There are so many great CS:GO teams but who is the best team on the scene right now? Esport fans would never agree on that mater. Some say FaZe is the best, for others it is NaVi or even team Fnatic but let’s consider the facts. The best team in CS:GO right not is without any doubt Astralis team. They are currently first ranked on HLTV list running 300 points from the second-placed Na’Vi.

This is the longest dominant era of one team in CS:GO. In 2015, the first place was alternating between Fnatic and EnVyUs during the year, in 2016 Astralis and SK shared that place while in 2017 Faze and SK did the same thing. Things are different in 2018, Astalis is just sitting on the throne for 50 weeks in total with no real competition.

Road To The First Place

The road to the first place has not been easy. They had to face with many psychical and physical problems, even illness. Their unique and attractive playstyle brought them to the first place. Many teams call that playstyle boring but yet, they stole some of the Astralises strategies and use that same strategy in other matches. There is even a famous B spot hold on Inferno, called “Astralis hold”.

Astralises Curse

Astralis always played well but they had this curse of getting to the semi-finals and then never being able to move forward. Like famous CS:GO analytic YNk once said, they are their own worst enemy. They tend to choke, they tend to break under pressure, they lose the big advantage and fall out in the top four, never seem to make it in the finals of the major event, even though all of the ingredients are there.

They were third placed at MLG Columbus in 2016 and fourth placed at ESL One Cologne 2016, without getting to the Grand-Finals of the Major tournament in 2016. If they wanted to compete on this level they had to change something. Everything was perfect but the results were not there. The strong mentality is something a team needs to be able to compete and stay in the game when things are going sideways. In order to get that mentality, they had to hire a new psychologist and try to work on their mental problems, what they eventually did.

New Psychologist

Astralis hired a sports psychologist from Finland, Mia Stellberg. She helped them with the team spirit and work individually with each player to see what is the problem. The team changed their lifestyle completely, they became real athletes, started running, jogging, going to the gym and even diet. They were not kids who play Counter-Strike anymore, they felt like real athletes and that changed their mindset and placed the winning mentality there. Somehow it worked, they finally did it in 2017. They went to the Grand-Finals of Eleague Major, broke the curse, and even won that Major after defeating Virtus.pro in a best of 3 series in the Grand-Finals.

Device sick

Things started to go sideways for this team once again. Their key player dev1ce got sick and he had to step down from the team for some time. He was diagnosed with IBS that kept him out for almost 2 months. Pimp, dennis, and RUBINO stepped in as a temporary solution, each player on a different tournament and they all failed. No matter how hard they tried, no one could replace dev1ce in this team.

He was a primary AWP player, entry fragger, lurker, riffler and even team leader in some situations, pretty much everything. There is no real cure for an issue like IBS but he did not give up. He changed his lifestyle completely, started a diet and things got better. Finally, dev1ce came back from a medical leave but a new problem popped up, Kjaerbye left to North and they were one player short again.

Roster

Although this team did not make a single roster change in 2017, they had to bring someone new as a fifth player to fill the empty spot because Kjaerbye left. Magisk came in as a replacement, he was so motivated, hungry to win and happy to come back to Denmark team once again. Before that change, this team consisted of 5 players who played together ever since the very establishment. They were afraid that this roster change could affect team chemistry but it did not. It became even better and they are getting along pretty well. One other interesting team about this roster is that they are all from Denmark, and communication is not the problem because they are no language barriers. Their so-called sixth player, the coach is also from Denmark, legendary zonic.

Coach

Their main coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen, former coach of Team Dignitas, joined the team on the very beginning and he has been there from the day 1. This 32 years old coach was a professional player once, in the period from 2005. to 2010. he won many titles and he was one of the best Counter-Strike players from Denmark in that time. After five years of retirement, zonic decided to come back to esports world, not as a player but as a coach this time. This coach is not like every other coach, he can’t sit still, he always tries to contribute to the team in any way possible. He yells at them and supports them in the same time and the most important thing, he always believes that they can come back and win.

What Makes The Astralis Team So Good?

Ever since establishment in 2016. Astralis has been in the top 4 placed teams and it is the first team owned by its players. Those players have no salary and all prize money won goes directly to players which is a great confidence booster. They are not like any other team and they are their own bosses.

