Amid the gloom, there’s one CS2 change EliGE and other pros are actually loving

Criticism of Counter-Strike 2 heading into IEM Sydney, the first competitive tournament for the sequel, has been rife among pros players and the community alike this week, but that hasn’t stopped Complexity’s Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski from enjoying one of the biggest additions to the franchise—smokes.

In particular, EliGE pointed out the HE grenade interaction with the volumetric smokes when he spoke to Dot Esports at the Aware Super Theatre, saying he believes it adds a layer of complexity and strategy to Counter-Strike’s meta.

“I love being able to HE a smoke,” EliGE said, adding he’s looking forward to both what his team and his opposition come up with as the scene becomes more accustomed to the changes.

And it’s not just EliGE. Many of CS2 players are enjoying how each team is approaching the metagame as a whole, with the volumetric smoke changes front and center.

There’s already a feeling in the air that these smoke discoveries are the beginning of something bigger. The competitive scene will possess the same adaptation cycle, EliGE continued, and said he’s looking forward to squads coming up with even more brand new takes to the long-standing game—and then having those same strategies picked apart.

In the build-up to IEM Sydney, Complexity had already begun developing a wide array of concepts utilizing the HE-smoke combo EliGE is loving, with the tactic proving fruitful in their lower bracket run to the stage.

“HE’ing a smoke wedges a fork in the game and you can create your own timings and strategy, and teams will need to account for that,” EliGE said.

Complexity was forced to fight its way to the stage through the lower bracket, overcoming both Cloud9 and archrivals Monte to land a meeting against BetBoom in front of the Sydney crowd. The C9 series proved tough after EliGE and co. dropped Ancient in brutal fashion, but caught C9 off-guard with Inferno.

Complexity hadn’t shown off anything new on the map in CS2, which EliGE said gave them the edge against C9 as they leaned into new smoke strategies.

“We had a demo of theirs to watch whereas they didn’t have anything on us,” he said. They were forced to change up their game compared to CS:GO, he admitted, as the bulk of their strategy was now “completely irrelevant” with totally different maps in CS2.

Complexity ultimately emerged victorious, 13-3, eliminating the Russian squad on the verge of the live-fan slice of Sydney, before back-to-back overtime wins over Monte got them a ticket to the main stage. Now, they’ll take their HE-smoke combos and a little Inferno to the Aware Super Theater—and onward to the trophy.

Complexity is currently live against BetBoom at IEM Sydney today.