulness but truths that cannot be described in words, truths that I have yet to fully realize when it comes to Cloud9 winning the Major. Based on ELEAGUE talent predictions, people who have turned up for the first time at this Major will not experience the childlike glee or gut-wrenching despair that a result such as this would normally come with. Of course, they don’t have a developed palate for Counter-Strike as wine connoisseurs have for wine, but presenting events falsely does them no favors. For example, you don’t have to be a historian of Ancient Greece to appreciate the momentous holding of the pass of Thermopylae by the 300 Spartans, but you do if all you are told is that “some Spartans held off some pass or something against a bunch of Persian dudes.” What would be even worse is to be told that there were more than 300 Spartans and they were guaranteed a win versus a measly Persian force, which is basically what happened with the Major final predictions. Just as there is hardly any emotion to be gained from an inaccurate retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, misinformed fans experience dampened results from an otherwise epic moment.

With all of the negative components of disingenuous predictions in mind, it may be difficult to find a motive to carry on with them to this day. The reason for insincere predictions from Counter-Strike pundits is not done out of malevolence but may be a form of greed. Maybe, that greed manifests itself as wanting to hoodwink fans to get their approval, or maybe, it’s just an inability to step back from underdog hype and be an objective storyteller. If a commentator or analyst gets predictions right 10% of the time but have a high percentage of upset predictions, they will receive more plaudence and admiration than would someone like Janko or Thorin who get most predictions right and rely on objective reasoning, not emotional feeling. Instead of rewarding those who put in the effort and seek to be accurate and honest, the ecosystem unfortunately rewards those who make fans feel good about themselves.

Counter-Strike is not the WWE. The wonderful emotional experiences that I and many others have from watching competitive Counter-Strike are based on authentic narratives, not fake hype. Counter-Strike, by itself, is as legitimate and competitive as anything can be. That means something. Commentators on the esport need to be objective storytellers, not snake oil salesmen, because the product that is available for them to sell is the best of its kind. Taking to artificial means to exaggerate these narratives is like a woman with voluptuous features getting excessive plastic surgery, thereby ruining her already perfect figure.

Due to insincere predictions in what can only be described as an attempt to pander to the crowd, newcomers to Counter-Strike, who are especially great in number during Majors, have missed out on the opportunity of experiencing the Miracle in Massachusetts. Instead of having a breathtaking beginning to Counter-Strike fandom to look back on, such fans will look back on this most incredible David and Goliath story as an expected result. And if they do ever find out the truth, they will realize that the beginning of their fandom was not all that it could have been. Commentators have an obligation that hooligans don’t, and that obligation is to provide the historical context of match-ups so that moments like the Cloud9-FaZe final can be all that are meant to.

Image Credit: ELEAGUE, Celebrity Plastic Surgery