Playstyle

Some teams say that Astralis is playing boring Counter-Strike with no interesting clutches. After they take map control, things become boring. This team never enters in unnecessary duels, if they have a man advantage they would probably win that round. On T side, they tend to make an entry on one spot and then just trade kills until they win the round. Trades are just always there and that is the most annoying thing for the opposite team.

On a CT side, they go with a safe approach, every angle is covered perfectly and if they lose a fight, they just fall back to the site. Opponents need to win at least 2 fights to get to the site. From the economy aspect, this team has one of the best economy managements on the competitive scene. If they lose a site, rest of the players just save their weapons. They also save when there is reset potential or anti-eco round. Those saves on anti-eco rounds prevent opponent team to boost their economy so opponents desperately try to hunt them and lose weapons in the process.

Communication

We all know that communication is everything in CS:GO. As mentioned before, this team consist of 5 players from Denmark and language is not a barrier. Their communication is always on a great level and it is almost impossible to catch these players off gourd. This improves their reaction time and brings them the rounds. If they bring only one foreign player to the team, they would have to communicate in English and that would slow down a reaction time. Some places on the map are just easier to explain in your primary language without thinking how to say it in English.

Players

Astralis is a team that does not rely on one player and in every match, someone else is top fragger. This is the main reason why are they so good. They are one of the most organized teams consisted of 5 individuals where everyone has a specific role on the team.

Cheating is probably the most annoying thing in every sport. Since monetizing esports, cheating has become a normal thing, and a lot of players got VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) banned from the servers. Some countries take this issue seriously, and you can actually go to prison for creating cheats in China and South Korea.

For example, one programmer was arrested in China, and he was facing 15 years behind bars for creating and selling cheat programs. South Korea tried to fix this problem by criminalizing the creation and distribution of such cheat programs. Cheat programmers can do jail time up to 5 years, or they can get up to $43,000 in fines.

CS:GO Cheating

When it comes to CS:GO, Valve has a strict policy, and all VAC bans are permanent. In the ESL league, on March 24th, 2017, it was announced that VAC bans would be equivalent to a two-year ESL ban, while in all other Major leagues, VAC bans are permanent.

One cheat programmer opened a thread on Reddit, and he answered community questions with detailed explanations. He did not give any names, but he did admit that many players from tier 2 and tier 3 leagues bought cheats from him. More about that here.

Many professional players tried to use cheats and got caught. Some players who got VAC banned include Flex from ESP league on ESEA live stream, emilio from Team Property in a match against Hellraisers, and even KQLY from Titan, which was a tier 1 team at the time. You can see a full list here.

However, many of them are still able to stay under the radar and they are still undetected in the tier 1 league.

Disclaimer: We are not followers or makers of conspiracy theories and we are not making any accusations. This is just the article about the facts and evidence stated in one place. You can see for yourself and make your own opinion.

How People Cheat on LAN Tournaments in CS:GO:

First of all, let’s explain software assistance available for cheating in CS:GO:

• Aimbots or triggerbots – this is a program that automatically shoots when an opponent appears within the field-of-view or aiming reticule of the player. Theese programs can be modified, and they can go undetected under VAC radar.
• Wallhacks – this is a software that allows people to see through walls and know the exact location of the enemy.
• Recoil scripts – this software helps you to control recoil

Aimbots are easy to detect, and they are not used in LAN tournaments. On the other side, some people use triggerbots like a wallhack; they use them to find the location of their enemies.

The most common cheat is a recoil control cheat that allows players to control the recoil of certain rifles with just one click. We all know how hard it is to master recoil controls of rifle guns in CS:GO. Only a few players can shoot 30 bullets at the same spot without cheating. Others use scripts to do that. They implement the scripts along with their configurations on the USB flash drives they are allowed to bring with them to the tournaments. The same goes for wallhacking.

Is it even possible to use wallhack in LAN tournaments with hundreds of people watching you? Most people say that it is impossible to cheat on LAN tournaments, but it isn’t. Cheaters can’t actually see where the enemy is on their screen, but they can press a button that activates this cheat, and their crosshair slowly moves towards the enemy, so it looks like normal movement. The player who is cheating does not lift the mouse, but the crosshair moves towards the enemy, so it is really easy to use and hard to detect. Cheaters can actually know where the enemy is without seeing him. It’s helpful in 1-on-1 situations where players know exactly where the enemy is because the player knows where to pre-aim.

