I sincerely regret not getting into CS:GO when it was exploding in popularity back in 2015. If I tried to start now, I'd be so far behind the rest of the player base that I'd basically have to treat the game like a full time job just to catch up.
@@qu1253 I have friends who've played CS for 10 years and are still pretty bad at the game and hardly understand the fundamentals because they just play mindlessly. It'll go a long way if you just put in some time to learn the basic fundamentals and you'll be fragging in no time. It's a fun game and new players will come along when CS2 launches. It's never too late.
I wonder what would happen if they did a sort of "throwback" tournament where they put pro players on a 2013 or 2014 build of the game on these same old maps but with all of their modern experience and knowledge at their disposal. How would it play out?
it’s crazy because at the time some of the stuff they did made sense. like the standard nade setup one nade, two flash, and one smoke. the retakes, the buys, everything takes me back
@@MrWwechampion333 I've played CSGO since 2014, does that not count...? There's still nothing crazy about the different standard buys people did back then.
@@tappajaav ??? dude it’s about how much a game could change in that time, did you not even watch the video? even war owl talks about how nobody bought molly’s back then?
@@MrWwechampion333 Yea, I did watch it. To me there's nothing CRAZY about it. It's reasonable that the behaviour of any games' playerbase changes and evolves over time.
I really like how much the meta has shifted over the years, and how quickly the community has come together to learn some new line-up, or find something that is broken. Even after almost 11 years, the game still doesn't feel stale to me. Between the main competitive scene and then factor in the Community scene, I'm hoping that CS2 will keep this going, as the franchise has for years.
The CS meta shifts without any updates. All it takes is for someone to experiment and try something new. Remember when the UMP 45 almost as good as an M4 at half the price for several years and the pros didn't notice? Remember when the SG 553 was worth the price difference to the AK for several years and the pros didn't notice? In a few months we'll see a zeus meta for all we know.
I really dont like how the meta shifted from guns being powerful to being a nerd with a lot of util knowledge became good because the guns and gameplay became worse and worse
@@nikk351 For me it's the other way around. I appreciate it more if there is more to the pro game than just aiming. We all know these pros aim well. I want to see all the map knowledge that the pros have acquired after probably spending hours in practice to find the niche nade lineups and new boosts that haven't been seen before. To raise the chance of them winning an eco or clutch a round by just having a couple smokes and playing it right. It forces the players to get a better game sense which will lead to more outplays and counter-outplays.
Just like in football, where Pele dribbled past 5 defenders and scored every single game... We dont see that in modern football, it evolved a lot and tactics, teamplay and strats play much bigger role than simple scoring
its what happens when sports/games evolve, the skill floor gets higher so if you take a break and come back you will notice that even at the lowest lvl the peple have become better
@@n9neespecially this. What I see now of pussy plays and amount of save rounds is insane. They treat smokes like a solid wall. I still play the game like 20 years ago. I don't change and I'm still catching people off guard trying to line up a smoke while I just rush them. They all think because of 2mins roundtime everyone takes 2 mins roundtime.
Yeah, if you pick up your mouse a lot, it looks like you lock on to people through walls, but you really don't. It just looks that way. I'd forgotten all about that...era
This was an absolute treat to watch. The ending really tied it all together. I thoroughly enjoyed the positive "here's to 10 more years"- vibe. You sometimes forget how just a couple years ago everyone was saying Counter-strike dead game. I myself actually believed the series would have a fate similar to tf2 where it's just left to dust in a corner. It feels so good to actually have confidence in the game's future. I hope someday my kids will also be playing a version of Counter-Strike and hopefully, watching Warowl. Thank you for the years of videos.
This game will never die. I've been a part of it for 20 yrs. If it was going to die, it would have died in around 2010 when the scene was dying out. And then CSGO came.
Astralis is single handedly responsible for the great switch of the play style. Between the playstyle of 1st and the last major, its Astralis in the middle with an era so game defining, they literally changed the way how the game can be played.
I don't think so, you can watch tournaments from 2014-2016 and utility usage was higher every year. CSGO in 2013 was in its infancy, players didn't use molotovs because they sucked up until that point and people are stubborn by nature, but over time they were utilized far more often. In fact Pronax (The IGL in this game for Fnatic) was part of that revolution. It was always trending upwards, Astralis was ahead of the curve for sure, but let's not pretend like they're the sole reason it ended up this way; it was always going to. The evolution was required because more and more incredible talent was coming into the scene, it was the only way to narrow the gap between mechanically gifted players and high IQ players.
I remember doing this sort of thing on myself for fun before and it's pretty good for seeing your personal and team improvement. I compared my winning match in the TF2 Newbie Cup Tournament to the very first scrimmage match I played and the differences were immense. It felt like I could spot a mistake I or any other player made for every few seconds that passed. We started off as the team that was losing most of their matches to the team that had to go against higher divisions because we were winning too often, since we were the only team that was dedicated enough to practice every single day before the tournament. So if you ever have second thoughts about your improvement try reviewing old matches, it can help your confidence.
That was a throwback! I used to spend my off-days watching pro CSGO between my own ESEA/Competitive matches... Good times. It's interesting to see how change happens so slowly in CS. Molotovs were there, but they were new, so everyone just defaulted to that old school CS playstyle, before the new utility gradually became a part of the meta. But man, 10,000 hours, WarOwl? That's impressive.
I had the same experience when I didn't see any majors for two years. It was between 2018 and 2020 and playstyles have changed significantly. much more professional (lineups), serious and reserved was played. Its interesting to see that such a "simple" game has that much potential to improve.
I love this comparison. I've been playing since 2016 and seeing how different the game was brought back so many fond memories of when I was a noob. Can't wait for CS2!
Very interesting to see how the game has evolved over the years. It happens in every sport, but in CS, it's even more noticeable because this game is relatively young. For that reason, we can see significant changes in strategies and in the way of playing in general in just a few years
WarOwl in 10 years: "looking back it's insane how in this 2023 major final only one shotgun was bought when it has replaced the rifle right now in CS 2.3"
it was through Xizt that i first learned about the brand Xtrfy. he had it on his nametag at one point and the brand name stood out to me enough to research it.
