The E-Sport tournament IEM Cologne 2023 is currently taking place in Cologne in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). The nominally strongest team, Heroic, actually had an easy matchup against a team from Mongolia. But that threatened to derail the favorites, leading to “psychological warfare”.
This was the situation:
- The Norwegian team Heroic plays with 5 Danes and is a well-oiled machine. The core of the team has been together since 2020, and they have been ranked number 1 in the world rankings for 36 days.
- They faced off in Cologne on July 28 in a Best-of-Three against “TheMongolZ”, a team based in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. In the world rankings, they are ranked 41st.
- What seemed like an easy win for Heroic shook heavily after the underdogs won the first map 16-11.
Counterstrike is on the rise since CS2 was announced:
Pro player yells at opponents and insults them as “Fucking Noobs”
What was the outburst? When Heroic was leading 4-1 on the 2nd map, the captain of the CS:GO team, Casper “cadiaN” Møller, shouted at the top of his lungs: “Wohoo! You fucking noobs. You fucking noobs.”
The outburst seems to have occurred unprovoked, as the 28-year-old Dane lost his composure, having already won nearly $600,000 with CS:GO in his career.
The man has a pulse:
This is the discussion about it: As the website Dotesports points out, the outburst has sparked a debate in the scene, as it came off as one-sided trash talk. Furthermore, the players from Mongolia did nothing to warrant this, other than daring to win a map against the favorites.
Players say: It’s okay if both sides trash talk, but what cadiaN did was a bit over the top.
However, many defend the Dane and say the criticism is exaggerated. He is only criticized because he is seen as a “villain” in the scene and often finds himself under scrutiny.
One user even says: The people criticizing him are soft. They should go to E-Sports for Riot Games. Another says: Such things are “psychological warfare and are part of E-Sports.”
How did it turn out? “The psychological warfare was successful”:
- Heroic won the match 2-1. The team also won the next game and is in the Upper Bracket Final of Group A. They are favorites to win the tournament and the prize money of $400,000.
- The MongolZ lost the match, subsequently lost a 2nd match against “GamerLegion” in the Lower Bracket and have now been eliminated. They fly home with $10,000 in prize money.
This is what the player says: cadiaN sarcastically apologizes on Twitter: He is very sorry for the trash talk. He knows he is the only player who still screams at his opponents.
He will try to improve himself.
This is what’s behind it: Even though E-Sports is adapting to traditional sports in some aspects, fans still want to keep their “peculiarities”. They stand for fair play and disdain cheaters. But trash talk is something many believe should be part of E-Sports.
What one can also see here, and what is unusual for Twitch viewers: CS:GO can actually be played. Many Twitch streamers have previously operated it solely as a “loot box simulation”:
Twitch: MontanaBlack shows how much money he has spent on CS:GO in 5 months and can’t bear to watch
