ZywOo’s poor IEM Sydney performance sparks CS2 community debate over AWP’s role

Zyw0o had a rough outing in IEM Sydney, which culminated in a 2-1 loss to FaZe Clan in the elimination game. The French superstar is arguably the best AWP player in the world, and his performance has the CS community asking whether the AWP is going to be the same force it was in previous Counter-Strike iterations.

Dev1ce, a Counter-Strike household name, thinks that the big green has taken a substantial hit on the all-important T side. If you can’t attack well, you won’t win most of your games, and losing the ability to use CS‘s best gun to its old capability is a pretty substantial hit.

There are a ton of factors that need to be addressed here. The new lowered round count in CS2 could have an effect on AWPer’s stats. It’s a simple contention: fewer rounds means fewer chances AWPers have to grab the game-changing rifle. With fewer AWPs, there are fewer kills with the AWP, decreasing the sniper’s impact on a game of CS.

Additionally, many of the matches on the first day of IEM Sydney were best-of-ones. BO1s, especially with the lowered round count, are horrible in terms of analysis. There simply isn’t enough data to make a definitive call. In Vitality’s opening best-of-one against BetBoom, ZywOo was the second-worst-rated player on his side. In a tough best-of-three against FaZe Clan, he was the highest-rated player on his team.

With Counter-Strike‘s long history, CS2‘s simple changes are going to lead many to think that the game is just a CS:GO clone. Vitality may be the first team out of IEM Sydney, an embarrassing performance for the top-rated team in the world, but we’re going to need to see a lot more data before we determine that their dependence on ZywOo’s brilliance is the issue.