Tradeit.gg | NewsThe latest CS2 news and updates in the world of Counter-Strike 2.

In May 2024, ENCE changed two of its players. Then, in September, it changed its coach. Now, the last two Polish players have been removed from the active roster. Their place will be taken by Kacper “xKacpersky” Gabara and Ryan “Neityu” Aubry.

ENCE’s Poor Results

This is a risky move for ENCE. Given the organization’s 2024 results in CS2, something had to be done. In 2023, ENCE played in three S-tier Grand Finals and won one of them, at IEM Dallas. But in 2024, the whole year was a long string of failures.

The best result came at IEM Katowice and it was a 5^th – 6^th place! At other S-tier tournaments, ENCE finished among the last, even when there were more than 24 teams in the race. This clearly suggests that this former European giant is no longer a tier 1 competitor.

ENCE’s global ranking speaks for itself: 52^nd. It’s not yet clear whether the decline was caused by a poor performance on the part of the players who left the organization or by Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander’s inability to find a strategy that works at the highest level.

He is a 4-time Major winner but he’ll have a lot of work to do if he wants his team to succeed next year. Right now, ENCE’s situation looks dire.

The Two New Players

Both of ENCE’s new players are under 20. They are probably hungry to prove themselves but will need a lot of guidance from gla1ve and Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev.

In the case of xKacpersky, we know that he comes from Young Ninjas, which is NiP’s academy team. As for Neityu, he comes from the academy team of MOUZ.

Both of these organizations are among the best in Counter-Strike and have been throughout the years. So there is no reason to doubt ENCE’s new players.

The only problem is that they’re relatively inexperienced and will soon compete against formidable opponents who might eat them for dinner if they don’t play the best CS of their lives.

FURIA Esports have achieved their best performance of this year in the group stage of IEM Rio 2024. The Brazilians made their fans proud by defeating formidable opponents like FaZe Clan, MOUZ, and Natus Vincere to win group A.

This win streak against three of the top six teams in the world, including the very best, is nothing short of a miracle. FURIA’s players must be amazed at their ability to play well when they know the fans are counting on them.

But this is not the first time it has happened. At the IEM Rio Major in 2022, the Brazilian team performed well in the first two stages. Then it eliminated Natus Vincere in the quarterfinals before losing to HEROIC in the semifinals. That was another peak for Brazilian Counter-Strike, at least in the last 6-7 years.

Group A Results

Apart from FURIA, who won the group, and Natus Vincere, who finished 2^nd, MOUZ also qualified for the playoffs of IEM Rio 2024 by defeating FaZe Clan 2 – 1. The match could have ended after the first two maps but Finn “karrigan” Andersen managed to make a comeback and then won in overtime.

Group B Results

In group B, HEROIC surprised everyone by defeating G2 Esports, Team Vitality, and Virtus.pro to win the group. Unfortunately for G2, who were the winners of the recent BLAST Premier Fall Final, their run ended after just two matches.

First, they lost 13 – 10 against HEROIC, and then they were defeated by Eternal Fire in the lower bracket (0 – 2).

The second match was a complete disaster and gave us the impression that G2’s players either didn’t prepare very well or suffered from jetlag. Compared to their Grand Final performance against Na’Vi from just two weeks ago, they were unrecognizable.

The scores were 13 – 4 on Anubis and 13 – 6 on Mirage. Apart from Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, who finished with a score of 35 – 28, everyone else was practically absent from the server. Nikola “NiKo” Kovac, in particular, had a rough time: 11 – 32. This was one of the worst performances of his entire career.

The other two teams that qualified from this group were Team Vitality and Virtus.pro. Astralis, despite their best efforts, lost against HEROIC and VP. Their roster is not yet ready to triumph against the world’s best.

Tradeit and its partners are currently working on bringing you the 6^th edition of Tradeit League FE Masters. But until then, let’s take a look at the success of the 5^th.

How Tradeit League FE Masters #5 Consolidated The Series

The 5^th edition of Tradeit League FE Masters featured the best teams in female CS2. NAVI Javelins won 1^st place and $3000 for their efforts, but the tournament also included great competitors like Imperial Female, dreamcatchers, NIP Impact, and BIG EQUIPA.

Lots of people from all around the world tuned in to watch the action. The tournament gathered 1,5 million impressions on Twitter and was watched for over 21.000 hours.