I have been here since the beta and while I always knew the game kept evolving, seeing this large contrast is surprising. It almost looks and plays like a sequel to the original that released back then. Valve deserves credit for not only supporting the game by doing the bare minimum, but incrementally improving it to the point it becomes a different game, while retaining the core that we all know and love.
literaly. the frog in boiling water effect of having played the past 6 years and comparing now till then is crazy. but at no point did an update come out and i thought "its like a different game now" and yet comparing across the gap you would say so
There is a missing informafion here that is crucial to the vast change, the round time and bomb time, back then the round was 20 second shorter(1 : 35) and the bomb 5 second shorter(35 second), I believe many in the comunity might not know be aware because the update was in late 2015, but at the time I played faceit in the lower round time, with the shorter round your tactical options were less, you had to commit once you choose a site a fake was hard, there was simply not enough time, running smoke was always a bad idea but Inferno was super CT sided back then because you could almost close the sites forever with the smokes, Valve decided to up the round time to make the game in competitive uniforme with casual experience which is important but 1.35 was too short for lesser players. They run smokes because they had too, winning on round time was Common for CTs. Also important this tournament had a 250k prize pool, that is the money for all team, I believe the winner got 100k which was very good at the time, Valve funded this prize pool entirely, also they get a share of sticker revenue, this was a Major Shift because sticker revenue share can outpace the prize pool, which guarantees revenue for all teams present. In 2013 most pro did not sustain themselves on counter strike only, not the case for these teams who probably had sponsors, but they were not rich, most in the tournament were what we could consider today amateurs, as in CS was a passion indeed but not their job, most prize pools were 25k for all teams and there was not a tournament season like today were some tournament dont have some teams because they cant possibly go to every single one. Today there is enough money for this players to play full time and have couches and we dont see this but these guys put thousands of hours we dont see and never will, this is what they do to the point were they live with each other in preparation for a big tournament for example and coordinate. Back then a lot of tournaments were online and some players were simply in their homes participativa, today they are in the HQ of their team paying together despite being online to guarantee all conditions(Internet and such, players like Adren from Kazahkistan had monstrous Ping,not something we see today at Tier 1).
Dont forget how hardware developed in these 10 years: Today you have really good 240 or even 360 hz displays, gpus and cpus developed faster than valve could push out graphical updates so you have way more fps on high end hardware. Also mice and keyboards are way better than in 2013. And dont forget these fancy gaming chairs. They are obviously the most important improvement.
@@Andious few years ago 144 was barely the standard nowdays if you even want to dream about FPL-C you pretty much have to have 244, the peeking advantage it gives is huge in CS. Another thing is, aimwise people became much better. All of those things combined = without stable FPS and atleast 144 hz monitor you can only dream about FPL.
@@8kokorika8 144 was definitely more than "barely the standard" during 2019-2020 lmao, and also no-one plays on 244Hz, you have no idea what you're talking about.
bear in mind that the game mechanics - shooting, damage of weapons was different (glocks were super strong for example) and the layout were different. No doubt that players improved over the years, but some things that seem crazy now worked before because the maps were very different from what they are today after numerous reworks. Inferno wasn't as narrow as it is today so molotovs didn't work as well as they do now. And A site was much easier to retake than it is now.
1:18 nobody used to buy the molotovs because there was gentlemen agreement to not buy them since people didn't like that Valve had added it out of the blue when more than 10 years of competitive 1.6 and Source didn't have it. Just later that teams started to use them
One thing I wanted to add about the awp purchases in the 2013 finals. Neither team had a true dedicated awper at the time, even JW still prefered rifles at the time, especially on Inferno. It wasn't until 2014 rolled around that the awp really became a staple part of the meta. Also given how well these two teams knew each other, it's safe to say they knew it would be rifles across the board the whole game.
it's a similar experience right now with the release of street fighter 6 just on the horizon. All the old metas, the old combos and strats, all the impractical combos no one thought would land in a real match, it's just standard fare now. Player growth is just so darn cool
What I miss the most are the less cluttered maps. I like how the new maps look, but there's too much visual noise imo. (Not saying old maps were perfect, they all have their disadvantages too)
Someone get this man a closer! Going on ten years now! But seriously, you've been a huge part of csgo for many players, especially newbies. Thanks for sticking around all this time.
this is actually very common in sports at one point i watched the historic wembley finale of the world cup in 1966 and my dad remarked that a amateur junior team from today would beat those teams today. its just fascinating that this kinda development happens in sports even if the basic rules are very static, even more interesting that it happens so fast in counter strike. like at one point it was like watching a game from a year ago felt outdated
My friends have convinced me to try CS:GO recently and my struggles with the obtuse mechanics have made me empathize with them for their struggles with Quake, which I am much more familiar with as I played it since I was a kid. So much of this game is unintuitive but "it's always been that way" so it continues to be so.
I still remember the term "Reset" in the old CS:GO economy. It's basically when you eco for 2-3 rounds and finally won a round but if you lost another it will reset your eco again. It was hell and at the same time, great. You can easily predict your enemies' economy. Unlike nowdays there's the Loss Bonus feature rewarding players who are losing and punishing players who are winning. Maybe this is the reason why the old tournament full eco'd and rarely bought the AWP because of the economy reset. Anyways, great video man, keep up the good work!
I love Valve's continual updates of maps, something almost unique. There are so many maps in other fps games that could be improved with small tweaks or simple changes that make a big impact on map balance/flow, but the devs just refuse to alter anything.
The hard eco was a remnant from 1.6/source where we'd just hard eco and try to finish off the round asap or delay the round while talking about tactics instead of using up a tactical timeout. Although there were times that the hard eco somehow wins against a full buy, but those were rarer than stat trak reds so, hard eco was a better call than pistols with armor against rifles with will full gear.
