What We’ve Learned from CLG’s Recent Performance

Counter Logic Gaming, who recently took the CEVO S6 LAN title, has solidified their position among North America’s elite Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams. Recently, Stephen “reltuC” Cutler, has managed to become a consistent performer for the team. However CLG’s lackluster performance at the recent ESEA LAN Finals leaves a lot to be desired.

Cutler is Underrated

Despite not being known for too many flashy, “insane” plays, reltuC has been a consistently strong performer. With a player rating of 1.02 (via HLTV), reltuC has the second highest on his team, after Tarik “Tarik” Celik who has a rating of 1.17.

Due to the recent AWP changes, one of the team’s stars and primary AWPer, Peter “ptr” Gurney has been affected quite harshly. His aggressive playstyle with the weapon often allowed him to secure key kills, famously coming up huge against Team EnvyUS (LDLC at the time) at MLG X-Games Aspen 2015, being the factor that allowed his team to win the map. Since the nerf, ptr has not been able to have as much impact on the game as he often did prior to the March 31^st nerf, however he will likely adjust in time.

With the team lacking someone to control the map as ptr often has, reltuC has managed to step up enough to fill that void. At CEVO LAN, reltuC had a higher rating than the rest of his team’s average on every single map CLG played. reltuC’s skill is not shown through carrying games on his own or absolutely insane, but through consistently going above or meeting the expectations of his role within the team.

They’re Inconsistent, and Bad for Your Heart

Now, it’s unreasonable to expect a relatively inexperienced team such as CLG to fare well against the likes of Fnatic, who were their first opponents at the recent ESEA LAN Finals. However, many expected them to put up a fair fight against Mousesports, who managed to take CLG down 2-0 on some of their best maps without making it look that hard. On Dust 2, Chris “chrisJ” de Jong picked CLG apart, even managing to put together a highlight-worthy 3K with the scout.

Dust 2 is the map CLG were able to take down LDLC on at MLG X-Games Aspen, however that was largely due to ptr’s insane performance, completely shutting down LDLC’s AWPer on one of his best maps, Edouard ‘SmithZz’ Dubourdeaux. ptr has been affected a fair amount by the AWP nerf, teammate James “hazed” Cobb stated in an interview. Personally, I feel as if ptr should take some advice out of ChrisJ’s book: you won’t be affected by the AWP nerf, if you just use the scout.

Going back to the all-North American CEVO LAN, CLG had some issues on their CT side play. CLG were able to come up with strong leads on the Terrorist side, then often got rocked by teams with less experience, only to barely scrape by with a victory. If they started on the CT side, which would be considered favorable in the vast majority of situations, CLG sometimes lost 9, or even 13 rounds only to pull things together and somehow win the map via their T side play. In a game where clean, solid CT play is a must to be successful, this cannot happen.