The number of average viewers was 4570, while the number of peak viewers was 8156. In total, the event was seen at least in part by 87.363 people and had more than 2500 chatters, who left more than 28.000 messages.

Its duration was comparable to that of B-tier, A-tier, and S-tier tournaments. The total number of hours streamed was 102.

The thing that made the 5^th edition of Tradeit League FE Masters a relatively long event was the number of teams. With 24 competitors in the race and a best-of-three match format, even the single-elimination bracket format ensured that there would be plenty of action to broadcast.

Next Steps

Our goal is to continue consolidating the series and hopefully create even bigger tournaments, with larger prizes and more sophisticated formats. Of course, this will take time.

The first edition of Tradeit League FE Masters took place in late February 2024 and we’re already working on the 6^th. Things are moving rapidly in the right direction and we count on your support to give the best female players in CS2 opportunities to compete and showcase their skills.

Keep an eye on Tradeit’s news section because we’ll soon announce the next event in the series!

It seems that whenever they play in Brazil, FURIA Esports transforms into a much more competitive team. The opportunity to entertain and inspire fans is great, and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo’s squad does not want to miss it.

The Two Victories

At IEM Rio 2024, FURIA had to start in group A, where their first match was scheduled to be against FaZe Clan. Given that FaZe finished in the top eight at almost every CS2 event in 2024 and that their most recent result was a 3^rd – 4^th place at BLAST Premier Fall Final, FURIA’s chances of winning the match were slim.

But thanks to a phenomenal second half, the Brazilians took the score from 6 – 6 to 7 – 13. Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato had an excellent performance and was the main reason why FURIA won. His 22-8 / 112.1 / 1.79 score speaks for itself.

FURIA’s second match was against another formidable team. MOUZ is currently ranked 5^th globally and defeated paiN Gaming in the first round. But FURIA looked amazing against them, except on the second map, Mirage, which they lost 5 – 13. On the other two, the scores were 13 – 8 (Nuke) and 13 – 5 (Dust II).

Thanks to these results, FURIA will have a great opportunity tomorrow. If they win against Natus Vincere, they will advance directly to the semifinals of IEM Rio 2024.

Other Results

In the other group A matches, Na’Vi defeated Imperial Esports and Team Liquid. The first match was easy but the second one needed three maps to conclude and had a 13 – 11 score on the third.

In the lower bracket, Imperial and paiN were eliminated by Complexity and FaZe Clan respectively.

In group B, the first round was full of surprises. Team Vitality were expected to defeat 9z Team. But the other results were arguably upsets.

The MongolZ defeated Virtus.pro 13 – 10. Astralis defeated Eternal Fire 11 – 13. HEROIC defeated the BLAST Premier Fall Final champions, G2 Esports, 13 – 10. It remains to be seen what will happen next but a lot of great teams are already in trouble and might miss the playoffs of IEM Rio 2024.

Just one month ago, at ESL Pro League S20, RED Canids showed just how dangerous they can be, now that Marcelo “coldzera” David and Henrique “HEN1” Teles are part of the roster. They finished 17^th – 20^th out of 32 teams and eliminated both ENCE and Team Falcons before being eliminated themselves.

Yesterday, in the Grand Final of a much smaller tournament named CBCS Masters 2024, RED Canids defeated BESTIA to claim the trophy. This was a South American event that featured the region’s best teams with the exception of FURIA Esports, so RED Canids’ result was quite impressive.

The Path To The Trophy

Coldzera and his squad began the competition in group A, where they defeated Fluxo twice but lost the winners match against paiN Gaming. Coldzera did not play in these first three matches and his team had to improvise. Eventually, they secured a spot in the playoffs, where they played against Imperial Esports and BESTIA.

Both matches were tough to win. The first won finished 2 – 1 and with dramatic scores: 13 – 11 on Vertigo, 6 – 13 on Dust II, and 13 – 11 on Nuke.

The second one finished 3 – 2 and was truly epic. BESTIA won the first two maps with ease: 13 – 2 on Ancient and 13 – 6 on Mirage. Then, when everyone was sure that they would win 3 – 0, RED Canids made a superb comeback: 7 – 13 on Nuke, 8 – 13 on Dust II, and 7 – 13 on Anubis.

The best player on the server was HEN1, who finished with a score of 82 – 55. But coldzera was not that far behind him. He did a bit more often but his aim was precise: 80 – 65.

This result should give the entire roster a big morale boost for the upcoming tournaments.