WarOwl deeply entertained me throw high school 2013 as a commentator of the professional games he uploaded. Watching WarOwl then go home and play csgo, good times:D
You're tripping if you actually think that. Strat wise it was lacking massively but the aim and reaction time was still insane back then, i've been unlucky enough to play against some pros at faceit level 10 and even when they're pugging and just holding W they're crazily good.
Players not buying mollies because they aren't used to them reminds me of when the krieg was broken for years but most of the pros still stuck with the ak.
This might be the best most refined, well researched, and orignal warowl video. not saying that the other videos are bad, but this one just take it to another level.
You had a lot less money available when you were losing back than compared to now. So save means save in case you lose the next buy round as well as unlike nowadays you weren’t getting extra for losing streaks.
That advertisement segment really do be like how Twitch does it. I enjoyed the video, but not fond of that advert segment in terms of the format. It's really interesting how much things have changed over the decade.
MORE MORE MORE!!!! id love if you brought back matchmaking academy and pro reviews when cs2 releases warowl. you are a massive reason that players are so good now, keep it up
Really enjoyed this comparison. But when your favorite CS content creator mentions your favorite CS player in his video, it hits different! Good job iM for the great tournament. Can't believe only one year ago you were playing at Nexus and nobody outside Romania knew about you, and now you're the best prodigy in the world!
was so relatable back then. It felt like the way you played with your friends, just better ofc. now its a whole different game seeing pros, not just better at the same game.
Nice video, but it still feels like you glossed over things, because you cant encapsulate 10 years of development into 8 minutes. I wouldn't mind seeing a 50 minute documentary if you're up for it
I really wonder how this translates to non-pro play. Matchmaking. From my own experience playing since 2014, I think a modern DMG would probably destroy 2014 GE's lol. But maybe I'm just full of bullshit. Hey, maybe that's a good video idea? Kind of a follow up. If we, the viewers, send you 2013/14 demos and 2023 demos, could you perhaps compare and comment 14 GN's, LE's, GE's to 2023 equivalents? Would be really cool.
Back in the days you could walk between silvers and they wouldn't even notice that you're an enemy if you didn't shoot. Nowadays they got sound, aim, everything. The skill floor had increased a lot (thanks to guys like warowl)
@@gamingmarcus Yeah, I do remember that, I started all the way from Silver 1 10 years ago. Not that long ago I was back in silver after years of letting my rank decay and people generally had the vague idea of how the game works. And when I got to gold nova after a few games I was surprised because people use utility, of course not as well as GE's or hight faceit levels, but back in the day you could be in LE and many people didn't know utility because they were able to get there with pure aim.
@@Cavi587 Lol, what is the difference to today then? I still rarely see LEs that use utility, they are mostly good aimers. The casual scene really hasn't changed a lot in my 8 years of playing MM.
I played since 1.5 and some early CS GO, it's actually crazy that people think that Globals in 2014 are anywhere close to MG-DMG today. The game was going strong in 2014, got a serious boost in the playebase and a lot of the Global and Suprem players already played 1.6 for years. I never considered any rank below suprem to be great and honestly it didn't change. There isn't exponential growth in skill like some players like to believe, the games are too old for that. A lot of pros hit a ceiling and it's only down hill for them from that point. S1mple in 2018 is a lot better than S1mple in 2023. Globals in 2014 were still a lot better than majority of LEM and lower players today.
@@felixp1591 Are you NA or Europe? I'm only talking about Europe, I should have disclosed that. I have no knowledge of how it looks in other regions honestly. I mean yeah, you can still go far in MM with just good aim. But people in LE still use some default mollies and default smokes. Which was unheard of back then. If you threw a basic mid smoke on mirage you were considered a person who knows what they're doing lol.
Honestly, I really enjoy your videos. But this one just hit me hard with a wall of nostalgia. I met so many good long term friends in 2013. CS was my literal life back then. Go to class. Do my work. Game the rest of the night. Summers off from Uni, worked all day then gamed all night til the wee hours to feel like complete shit going into work the next day. Man, how things have changed in 10 years lol Crazy to really think about. Great video man. Also, this makes me miss "Anne Frank" on inferno lol. I used to love that little spot with the broken wall.
I'm conviced that Globals back then are now the average Gold Novas. The popularity boom of 2015 made the already high skill ceiling go through the roof due to TH-camrs sharing every bit of information they could and already experienced players innovated on that information.
I think people that say this suffer extremely from recency bias and don't have a good understanding of the history of this game. It wasn't a new FPS, there were loads of former top 1.6 players in the casual scene so by late 2013 the ranking was already stacked. Only around the release and the time of NiP 87-0 record you could truly say there wasn't that much competition in the pro or even casual scene as 1.6 was still much more popular. A global in late 2013 would still smash any LE-LEM level player today.
@@felixp1591 Yeah as if f0rest wasn't already a pro for almost a decade by november 2013 (first csgo major). Very early CS GO wasn't as competitive cause a lot of 1.6 still didn't move on and others were half assing at the time, but obviously not to the effect that gold novas were top match making players (which would be kinda stupid to say but I get it with recency bias)
@@Crono2077 There was a ranking update a few years after the game came out which reset the ranks and made it harder. Many people who were once high rank during the early days of the game could only reach Nova / MG. These players would always say "I used to be X rank before the reset" not knowing this new rank is where they actually belong. Globals back then would be unable to compete with MGE's of today just due to the meta and utility meta shifts as Warowl showed here.
