North American CS:GO is dead

The last important result obtained by a North American team in CS:GO was the ELEAGUE trophy won by Cloud9 in 2018. Since then, very little has happened in this region and most of the strong teams have crumbled. The last one to fall was Team Liquid.

In the American RMR for BLAST.tv Paris Major, Liquid were one of the two NA teams that made it through. Complexity was the other one. The remaining three competitors that qualified for the Paris Major were from South America.

But recently, almost a year and a half after Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella’s return to CS:GO, Liquid’s roster suffered dramatic changes. Nitr0 announced that was going to retire, while Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski also left the squad, more than eight years after he joined.

At the age of just 25, he essentially spent his entire esports career playing for just one team. This is a rare scenario but it demonstrates EliGE’s exceptional skills and professionalism. Few players last for so many years at one club. They generally leave after one or two seasons, sometimes even sooner.

For EliGE, this departure from Liquid was a great opportunity to join another NA team, Complexity. But the problem remains. With only one or two strong teams in the region, and right now there’s only one, this region looks dead compared to Europe or even South America.

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO!! Super excited to be joining @Complexity! Feels really nice being back with @1grimcs again, being part of the squad and sticking to the NA roots especially. We will be getting started ASAP and I am looking foward to it 🔥🔥 https://t.co/PDgpHje5Dk

— Jonathan Jablonowski (@EliGE) June 23, 2023

NA Counter-Strike

North American CS:GO features teams like Complexity and Evil Geniuses. It used to also feature Team Liquid, but it decided to move to Europe in order to get better training opportunities.

When you have little competition in your region, it’s very easy to become complacent and then get destroyed in tournaments where lots of formidable teams from around the globe are eager to prove themselves.

With Liquid gone and Evil Geniuses in shambles, who will take their place? There’s nobody on the horizon who seems capable of competing against Complexity. With the signing of EliGE, this team is now by far the strongest in the region.

One thing that might happen now that Liquid has decided to move to Europe is this: some European organizations or perhaps some South American ones could move to North America and compete from there. This would give them easy access to all of the international tournaments.

We might also see some of the former CS:GO legends from North America return to doing what they do best. One man, in particular, should consider making a comeback: Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip.

Header: Team Liquid