This way of cheating is best explained in this short YouTube video:

How Can Cheaters Be Stopped???

Where does this end? Is there a way to stop cheating??

There is a VAC secure system that “detects” cheats. When a new cheat is detected, the VAC system is updated immediately. Every cheat leaves a trail, and players that use a detected cheat get VAC banned from official community servers. Within days of a VAC system update, new cheats will have already been coded, quickly out-dating the system and leaving it useless.

In conclusion, the VAC system is useless, and it can detect only old cheats that are widely spread across the internet. With that being said, let’s consider a new way to stop cheaters, at least in tournaments where enormous amounts of money are involved.

Pro players are allowed to use their gaming equipment but not their PCs. However, they are allowed to use their own USB flash drives to install “personal configuration.” Many players abuse that, and they install cheat scripts with that configuration. Those flash drives should be checked by an admin or banned completely.

This would not be enough because the new mouses and keyboards have their own memory and they can be programmed to carry cheats in the near future. The only solution is to add mouse cameras to the LAN tournaments and monitor everything.

Every Major should have mouse cameras and player POV cameras. Everything should be monitored.  Who knows? Maybe Valve is doing this on purpose, allowing cheating to make matches more intense in order to make more money from esports. One thing is for sure, there are cheaters in the pro-competitive scene and Valve is not doing enough to stop that.

What does this mean for betting?

From the CSGO betting aspect, cheating is a serious issue. No matter how much time you spent on analyses, if someone is cheating, he would win the crucial rounds and the match eventually.  Try to avoid lower leagues and online competitions. There are fewer cheaters in LAN tournaments and higher leagues, because it is harder to cheat in front of admins, public and thousands of online viewers. The biggest mistake you can do while making a bet is to bet on someone you think is cheating. Potential cheaters are unpredictable, they do not use their cheats in every match and you can never know when will they perform above their level.  This is a great paradox, don’t bet on cheaters and don’t bet against them. Just try to avoid betting on matches where you suspect there is a cheater in one team.

Suspicious Pro Players:

If you are interested in this topic, you should visit the YouTube Channel of Dan M. This guy is obsessed with conspiracy theories of pro players cheating. Even though, he did admit that there are some naturally talented CS:GO players like s1mple, olofmeister, and GeT_RiGhT who are just born to be the best. GeT_RiGhZ and olof even admitted to using the crowd as a cheat. In LAN events, they constantly aim through the walls and wait for the crowd to respond. If they hear the crowd go wild, that means someone is behind the wall, and they shoot. This is just a trick that smart players use, but what about real cheaters?

Flusha

Flusha is currently a Fnatic player in the tier 1 league. He has been accused of cheating many times through the years. He did deny everything on his Facebook page, claiming that he has a different playstyle.

“The only thing I can say about the clips on me is that I have a very different playstyle and I lift my mouse A LOT more than the average pro player.”

He did try to explain that he is playing differently and later deleted that post. Why would you try to explain anything if you are not feeling guilty??

There is just too much evidence that he is cheating. His demos are full of behaviour that can’t really be explained and aimlocks through the walls, and he seems to know where the enemy is without any previous info in clutch situations and important rounds.

Evidence of flusha cheating:

On top of that, even famous streamer Summit1g looked into that because he could not believe that flusha was cheating, but he later came to the conclusion that it is possible. You can see it for yourself here

There is also a recorded conversation of G2’s player, shox, with some of his friends, where he says that flusha is too obvious and that he won’t even shake hands with him anymore.

Somebody

Somebody is a current player on the Chinese TyLoo team. With a 1.12 rating on HLTV, he is currently one of the best CS:GO players from China. Even though they are not competing in the tier 1 league, he has been under the radar ever since the match against Cloud9 in Eleague. That crosshair transfer from the connector to the window (on Mirage) was strong evidence of cheating and using triggerbot or similar software.