Its absolutely insane how long it took for even the pro players and then casual players to start utilizing molotovs, for the first 2 years of the game or so they were considered useless
hearing "i hope to come back to this video 10 years later" made me realize that im eventually going to see "20 years ago" on a video one day, and thats kinda crazy to me idk
That old Ninjas in Pyjamas lineup is still what I think of when I think of CS:GO e-sports, my 2014 NiP stickers covered AK Red Laminate is the skin I've had equipped non-stop since around 2014-2015 and I'm never selling it or equipping any other AK skin. Also my extremely ugly SCAR-20 Souvenir that I dropped while sitting in the stands of the 2015 IEM Katowice NiP vs Fnatic final. Glorious times, peak CS for me.
i cant wait to watch your video in 10 years. i had been saying all beta that i cant wait till like 5 years into cs2 release and where the game will be. its already so amazing at beta, looking at go beta to now world of a difference. amazing video. i am so stoked for the next cs2 beta wave
What used to define your skill rating was just how good you are at shooting, but nowadays it's much more based on how well you can innovate and adapt to tactics on the field. Used to be Nova is where you'd start seeing utility setups be used, nowadays you won't get close without knowing a solid lineup of smoke/flash/molotov spots. At least in premade teams, what I see determine rounds is getting out of the old ways of playing and pushing all the advantage you can squeeze out of each round. Like the full save vs. "spend down on pistols and utility to what we'll need for next round" difference you highlighted. That puts otherwise immobilized cash into your team's economy and even if you don't win an additional round from it, at the very least take a bigger chunk out of the other team's finances.
I think my favorite thing about CS is how the game went from people sweating and raging to being completely calm with game breaking stuff. I remember how much fun people had when the moaning binds came out, it made the game so much fun because we weren't supposed to do it
warowl, I just watched the marine fitness videos and I must say I appreciate you even more now, keep doing what makes you happy, I wish you all the best
I was introduced to CS esports by Warowl when he was commenting on a demo between NiP and some other team. Might've been VeryGames, but I can't remember 100%. My interest has waned since then, but I won't ever forget the 2014-2017 era.
I love that the AWP back then was heavily nerfed as it was considered this godly unbeatable weapon, but now I just think that they didn't get mollied off enough
10 years of CSGO and he still has no clothes on, what a legend
bro does he say he has no closer or cloths on i am kinda confused
@@Drillbox_1989yeah, he says it every video! How have you not heard it yet?
@@Ash-bx6kq I always thought he said that he has no closer... meaning he is the best
@@Drillbox_1989 nah it's he has no clothes on, I'm sure someone can back me up on this
@@Drillbox_1989 I thought it was I have no closer as in I have no outro
2013-2014/15 was my favorite era for CS:GO tournaments. It felt like the wild west out there.
I sincerely regret not getting into CS:GO when it was exploding in popularity back in 2015. If I tried to start now, I'd be so far behind the rest of the player base that I'd basically have to treat the game like a full time job just to catch up.
@@qu1253 Thats uh, not how it works.
@@qu1253 no there are many new people playing
@@qu1253 I have friends who've played CS for 10 years and are still pretty bad at the game and hardly understand the fundamentals because they just play mindlessly. It'll go a long way if you just put in some time to learn the basic fundamentals and you'll be fragging in no time.
It's a fun game and new players will come along when CS2 launches. It's never too late.
Exactly. Teams like Fnatic, NiP, Na'vi, Virtus Pro and FaZe were my favorites to watch. They are not the same anymore.
I wonder what would happen if they did a sort of "throwback" tournament where they put pro players on a 2013 or 2014 build of the game on these same old maps but with all of their modern experience and knowledge at their disposal. How would it play out?
THAT should have been the show match for the last Major...
That's something that is definitely worth watching.
There would definitely be some pros that remember a lot of the cheeky pixel peaks, boosts and such - it would be a blast
Its been done with 1.6 vs CSGO. Search NiP vs NiP.
it’s crazy because at the time some of the stuff they did made sense. like the standard nade setup one nade, two flash, and one smoke. the retakes, the buys, everything takes me back
There's nothing crazy about that.
@@tappajaav seeing how a game and meta progresses especially over a 10 years span is crazy. if you were around back then you would know
@@MrWwechampion333 I've played CSGO since 2014, does that not count...? There's still nothing crazy about the different standard buys people did back then.
@@tappajaav ??? dude it’s about how much a game could change in that time, did you not even watch the video? even war owl talks about how nobody bought molly’s back then?
@@MrWwechampion333 Yea, I did watch it. To me there's nothing CRAZY about it. It's reasonable that the behaviour of any games' playerbase changes and evolves over time.
I really like how much the meta has shifted over the years, and how quickly the community has come together to learn some new line-up, or find something that is broken. Even after almost 11 years, the game still doesn't feel stale to me. Between the main competitive scene and then factor in the Community scene, I'm hoping that CS2 will keep this going, as the franchise has for years.
Tiraste toda la posta amigo
The CS meta shifts without any updates. All it takes is for someone to experiment and try something new.
Remember when the UMP 45 almost as good as an M4 at half the price for several years and the pros didn't notice?
Remember when the SG 553 was worth the price difference to the AK for several years and the pros didn't notice?
In a few months we'll see a zeus meta for all we know.
Boi how u getting that badge 💀 I can't afford 6 bucks
I really dont like how the meta shifted from guns being powerful to being a nerd with a lot of util knowledge became good because the guns and gameplay became worse and worse
@@nikk351 For me it's the other way around. I appreciate it more if there is more to the pro game than just aiming. We all know these pros aim well. I want to see all the map knowledge that the pros have acquired after probably spending hours in practice to find the niche nade lineups and new boosts that haven't been seen before. To raise the chance of them winning an eco or clutch a round by just having a couple smokes and playing it right. It forces the players to get a better game sense which will lead to more outplays and counter-outplays.
Just like in football, where Pele dribbled past 5 defenders and scored every single game... We dont see that in modern football, it evolved a lot and tactics, teamplay and strats play much bigger role than simple scoring
Yeah, PEDs too. Sports today only evolve when PEDs do. Human performance stopped improving in the last century.
Yeah, good analogy. Makes it even more impressive looking at Ronaldo and Messi, and s1mple and ZyW0o
its what happens when sports/games evolve, the skill floor gets higher so if you take a break and come back you will notice that even at the lowest lvl the peple have become better
or maybe players are more scared than ever to make crazy plays.
