There's no dancing around the fact that most sports are constructed on a foundation of narratives. The story of "will" or grit that weaves through shortcomings and successes cement a carefully curated structure in which different players, different sports and different leagues can be placed and replaced without much change. It's a universal trend: story first, game second.

That means, despite our best intentions, narratives drive our analysis with abstract concepts like "impact, passivity, tactical" driving the conversation. Those who engage in this form of analysis are forced to see through the lens of those concepts.

Of course, this mode of reasoning is useful. Abstractions help us make sense of the things around us, and Counter-Strike is no exception. It would take much too long to inquire about all specific spots and actions of each player in every game. Because of this difficulty, we take a pattern of behavior and we give it a name. If a player assigned to in-game shot-calling has a tendency to create intricate strategy, we call him a strategic in-game leader; if he's thought of as averse to strategy, he will be called a loose in-game leader. These labels, once assigned, will stay with them indefinitely. Shortly put, narrative analysis is a consequence of knowledge deficits.

While it serves a purpose, this method of analysis is not without its flaws. Specifically, two problems are obvious hurdles to its precision: status quo bias and motivated reasoning.

Status quo bias

First, status quo bias is a mental hitch in which one uses the status quo as a reference point to make value judgments. For the purpose of this article, it is the bias of using a previously determined label as an authority when assessing a player's ability.

Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko, formerly of Gambit Gaming, now on Na'Vi. Kevin D. Liles for ESPN

Because of the lack of time, the analyst will take note of the decisions of the in-game leader in one or two rounds and will extend the characteristic observed onto the rest of the match. If an analyst is impressed with Danylo "zeus" Teslenko's tactical prowess and slow play style, he'll be considered a methodical leader of the team.

With a characteristic as obvious as pace of play, it's easy to observe the fluctuation from game to game. If Gambit begins to suddenly play a lightning-fast game, we'd notice the difference that forces us to revise our former conceptions. But the biggest concern with narrative analysis is that it often does not allow for revision so easily. Subtle characteristics, like whether someone clutches intelligently or holds a site successfully, aren't likely to be reconsidered on a frequent basis. As a consequence of this rare revision, the accuracy of narrative analysis often lags and states to be true in the present what was the case many months ago.

Here's an example. Since labels such as "clutch player" are not assigned after a single or even several games, they are justly not taken into reconsideration. However, once the label "clutch" becomes the status quo, a single instance of the player failing to live up to it is considered to be an anomaly. Because it is thought of as an anomaly, this failure is forgotten. Then, if the player fails to be clutch in the subsequent series, it is again considered abnormal. Because of this, a player could easily become a mediocre clutcher for the next six months without the large majority of even the most attentive viewers taking notice. It is manifestations of this lag due to status quo bias that makes narrative analysis problematic.

Motivated reasoning

Unnoticed changes aren't the only cause for the lagging nature of a label. It also persists by morphing our future assessments of the team or player on which the label was assigned. Markus "pronax" Wallsten, for example, is one of the most decorated players to ever play CS:GO, having won three major titles as the in-game leader of Fnatic. Consequently, he is considered one of the best in-game leaders of all time. After his departure from Fnatic, pronax formed a Swedish team under the name of Godsent, which eventually fielded a strong roster. As we now know, the team heavily underperformed and the post-pronax Fnatic roster reformed. At the time, much of the blame for the underperformance was levied at Freddy "KRiMZ" Johansson and Jesper "JW" Wecksel for their poor form. Very little, however, was levied at the celebrated in-game leader.

Why is that? The role of an in-game leader is to bring the best out of the pieces given to him, something that Godsent's failure demonstrates he was unable to achieve. Considering this, a portion of the burden of his players' underperformance should fall onto him. Yet, since pronax is considered an all-time great and the strategical aspects of the game are not as loud as a missed AWP shot, pronax's failure was largely ignored. This is a classic case of motivated reasoning. If a viewer came along with no prior knowledge of pronax's achievements, they would certainly conclude that he performed his duties at best in mediocre fashion. But pronax's legacy carries him, and his status as a great in-game leader is largely intact to this day because of it.

This example is one of many, and motivated reasoning dramatically affects our considerations of player and team performances. If we consider a player to be aggressive, we may excuse his over-aggression as "risky" rather than foolish. If we consider a player skilled, we may forgive a series of missed shots as "unlucky." The list goes on and on. Motivated reasoning is problematic as it warps our interpretation of the same play depending on which player did it, giving more weight to a label than to the in-game action. Consequently, a player's reputation does more to build our present conception of them than their gameplay.