After eight months of waiting, Valve has finally released a major update that introduces new skins. The CS2 Armory Update features three weapon collections, stickers, and a brand new weapons case. It also introduces weapon charms, which will be explained in a moment.

For those who are interested in the competitive side of CS2, the update comes with significant gameplay improvements. Most of them are related to animation and map geometry.

The Armory

The Armory can be found in the Store menu. It is located right next to Tools. It contains a lot of new cosmetic items that can be purchased using Armory credits.

These credits are earned by playing the game but to accumulate them you will need to buy an Armory Pass, which costs around 15 Euro. Only Prime Status accounts can make the purchase.

You get 1 credit when buying the Armory Pass and a total of 40 credits by playing the game. Different items inside the Armory have different prices, all of which are expressed in credits.

Right now, inside the Armory you can find two sticker sections (called Elemental Craft and Character Craft), two charms sections (Missing Link and Small Arms), the Gallery Case, a limited edition item (Desert Eagle | Heat Treated), and three collections (Overpass 2024, Graphic Collection, and Sport & Field Collection).

By far, the most exciting section here is the Gallery Case, which features lots of cool-looking CS2 skins. The case contains two Covert skins. One for the M4A1-S, called Vaporware, and one for the Glock-18, called Gold Toof.

The new items, called charms, are practically keychains that can be attached to weapons. Some of them look cute, others look a bit scary.

Gameplay Changes

The Armory Update introduced gameplay changes that will likely change the dynamics of peeking and holding angles. Agent models now pose differently in various situations. This will force the shooting player to adapt.

Much of the CS2 community will probably not notice a major difference because the changes are subtle and are designed to affect high-level matches. But these changes are certainly welcome.

A number of important CS2 maps, like Ancient, Anubis, Dust II, Mirage, Nuke, and Overpass have been modified to fix various pixel peeks, geometry bugs, and missing collision issues. The changes are suble but will impact the professional scene.

IEM Rio is a CS2 event that’s guaranteed to create a lot of memorable moments. The tournament is scheduled to take place between October 7-13 and will bring together 16 of the world’s best teams.

Brazilian Counter-Strike is thriving and could even make an epic comeback in the next few years. Its best three teams, paiN Gaming, FURIA Esports, and Imperial, are all in the top 20 at the moment and have either qualified or been invited to IEM Rio 2024.

At the previous CS2 events held in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian fans introduced us to a way of supporting your favorite team that’s similar to what we see in football. The atmosphere they created was absolutely epic.

Competitive Format

IEM Rio 2024 will be played using a well-known format: two groups of eight teams. In each group, three teams advance to the playoffs. The group winners go directly to the semifinals.

The groups use the double-elimination format while the playoffs use the single-elimination format. Only the first round of matches are best-of-one. Every other match is best-of-three.

Teams

Here are the 16 teams that will compete for $250.000, as well as a direct invitation to IEM Katowice 2025:

• FURIA Esports
• paiN Gaming
• Imperial Esports
• Natus Vincere
• Team Vitality
• G2 Esports
• Astralis
• FaZe Clan
• MOUZ
• Virtus.pro
• Complexity Gaming
• The MongolZ
• 9z Team
• Eternal Fire
• HEROIC
• Team Liquid

With so many strong teams in the race and only six playoffs slots, every match will be played with great determination. Despite the $250.000 prize pool, the pressure to perform will be high because the Brazilian fans have high expectations.

They also tend to support their teams in a very passionate way, so both those teams and their opponents will enjoy some really hyped matches.

On paper, FURIA, paiN, and Imperial’s chances to advance to the playoffs are slim. But we know from experience how quickly things can change when players do not want to disappoint their supporters.

After watching this CS2 tournament from start to finish, I’m starting to think that we’re underestimating G2 Esports.

This team has a phenomenal roster that features two of the world’s top-five players: Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov and Nikola “NiKo” Kovac. When both of them are in great shape, G2 can easily pose serious challenges to any opponent.

At BLAST Premier Fall Final, we had the opportunity to watch them defeating all of the world’s top three teams: Team Spirit, Team Vitality, and Natus Vincere. The victories came in the playoffs, in three consecutive matches.

G2’s Road To The Trophy

G2 started the tournament with a 2 – 1 victory against FaZe Clan. Despite losing 6 – 13 on Inferno, the match looked easy for m0NESY’s team, largely thanks to his great performance: 53 – 35 with an ADR of 90.5.