@@n9neespecially this. What I see now of pussy plays and amount of save rounds is insane. They treat smokes like a solid wall. I still play the game like 20 years ago. I don't change and I'm still catching people off guard trying to line up a smoke while I just rush them. They all think because of 2mins roundtime everyone takes 2 mins roundtime.
the flusha line about picking his mouse up was so funny
I laughed out loud
Yeah, if you pick up your mouse a lot, it looks like you lock on to people through walls, but you really don't. It just looks that way. I'd forgotten all about that...era
such a subtle joke, love it. I'm glad someone mentioned it
I don't get it
This was an absolute treat to watch. The ending really tied it all together. I thoroughly enjoyed the positive "here's to 10 more years"- vibe. You sometimes forget how just a couple years ago everyone was saying Counter-strike dead game. I myself actually believed the series would have a fate similar to tf2 where it's just left to dust in a corner. It feels so good to actually have confidence in the game's future. I hope someday my kids will also be playing a version of Counter-Strike and hopefully, watching Warowl. Thank you for the years of videos.
There's literally generations of counterstrike players, that's just insane to think about
This game will never die. I've been a part of it for 20 yrs. If it was going to die, it would have died in around 2010 when the scene was dying out. And then CSGO came.
Maybe your kids will get to experience the long awaited warowl closer
I wish this piece of shit game would have been lost to obscurity unlike the more fun and skill-based TF2.
I dont think Counter-Strike will ever die, people are still out there playing 1.6 even now.
Damn, the game really did change a lot during these 10 years
Astralis is single handedly responsible for the great switch of the play style. Between the playstyle of 1st and the last major, its Astralis in the middle with an era so game defining, they literally changed the way how the game can be played.
they literally changed the way to play the game with their nades meta
I don't think so, you can watch tournaments from 2014-2016 and utility usage was higher every year. CSGO in 2013 was in its infancy, players didn't use molotovs because they sucked up until that point and people are stubborn by nature, but over time they were utilized far more often. In fact Pronax (The IGL in this game for Fnatic) was part of that revolution. It was always trending upwards, Astralis was ahead of the curve for sure, but let's not pretend like they're the sole reason it ended up this way; it was always going to. The evolution was required because more and more incredible talent was coming into the scene, it was the only way to narrow the gap between mechanically gifted players and high IQ players.
@@logan62097 yes grandpa but did you see the part where we talked about how Astralis changed the way how the game can be played?
@@logan62097Like how scope rifles was actually broken but it lasted so long because are too stubborn to switch from AKs lol.
That first A-take had me glued to the screen throughout the whole sponsor spot like subway surfer on a shorts feed 🤣🤣
Yea that sponsor read cut out the best clip he showed.
Reimu
"Fight for Banana control" Is something you'd only hear in CSGO said in a serious manner.
I remember doing this sort of thing on myself for fun before and it's pretty good for seeing your personal and team improvement. I compared my winning match in the TF2 Newbie Cup Tournament to the very first scrimmage match I played and the differences were immense. It felt like I could spot a mistake I or any other player made for every few seconds that passed. We started off as the team that was losing most of their matches to the team that had to go against higher divisions because we were winning too often, since we were the only team that was dedicated enough to practice every single day before the tournament. So if you ever have second thoughts about your improvement try reviewing old matches, it can help your confidence.
every time we do demo reviews i can feel myself getting better lol i can pinpoint exactly what u mean
7:08 No silencer at a major. Times truly were different.
That was a throwback! I used to spend my off-days watching pro CSGO between my own ESEA/Competitive matches... Good times. It's interesting to see how change happens so slowly in CS. Molotovs were there, but they were new, so everyone just defaulted to that old school CS playstyle, before the new utility gradually became a part of the meta. But man, 10,000 hours, WarOwl? That's impressive.
Feels like an eternity waiting for a WarOwl video
sorry, going through some stuff, I have something big to do this weekend, and then I'm back to regular vid production.
@@TheWarOwl Always a pleasure, regular or not ❤
@@TheWarOwl Fair play man, take your time
@@TheWarOwl all the love to you brother, everything you make is a gem, glad you're putting yourself first
@@TheWarOwl np always love watching you. Can't wait for your next video. I hope you get through any difficulties without any suffering.
I had the same experience when I didn't see any majors for two years. It was between 2018 and 2020 and playstyles have changed significantly. much more professional (lineups), serious and reserved was played. Its interesting to see that such a "simple" game has that much potential to improve.
I love this comparison. I've been playing since 2016 and seeing how different the game was brought back so many fond memories of when I was a noob. Can't wait for CS2!
aren't you still, though?
Very interesting to see how the game has evolved over the years. It happens in every sport, but in CS, it's even more noticeable because this game is relatively young. For that reason, we can see significant changes in strategies and in the way of playing in general in just a few years
WarOwl in 10 years: "looking back it's insane how in this 2023 major final only one shotgun was bought when it has replaced the rifle right now in CS 2.3"
Back in the day, when sponsors were part of your nametag.
never forget friberg crucial
it was through Xizt that i first learned about the brand Xtrfy. he had it on his nametag at one point and the brand name stood out to me enough to research it.
I have been here since the beta and while I always knew the game kept evolving, seeing this large contrast is surprising. It almost looks and plays like a sequel to the original that released back then. Valve deserves credit for not only supporting the game by doing the bare minimum, but incrementally improving it to the point it becomes a different game, while retaining the core that we all know and love.
literaly. the frog in boiling water effect of having played the past 6 years and comparing now till then is crazy. but at no point did an update come out and i thought "its like a different game now" and yet comparing across the gap you would say so
There is a missing informafion here that is crucial to the vast change, the round time and bomb time, back then the round was 20 second shorter(1 : 35) and the bomb 5 second shorter(35 second), I believe many in the comunity might not know be aware because the update was in late 2015, but at the time I played faceit in the lower round time, with the shorter round your tactical options were less, you had to commit once you choose a site a fake was hard, there was simply not enough time, running smoke was always a bad idea but Inferno was super CT sided back then because you could almost close the sites forever with the smokes, Valve decided to up the round time to make the game in competitive uniforme with casual experience which is important but 1.35 was too short for lesser players. They run smokes because they had too, winning on round time was Common for CTs.
