With the current COVID-19 pandemic shutting down LAN tournaments around the world and across all games, several leagues and events are set to be held online with some already getting underway. While you hear people claiming others are “online” players or teams all the time and may not give it much thought, there’s some legitimacy to it.

Professional Turkish Counter-Strike player Engin “MAJ3R” Kupeli explains the impact and reason why we’ve already seen upsets in these online matches and should expect even more.

** quotes will be edited for English fluidity**

He explains that in online cs, “players play with confidence and do things they’ll never do on LAN with all the stress.” This directly clashes with the likes of some of the top tier teams which he goes on to discuss.

“Teams like Astralis, Na’Vi, Liquid who only play on LAN are not used to playing some T2 teams online and we’ll see a lot of surprises,” he said in the tweet.

Online cs:

Players play with confident because they are in a familiar environnement and do things they ll never do in lan with all the stress. Team likes astralis,navi, Liquid who only play on lan are not used to play some T2 teams Online and we ll see a lot of surprise a lot. — MAJ3R (@Maj3r_) March 17, 2020

He then went on to provide a real-life example with a previous team he was a part of, Space Soldiers. The team “was so confident online” and able to beat any time in that environment, however, “when we played on LAN, the experience of T1 teams makes all the difference.”

“Even if we wanted to play the same way, psychologically it was impossible, different game,” he went on to say.

The Best exemple i can give its was us SS, we was so confident online like anyteam we was able to beat them but when we played on lan the experience of t1 teams make all the difference, even if we wanted to play the same way, psychologikly it was impossible, different game… — MAJ3R (@Maj3r_) March 17, 2020

With ESL Pro League and FLASHPOINT both moving their leagues to an online format, we’ve already seen BIG take down Fnatic, Na’Vi fall to North, and Astralis get dismantled by Ninjas in Pyjamas, both results that were highly unexpected. It’s worth noting that the BIG , North, and NiP players are well versed in LAN environments, however.

At this point, we love to see CS played regardless but there’s definitely got to be some question marks around results and whether or not it’s the online arena or true form of some teams.

What do you think? Let us know on social media or in the comments below!

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