In the winners’ match, G2 lost against Na’Vi but managed to win nine rounds on both maps.

In the playoffs, Spirit played well against them and nearly won both maps: 13 – 9 on Dust II, followed by 16 – 13 on Mirage. Once again, m0NESY was by far the best player on the server: 50 – 30 / 97.5.

Team Vitality should have won against G2. But after beating them on Anubis (13 – 9), they became a bit complacent. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut played well but his performance was not sufficient to carry his team. The scores on Dust II and Mirage were 7 – 13 and 14 – 16 respectively.

In the Grand Final, G2 were good but they were also lucky. On the first map, Na’Vi would have won in the absence of several low-probability clutches achieved by G2’s players in many of the most important rounds.

After winning 13 – 9 on Ancient and 13 – 11 on Dust II, G2 had a 9 – 1 advantage on Mirage. But they somehow lost that map 11 – 13. At that point, Na’Vi’s fans were confident that their team could make an epic comeback.

But on the fourth map, it quickly became clear that G2 were simply stronger. The match ended 3 – 1 and m0NESY won the MVP award for his entire BLAST Premier Fall Final performance.

Counter-Strike 2 was a much-anticipated game by a community of around 20 million people. Right before it was launched, this community was pleased with CS:GO and the Steam numbers were impressive: nearly 1 million average concurrent players and 1,55 million peak players.

Then, in the wake of CS2’s release, the numbers plummeted. From the end of September until the end of February, CS2 lost more than 20% of its player base, including some of its most important star figures, like Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev.

The reason was on everyone’s lips: the game was simply bad. Full of bugs and imbalances, CS2 was in desperate need of updates. Valve, despite having launched a pretty flawed game, did not disappoint when it came to this part.

The patches were frequent and clearly showed that the company was listening to the players’ complaints. That helped a lot in boosting confidence and bringing back most of the players who had left. By May 2024, the number of average concurrent players was 958.000.

Now it’s just 839.000 but that’s likely a temporary decrease caused by people’s decision to prioritize other things, such as their education. The beginning of Autumn always comes with big responsibilities for the youth.

The Current State Of CS2

CS2 is in a good state right now but important features are still missing. No doubt, Valve will eventually bring back most of what used to make CS:GO a great FPS game. It’s just that most game modes take time to implement and there’s probably a long list of tasks to take care of.

At the professional level, CS2 is clearly thriving. The game will have 20 S-tier tournaments in 2024 and at least as many in 2025. Audiences from around the world are tuning in to watch the best players compete. The action is as exciting as ever.

One thing that seems to be missing to some extent is new weapon cases. The last one, called The Kilowatt Case, dates back to early February. Skins have always been a big part of Counter-Strike and many players wonder when the next CS2 operation will be launched.

Finally, after a one-year break, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev has decided to join Team Falcons. Natus Vincere loaned him for three months but if things go well, he will likely stay there for at least one season.

But now the question is: can s1mple change Falcons’ results? After all, he’s already tried to do this back in March and Falcons lost their very first match at BLAST Premier Spring Showdown, against Metizport.

What To Expect

One year is a very long time in any esport but in CS2’s case, the situation is far worse than it looks on paper. The problem here is that the current version of Counter-Strike was released precisely one year ago. S1mple quit playing almost immediately after.

This means that he’s one year behind the other competitors, at least at the professional level. No doubt, he’s played a lot of CS2 individually, but everyone knows that solo queueing for games does not help you to keep up with the tactics and strategies employed by professional teams.

At the highest competitive level, maps are often won through superior tactics. Sure, if you have someone who can solve 1v1 or even 1v2 situations like Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, that’s a big advantage. But in most cases, the team with the better playstyle wins.

Back when he decided to take a break, s1mple was more or less at ZywOo’s level. If he’s still the same player, he will no doubt adapt to CS2’s meta in just a few months.

Team Falcons will compete in at least one more tournament this year: Thunderpick World Championship 2024. If things go well, they should also qualify for the next Major, which is scheduled to take place in the first half of December, in Shanghai.

These next three months will be decisive both for Falcons’ current roster as well as for s1mple’s reputation. With many in the CS2 community criticizing his “Play like s1mple” project or regarding him as being over the hill, he has much to prove if he wants to retain his large following.

One thing to note here is that the player replaced by s1mple is Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia, who did a pretty good job for Falcons since he joined the organization but did not manage to save the team from an early elimination from most of the tournaments it attended.