Also important this tournament had a 250k prize pool, that is the money for all team, I believe the winner got 100k which was very good at the time, Valve funded this prize pool entirely, also they get a share of sticker revenue, this was a Major Shift because sticker revenue share can outpace the prize pool, which guarantees revenue for all teams present. In 2013 most pro did not sustain themselves on counter strike only, not the case for these teams who probably had sponsors, but they were not rich, most in the tournament were what we could consider today amateurs, as in CS was a passion indeed but not their job, most prize pools were 25k for all teams and there was not a tournament season like today were some tournament dont have some teams because they cant possibly go to every single one. Today there is enough money for this players to play full time and have couches and we dont see this but these guys put thousands of hours we dont see and never will, this is what they do to the point were they live with each other in preparation for a big tournament for example and coordinate. Back then a lot of tournaments were online and some players were simply in their homes participativa, today they are in the HQ of their team paying together despite being online to guarantee all conditions(Internet and such, players like Adren from Kazahkistan had monstrous Ping,not something we see today at Tier 1).
it was 1:45/:35
Press enter every now and then.
Reading wall of text with no formatting is painful.
2:00 Yoo I remember this smoke this was so meta cause you wanted to deny the mid crossfire and pushing through your own smoke was so normal xD
Molotovs:
2013 pros: “I’m gonna pretend like I didn’t see that”
I hate this joke format, it’s always so boring
@@kripzzy6732 damn that’s tough
Dont forget how hardware developed in these 10 years: Today you have really good 240 or even 360 hz displays, gpus and cpus developed faster than valve could push out graphical updates so you have way more fps on high end hardware. Also mice and keyboards are way better than in 2013. And dont forget these fancy gaming chairs. They are obviously the most important improvement.
There were kids a couple years ago that qualified to FPL on 60Hz monitors. The hardware is a factor but not overly important.
@@Andious few years ago 144 was barely the standard nowdays if you even want to dream about FPL-C you pretty much have to have 244, the peeking advantage it gives is huge in CS. Another thing is, aimwise people became much better. All of those things combined = without stable FPS and atleast 144 hz monitor you can only dream about FPL.
@@8kokorika8 144 was definitely more than "barely the standard" during 2019-2020 lmao, and also no-one plays on 244Hz, you have no idea what you're talking about.
@@8kokorika8I think u mean 240 hz but I play 280hz just recently upgraded from 144
Dude CRT monitors had high refresh rate. Have you ever used one?
bear in mind that the game mechanics - shooting, damage of weapons was different (glocks were super strong for example) and the layout were different. No doubt that players improved over the years, but some things that seem crazy now worked before because the maps were very different from what they are today after numerous reworks. Inferno wasn't as narrow as it is today so molotovs didn't work as well as they do now. And A site was much easier to retake than it is now.
1:18 nobody used to buy the molotovs because there was gentlemen agreement to not buy them since people didn't like that Valve had added it out of the blue when more than 10 years of competitive 1.6 and Source didn't have it. Just later that teams started to use them
One thing I wanted to add about the awp purchases in the 2013 finals. Neither team had a true dedicated awper at the time, even JW still prefered rifles at the time, especially on Inferno. It wasn't until 2014 rolled around that the awp really became a staple part of the meta. Also given how well these two teams knew each other, it's safe to say they knew it would be rifles across the board the whole game.
it's a similar experience right now with the release of street fighter 6 just on the horizon. All the old metas, the old combos and strats, all the impractical combos no one thought would land in a real match, it's just standard fare now. Player growth is just so darn cool
What I miss the most are the less cluttered maps. I like how the new maps look, but there's too much visual noise imo. (Not saying old maps were perfect, they all have their disadvantages too)
Someone get this man a closer! Going on ten years now!
But seriously, you've been a huge part of csgo for many players, especially newbies. Thanks for sticking around all this time.
This is such a good video! Amazing to see how it all evolved. Keep it up, WarOwl!
this is actually very common in sports
at one point i watched the historic wembley finale of the world cup in 1966 and my dad remarked that a amateur junior team from today would beat those teams today.
its just fascinating that this kinda development happens in sports even if the basic rules are very static, even more interesting that it happens so fast in counter strike.
like at one point it was like watching a game from a year ago felt outdated
That's a good news, it means that CS is a healthy esport game, following the trad sport evolution
7:25 wait that's not how inflation works lol
7:39 I love the star rail reference
I think there was a gentleman agreement in early pro csgo to not use mollies
I think you're mistaken.
My friends have convinced me to try CS:GO recently and my struggles with the obtuse mechanics have made me empathize with them for their struggles with Quake, which I am much more familiar with as I played it since I was a kid. So much of this game is unintuitive but "it's always been that way" so it continues to be so.
I still remember the term "Reset" in the old CS:GO economy. It's basically when you eco for 2-3 rounds and finally won a round but if you lost another it will reset your eco again. It was hell and at the same time, great. You can easily predict your enemies' economy. Unlike nowdays there's the Loss Bonus feature rewarding players who are losing and punishing players who are winning.
Maybe this is the reason why the old tournament full eco'd and rarely bought the AWP because of the economy reset. Anyways, great video man, keep up the good work!
Love this contrast piece. Thanks
I love Valve's continual updates of maps, something almost unique. There are so many maps in other fps games that could be improved with small tweaks or simple changes that make a big impact on map balance/flow, but the devs just refuse to alter anything.
1 year later to say: It is not the devs, it's the company they work for.
3:35 "Maybe I will get back to doing a video a day.. when Counter Strike 2 comes out"
Caught red handed!
I miss old inferno and cobblestone so much. The nostalgia from watching those majors at school 😢
I miss cobble, but old inferno really wasn't that good of a map. They did good job reworking it.