There are plenty of situations where we can clearly see that this player is using triggebot. See for yourself:

k0nfig

k0nfig is a current player of tier-1 team OpTic gaming. There is not as much evidence against him. However, there are some situations that are weird and unexplainable. For example, there was the situation on Dust2 with accidental aim lock through the box in the clutch situation, but the most interesting is the one against mouz on Cache with two clean aim locks where he accidentally fires directly at the enemy through the wall and afterwards gets panicky trying to hide it. See for yourself:

Subroza

He’s a young Canadian player currently playing for Ghost. He was caught cheating while playing for CLG many times, and he is still playing on a competitive scene. It is funny how Valve is doing nothing with all this evidence. This player is even cheating while killing bots:

The most interesting situation is on Overpass against NRG. He did spam through wood and “accidentally” had 6 aim-locks in 10 seconds. It is just too embarrassing for a competitive scene to allow something like this to happen in LAN tournaments:

DeadFox

DeadFox is a current player from Hellraisers. If he is cheating, then he is smart, and he does not leave enough evidence. However, there is one moment where we can clearly see an aimbot. He aims at the enemy through a box and fires at a completely different enemy on the other side of the map. Did he press some button to help him aim at the enemy through the box and end up aiming at a completely different guy??? See for yourself:

byali

byali is a Virtus.pro player. He was caught cheating in his early beginnings. We can see clear aimlock in one match against Deponerent and the match against the former tier-1 team who got banned for fixing matches, famous iBUYPOWER. He is not cheating anymore, but he did use some aim software a few years ago. That is a fact.

NiKo

NiKo is one of the best players in the world, a current player of FaZe clan. He is not a cheater, and he does not belong to this group, but as we said, nobody is cheating unless proved otherwise. So, if other players from this list are not cheaters, we can add NiKo to the list as well. Anyway, he had only one suspicious moment on the Train two years ago. He aim-locked the head of Friberg and then peeked and killed him. However, Friberg was standing on a common spot, and NiKo tried to do that again in some matches, but no one was holding that angle. It can be a coincidence. We think it is, but you can see it for yourself:

This is our full list for now. If you know any more players that are suspicious, feel free to comment below.

FACEIT Major: London 2018 is the 13th CS:GO Major tournament so far and also
the last Major in 2018. The tournament features a $1,000,000USDprize pool. The
tournament is held in London, Wembley arena with 8000 seats that were sold out
in record time.

FACEIT Major: London 2018 – Tournament Info:

• Start Date: 9/5/2018
• End Date: 9/23/2018
• Location: London, UK
• Venue: Twickenham Stadium and SSE Arena, Wembley
• Organizer: FACEIT
• Type: Offline, LAN
• Number of Teams: 24
• Total prize pool: $1,000,000 USD

CHAMPIONS STAGE: SEPTEMBER 20TH-23RD 2018

Challengers stage and Legends stage are not open to the public.

FACEIT Major: London 2018 Tournament Format:

Following the success of the new overall tournament format that was first
used at previous Major ELEAGUE Boston 2018, Valve decided to use that format
again. Instead of 16 teams, this format allows up to 24 teams divided into 3
groups:

In an attempt to make Major tournaments “different” from rest, Valve did not
only add new group names but also, there did add new stage names as well. Don’t
get confused, everything is the same as before with just a few new names.

The New Challengers Stage (Major Offline Qualifier)

• September 5th 9th, 2018
• 16 Team Swiss System
  Format
• Round 1 to 4 matches
  are Bo1
• Round 5 matches are
  Bo3
• The Buchholz system
  (ranking based on opponent’s performance) is used to seed matches from Rounds 3
  to 5.

This is the first stage of the tournament and we know it as the Major Offline
Qualifier. There is a total of 16 teams in The New Challenger Stage. That teams
are from The Minor Champions and The New Challengers group. Top 8 placed teams
proceed to The New Legends Stage while the bottom 8 are eliminated.

The New Legends Stage (Group Stage)

• September 12th 16th, 2018
• 16 Team Swiss System
  Format
• Round 1 to 4 matches
  are Bo1
• Round 5 matches are
  Bo3
• The Buchholz system
  is used to seed matches from Rounds 3 to 5.

This stage is formerly known as the Group Stage. There is also 16 Teams in
this stage of the tournament. Top 8 placed teams from the previous stage and The
Current Legends fight for the 8 spots in the New Champions Stage.

