CS:GO Major champ slams ‘cheat sheets’ stratbooks pros are using during matches

Outsiders’ in-game leader and AWPer Jame has offered some insight into what he would change in CS:GO after he led his team to win the IEM Rio Major in November over Heroic—and it’s not related to the actual game.

The competitive scene has evolved since CS:GO came out in 2012, and nowadays, it’s quite often to see players bringing notes and even whole stratbooks to official matches. On some teams, each player brings their own material for the match, which can be consulted during tactical timeouts or even in between rounds. While there are pros who see this as beneficial, Jame thinks it’s unfair.

“I would also remove the ability for players to use the strategy sheets that they have in front of their computers in tournaments,” Jame said in an interview with Cybersport.ru, according to machine translation. “It’s not fair, it’s not fair. I want only the coaches to have these sheets, so that they can only voice them at the timeout. People just look at what is written on the sheet with the rounds, and may not even remember.”

The Outsiders’ captain said that it was more fair back in the day when players could only have their keyboard and mouse in front of them during tournaments. Every “tough” pro should remember the team’s tactics and protocols, according to Jame.

For Jame, there’s no reason for this practice to be allowed in CS:GO because you don’t see it in sports like soccer or chess. He compared the stratbooks to a “permanent cheat sheet” that dishonest students bring to exams.

“Even the role of the captain fades into the background,” Jame said. “You don’t have to be a super-genius captain who needs to come up with something on the go. You can print 50 rounds on a piece of paper and say ‘We are doing round number 38, open this page.’ What then is the meaning of the captain? This is the element that distinguishes a strong player from a weak one. If you can’t remember some things, then you’re losing the competition. It’s a good ancillary item that I would get rid of to increase the competition.”

Although it’s unlikely that tournament organizers will take what Jame said into consideration due to how reduced the impact of coaches has been after Valve decided they could only speak during tactical timeouts, it’s still insightful to see what Jame thinks. He’s been regarded as one of the most intelligent players in the scene over the past few years for giving up on rounds Outsiders have a small chance of winning to save weapons and maintain a healthy team economy.