The hard eco was a remnant from 1.6/source where we'd just hard eco and try to finish off the round asap or delay the round while talking about tactics instead of using up a tactical timeout. Although there were times that the hard eco somehow wins against a full buy, but those were rarer than stat trak reds so, hard eco was a better call than pistols with armor against rifles with will full gear.
NiP was always so fun to watch
WarOwl deeply entertained me throw high school 2013 as a commentator of the professional games he uploaded. Watching WarOwl then go home and play csgo, good times:D
2013 Pro CS looks about the level of 2023 MGE matchmaking. The whole player base has come a long way with the improvement of the game, and technology.
I hope this is not serious, comparing the OG pros to MGE?
You're tripping if you actually think that. Strat wise it was lacking massively but the aim and reaction time was still insane back then, i've been unlucky enough to play against some pros at faceit level 10 and even when they're pugging and just holding W they're crazily good.
@@OffensiveFarmer It's safe to say that MGE now and MGE then is still clueless about the level of pro players that much is clear
Players not buying mollies because they aren't used to them reminds me of when the krieg was broken for years but most of the pros still stuck with the ak.
Ngl csgo has become a science at this point
This might be the best most refined, well researched, and orignal warowl video. not saying that the other videos are bad, but this one just take it to another level.
It’s a good day when Andy Warhol posts
ah yes, my favourite youtuber andy yahoo
"He can dance all day, he can dance all day" oh wow that purepwnage reference took me back
Really miss the old NiP team
FRIBERG HE DOES IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN ❤. Games were so explosive and unpredictable back then, now 2 die and the ct’s save 😂
You had a lot less money available when you were losing back than compared to now. So save means save in case you lose the next buy round as well as unlike nowadays you weren’t getting extra for losing streaks.
I like turtles
I like turtles too
They like turtles
We like turtles
Turtles are cool
i hate turtles. they are racist
That advertisement segment really do be like how Twitch does it. I enjoyed the video, but not fond of that advert segment in terms of the format. It's really interesting how much things have changed over the decade.
7:31 lmao the crouch pose
look at those legs 😂😂
MORE MORE MORE!!!! id love if you brought back matchmaking academy and pro reviews when cs2 releases warowl. you are a massive reason that players are so good now, keep it up
WarOwl always delivers great and original content. Pure perfection!
This literally isn’t an original idea
@@Anderslaw It sure is in my feed.
Really enjoyed this comparison.
But when your favorite CS content creator mentions your favorite CS player in his video, it hits different! Good job iM for the great tournament. Can't believe only one year ago you were playing at Nexus and nobody outside Romania knew about you, and now you're the best prodigy in the world!
Always fun to turn back the wheels of time
was so relatable back then. It felt like the way you played with your friends, just better ofc. now its a whole different game seeing pros, not just better at the same game.
Nice video, but it still feels like you glossed over things, because you cant encapsulate 10 years of development into 8 minutes. I wouldn't mind seeing a 50 minute documentary if you're up for it
I enjoyed making this video and looking into the differences so I'm thinking of making a sequel where we go more in depth!
@@TheWarOwl that would be amazing!
@@TheWarOwlnew series "The meta history of inferno" etc
2014-16 will forever be a golden era for CS… They didn’t go to do a 3 players save, they gave everything till the end…
2006-2008 gold
I really wonder how this translates to non-pro play. Matchmaking. From my own experience playing since 2014, I think a modern DMG would probably destroy 2014 GE's lol. But maybe I'm just full of bullshit. Hey, maybe that's a good video idea? Kind of a follow up. If we, the viewers, send you 2013/14 demos and 2023 demos, could you perhaps compare and comment 14 GN's, LE's, GE's to 2023 equivalents? Would be really cool.
Back in the days you could walk between silvers and they wouldn't even notice that you're an enemy if you didn't shoot. Nowadays they got sound, aim, everything. The skill floor had increased a lot (thanks to guys like warowl)
@@gamingmarcus Yeah, I do remember that, I started all the way from Silver 1 10 years ago. Not that long ago I was back in silver after years of letting my rank decay and people generally had the vague idea of how the game works. And when I got to gold nova after a few games I was surprised because people use utility, of course not as well as GE's or hight faceit levels, but back in the day you could be in LE and many people didn't know utility because they were able to get there with pure aim.
@@Cavi587 Lol, what is the difference to today then? I still rarely see LEs that use utility, they are mostly good aimers. The casual scene really hasn't changed a lot in my 8 years of playing MM.
I played since 1.5 and some early CS GO, it's actually crazy that people think that Globals in 2014 are anywhere close to MG-DMG today. The game was going strong in 2014, got a serious boost in the playebase and a lot of the Global and Suprem players already played 1.6 for years. I never considered any rank below suprem to be great and honestly it didn't change. There isn't exponential growth in skill like some players like to believe, the games are too old for that. A lot of pros hit a ceiling and it's only down hill for them from that point. S1mple in 2018 is a lot better than S1mple in 2023. Globals in 2014 were still a lot better than majority of LEM and lower players today.
@@felixp1591 Are you NA or Europe? I'm only talking about Europe, I should have disclosed that. I have no knowledge of how it looks in other regions honestly.
I mean yeah, you can still go far in MM with just good aim. But people in LE still use some default mollies and default smokes. Which was unheard of back then. If you threw a basic mid smoke on mirage you were considered a person who knows what they're doing lol.
The reason Molotovs weren't used much was because most pros had an agreement not to use them, as most extremely disliked them when GO came out.
you can literally see that CT's are still buying Incendiaries
the reason for no molotovs is exctly what was said in the video.
Thank you gla1ve and astralis for making the game better
Honestly, I really enjoy your videos. But this one just hit me hard with a wall of nostalgia. I met so many good long term friends in 2013. CS was my literal life back then. Go to class. Do my work. Game the rest of the night. Summers off from Uni, worked all day then gamed all night til the wee hours to feel like complete shit going into work the next day. Man, how things have changed in 10 years lol Crazy to really think about.