The New Champions Stage (Playoffs)

• September 20th 23rd, 2018
• Single-Elimination
  Bracket
• The Buchholz system
  is used to seed the Quarterfinals’ matches.
• All matches
  (including the Grand Final) are Bo3.

Formerly known as the Playoffs, this stage is the last stage of the
tournament. A total of 8 Teams called The New Legends fights to become the Major
Champion.

FACEIT Offline Qualifier, The New Challengers Stage

The first-round matches will be on September 5th, and the first phase of the
competition will last until September 9th. Here is the exact schedule of the
first round:

The contest is being opened by Rogue and Space Soldiers, while the former
Major Champion Gambit will begin their match towards to the main stage of the
tournament against the ever-unpleasant Chinese team TyLoo.

The derby of the first round, at least in terms of the soundness of the names
is Virtus.pro against Ninjas in Pyjamas. NiP should have a great advantage in
this match as a team that is in a much better form than the once famous Polish
team.

CompLexity got the most difficult opponent and they will fight for their
first win against the best-ranked team, Astralis. Team Liquid and OpTic will
also play a very exciting and uncertain duel if we take into account the good
OpTic’s game on the DreamHack Masters in Sweden.

Top Picks:

Space Soldiers vs Rogue

Stats
Teams
World ranking	14					–
Form	L	L	L	W	L	L	W	W	W	W
Total maps played	258					160
Win ratio	57%					48%
Most picked map	Cobblestone, 34%					Mirage, 26%
Most banned map	Nuke, 27%					Dust2, 69%
Head to head	1					2

Rogue and Space Soldiers would play the opening match of the competition with
Space Soldiers as a favourite team according to betting sites. This is a great
opportunity to try a low bet on Rogue with odds starting @ 2,8. Space Soldiers
are currently in a bad form losing one match after another, while Rogue won 4
out of 5 last matches. Further, Space Soldiers are a dangerous team in online
competitions but when it comes to LAN, their performance is poor lately. On top
of that, their best map is Cobblestone and that is also the worst map of Rogue.
The thing is, Cobblestone is no longer in active maps and that map can’t be
played on this tournament which is a great plus for the American team.
Considering that Rogue is even better in head to head duels, the smart thing to
do here is to place a low bet on Rogue.

Astralis vs CompLexity

Stats
Teams
World ranking	1					30
Form	L	W	W	W	L	L	W	W	W	W
Total maps played	657					360
Win ratio	67%					40%
Most picked map	Overpass, 37%					Inferno, 28%
Most banned map	Nuke, 67%					Mirage, 51%
Head to head	1					0

From the betting aspect, Astralis is an absolute favourite here, currently a
No.1 team in the world hungry for their first triumph at the Major tournament
this year. The Major in Boston was not meant to be for Astralis, but this is
their chance to prove they are the best team in the world and to finally triumph
at a Major tournament. Astralis would most likely advance to the second stage of
the tournament with 0 loses. It would be smart to bet on them in every single
match during the qualifier. This match particullary should be something like a
warmup for Astralis to recover from lose against North in the Grand Finals of
DreamHack Masters Stockholm last week. They were in the Grand Finals of the two
last big tournaments and they would probably play the Grand Finals here too,
does anyone even remember how Grand Finals without Astralis looks like? Me
neither.

North vs Hellraisers

Stats
Teams
World ranking	6					13
Form	W	W	W	W	W	L	W	L	L	L
Total maps played	234					539
Win ratio	59%					50%
Most picked map	Mirage, 27%					Overpass, 26%
Most banned map	Cache, 32%					Nuke, 32%
Head to head	8					6

Triumph against Astralis was a great confidence booster for North. They are
currently in a great shape with 5 wins in a row and DreamHack Masters trophy in
their pocket. On the other side, HR is struggling lately. HR is a more
experienced team, with more maps behind them with this roster but they have no
chance against North in the current stage. North won last 3 head to head matches
with 2-0 victory in each one. HR managed to take only 4 rounds on their map pick
Overpass, which is also their best map. In terms of map control, North is
covering every angle and HR can’t do much with their playstyle against that.
With great CT hold and solid T side, North should win this match with a
handicap. Our suggestion is to make a medium bet on North to win with a
handicap.

Place Your Bets Now