Chaos Secure Second Victory In North America Without TL, EG, And FURIA In The Way
After Triumph had already collapsed in the Group Stage, Chaos were left as the only favourites for DreamHack Masters Winter NA, at least based on their placement in the previous event. With the Evil Geniuses, FURIA, and Team Liquid being on a different continent (or at least sitting out this event), no other team should have stood in the way of Chaos. So did they actually manage to sweep their opposition at DreamHack Masters Winter?
Chaos kicked things off with a mild scare for their fans. Going up against Rugratz, they conceded the first map on an 8-16 scoreline, making it seem as if they were just about to be upset by a much lesser team. However, they turned everything around on Train and Nuke, winning two narrow maps to still secure their spot in the Winners Match of Group A. Once there, they managed to dispatch Rebirth Esports as well, who had taken down Triumph earlier on.
Up until that point, Nathan “leaf” Orf hadn’t really shown up. Perhaps this had been their issue for the first two matches, because the star player usually leaves a lasting impression on his opponents with incredible performances. Going into the playoffs, however, the team had a days rest and leaf seemed to be revitalised. While he didn’t style on Yeah Gaming in the usual manner, he at least secured a solid 1.10 rating and helped his team survive an intense and close match. On Vertigo, they only scraped past Yeah on a 16-13 scoreline.
When the Grand Finals came along, he was definitely back to his old self. Maybe it’s his innate ability to beat Brazilian teams and enrage their fans, but he came alive during this Best-of-Five. Some starting difficulties on Nuke may have made a few Chaos fans lose hope, but after this crushing 3-16 defeat, they bounced right back. On Train, they secured a 16-9 victory, in which leaf led the way with 30 kills and a 1.68 rating. While this in itself was already a great performance and a testament to his mastery of the game, he doubled down on this as the teams arrived on Overpass. Team One secured the first two rounds, but leaf returned the favour by dominating them alongside Anthony “vanity” Malaspina for the next 16 rounds to come.
Finally, the team had taken the lead in this Grand Finals match. However, they were about to lose it again as Team One put up a near-impenetrable defence on Mirage. Conceding on a 13-16 scoreline, Chaos once again found themselves on a level playing field going into the very last game of the day. Mounting a 12-3 half on Vertigo, they definitely felt victorious, but they weren’t done just yet. The Brazilians came back in the second half, but after a string of rounds in Team One’s favour, the Chaos boys eventually sealed the deal on a 16-10 scoreline.
After many hard-fought matches, they’re now the back-to-back winners of IEM Beijing and DreamHack Masters Winter. They have definitely proven themselves to be the next North American team in line after FURIA, Evil Geniuses, and Team Liquid. In a normal world, this would make them a hugely valuable asset to any professional esports scene. However, this particular team might be looking to exit Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) as early as next year already.
ARE WE REALLY LOSING CHAOS TO VALORANT?
Credible sources have reported the Chaos players’ intent to transition to VALORANT, once the organisation cuts them off for good. This would be a harsh blow to the North American Counter-Strike scene, doing away with three promising and upcoming star players in the form of Edgar “MarkE” Maldonado, Erick “Xeppaa” Bach, and leaf.
Most crucially, this would mark the departure of yet another in-game-leader. At the moment, vanity is one of the very few decent North American shotcallers left, now that Nick “nitr0” Canella, Pujan “FNS” Mehta, Damian “daps” Steele, and Joshua “steel” Nissan have vacated the scene. If Jake “Stewie2k” Yip and Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz are the last remaining dedicated in-game-leaders, will North American Counter-Strike seriously be able to compete and sustain itself?
NA CS isn’t anywhere close to dying - but it definitely is close to reverting to the same level that it held during the early years of CS:GO. Back then, there were a few teams on the verge of breaking through, like Cloud9 and iBUYPOWER. It took them half a decade to become internationally competitive. Cloud9’s Major win, the rise of Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses all helped this scene get off its feet. Teams like Chaos are crucial in their ability to prepare talent for the next step. A player such as leaf would eventually start to compete internationally more often, and then hopefully transition to one of the bigger teams. While there are some promising prospects beyond just the Chaos roster, none of them have had organisational support like the Chaos boys did. How is someone like Paytyn “Junior” Johnson supposed to become an Astralis killer, if he can’t even commit to this game full-time?
Maybe this intense Grand Finals will give Chaos the motivation to stay. They’re definitely on track to become one of the greater international teams, if they put in the work and the time to really compete with European teams. Even if the Chaos players were to simply split up, at least they would still be part of the scene. But if they want to stick together, and there really is no organisation willing to pick them up within CS:GO, who are we to blame them?
After all, their livelihoods are up in the air right now, and their skillfulness warrants a little more attention from this scene, if it really wants to keep vanity, leaf, and the rest of this team within the Counter-Strike space. For now, the boys are back-to-back champions of two important tournaments, but is that really enough to make them stay?
Images via @ChaosEC