Great video man.
Also, this makes me miss "Anne Frank" on inferno lol. I used to love that little spot with the broken wall.
I'm conviced that Globals back then are now the average Gold Novas. The popularity boom of 2015 made the already high skill ceiling go through the roof due to TH-camrs sharing every bit of information they could and already experienced players innovated on that information.
dont agree with novas, but definitely something around dmg ,yes
I think people that say this suffer extremely from recency bias and don't have a good understanding of the history of this game. It wasn't a new FPS, there were loads of former top 1.6 players in the casual scene so by late 2013 the ranking was already stacked. Only around the release and the time of NiP 87-0 record you could truly say there wasn't that much competition in the pro or even casual scene as 1.6 was still much more popular. A global in late 2013 would still smash any LE-LEM level player today.
@@Crono2077 Absolutely. Lmao, so ridiculous, how many people in the comments think the average scrub is better than the OG top players.
@@felixp1591 Yeah as if f0rest wasn't already a pro for almost a decade by november 2013 (first csgo major). Very early CS GO wasn't as competitive cause a lot of 1.6 still didn't move on and others were half assing at the time, but obviously not to the effect that gold novas were top match making players (which would be kinda stupid to say but I get it with recency bias)
@@Crono2077 There was a ranking update a few years after the game came out which reset the ranks and made it harder. Many people who were once high rank during the early days of the game could only reach Nova / MG. These players would always say "I used to be X rank before the reset" not knowing this new rank is where they actually belong. Globals back then would be unable to compete with MGE's of today just due to the meta and utility meta shifts as Warowl showed here.
Its absolutely insane how long it took for even the pro players and then casual players to start utilizing molotovs, for the first 2 years of the game or so they were considered useless
i've been saying it for years and i still stand by it. a current LEM random team would demolish 2012 NIP
That reminds me of Dota. I looked back at the first Tournament winners and realized I could have crushed them after I had been playing for 6 years.
Never. The average current LEM is still dogshit compared to old pro teams.
Source: I am bad at the game and do decent against LEM.
FPSDoug -"I could dance all day I could dance all day, Try to hit me!"
Please never incorporate the sponsor that way again. Hated it
hearing "i hope to come back to this video 10 years later" made me realize that im eventually going to see "20 years ago" on a video one day, and thats kinda crazy to me idk
Oh man, Get Right, forest, fifflaren, friberg, flusha, jw...the memories
That old Ninjas in Pyjamas lineup is still what I think of when I think of CS:GO e-sports, my 2014 NiP stickers covered AK Red Laminate is the skin I've had equipped non-stop since around 2014-2015 and I'm never selling it or equipping any other AK skin. Also my extremely ugly SCAR-20 Souvenir that I dropped while sitting in the stands of the 2015 IEM Katowice NiP vs Fnatic final. Glorious times, peak CS for me.
Warowl just casually confirming he’ll still be making videos in 10 years time
great video idea man. Always get good content from Mr. No closer
i cant wait to watch your video in 10 years. i had been saying all beta that i cant wait till like 5 years into cs2 release and where the game will be. its already so amazing at beta, looking at go beta to now world of a difference. amazing video. i am so stoked for the next cs2 beta wave
What used to define your skill rating was just how good you are at shooting, but nowadays it's much more based on how well you can innovate and adapt to tactics on the field. Used to be Nova is where you'd start seeing utility setups be used, nowadays you won't get close without knowing a solid lineup of smoke/flash/molotov spots. At least in premade teams, what I see determine rounds is getting out of the old ways of playing and pushing all the advantage you can squeeze out of each round. Like the full save vs. "spend down on pistols and utility to what we'll need for next round" difference you highlighted. That puts otherwise immobilized cash into your team's economy and even if you don't win an additional round from it, at the very least take a bigger chunk out of the other team's finances.
He cracked the code, at 3:20 ish
never watched an ad on youtube but this kinda forces me to take a difficult decision
Well played sir
5:53 meanwhile valorant devs releasing a map and not making any changes. (Only when the map clearly was flawed)
What if warowl’s closer was really just the friends we made along the way the past 10 years in CS
This high level stuff!! I love professional counter-strike, some of the most memorable moments have been done in professional CS.
I've almost forgotten the amount of crouch spamming when peeking such as in 4:39 LOL
I only really played back in 2013-14 so it's crazy to see how much it's changed
CSGO 2013: What is fire?
CSGO 2023: Literal Fire Circus
I think my favorite thing about CS is how the game went from people sweating and raging to being completely calm with game breaking stuff. I remember how much fun people had when the moaning binds came out, it made the game so much fun because we weren't supposed to do it
Oh sweating and raging are still very much a thing
War owl I recently re-picked up cs again and watching your videos gives me nostalgia for the old cs days
gotta love the upload schedule
warowl, I just watched the marine fitness videos and I must say I appreciate you even more now, keep doing what makes you happy, I wish you all the best
I was introduced to CS esports by Warowl when he was commenting on a demo between NiP and some other team. Might've been VeryGames, but I can't remember 100%. My interest has waned since then, but I won't ever forget the 2014-2017 era.
I love that the AWP back then was heavily nerfed as it was considered this godly unbeatable weapon, but now I just think that they didn't get mollied off enough
What I like about CSGO is that the same names are playing in the professional scene a decade ago, in any other esport that almost never happens.
I think cadian explained it very well during his crash at talent desk at malta. The game has been analyzed into seconds precision.
This was such a fun ride to nostalgia town!
Idea: Comparing individual pros in identical situations. 2013 cadiaN vs 2023 cadiaN.
Wow, crazy you started promoting Control!, just as i had started ordering it, definitely going to use your code, thanks Warowl!
I can't wait to see how CS2 ends up in 10 years with the new smokes. comparing the start of CS2 and the end is going to be wild!
i havent touched CS in ages but im still always entertained by your views . this could of been like 20 minutes long before i would of noticed i guess
I laughed at the "great mouse technique of picking it up a lot" remark 😂