Smooya from prospect to dedicated showmatch player

In the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene, we have always observed many talented players at the start of their careers, but as time goes by, their performances diminish to the point of being practically out of the scene.

The 23-year-old British AWPer, Owen “smooya” Butterfield, was considered one of the best AWPers early in his career in 2016. The player showed great quality inside the servers, especially when playing for Team Endpoint. However, his performance has been on the decline in recent years, to the point that, right now, he is only dedicated to playing showmatch in top-tier tournaments.

smooya’s surprising beginnings

Owen “smooya” Butterfield is a British AWPer who is 23 years old and has been on the competitive scene since 2016 when he made his debut with the British organization CAZ eSports.

The player started to show his full potential in tier 2 and 3 tournaments in those years, and thanks to that, he caught the attention of Team Endpoint, the first high-level team he played smooya for. However, he then stuck with various tier 3 teams for two years until he caught the attention of BIG, one of Germany’s most important esports organizations.

In his time at BIG, smooya made a name for himself with his great performances with AWP and even came to be considered the UK’s last hope in the CS:GO scene.

After almost two years playing for BIG, smooya was released and had a really difficult 2020 season, as he couldn’t get a contract with any top team. However, in February 2021, he was signed by the Spanish team Movistar Riders, but he also did not have the expected results, and after eight months in the starting lineup, he was sent to the team’s bench.

A great leap in quality

His inactivity did not last long, as Fnatic gave him a chance in their lineup when the team was going through a bad moment. As a result, Smooya was a key part of this team that won the DreamHack Open 2021 and the REPUBLEAGUE Season 2.

However, Fnatic’s lineup has several years without showing consistency in top-level tournaments. As a result, and after one year in the team, smooya was kicked out due to different internal problems.

Finally, smooya spent three months (from March to June 2023) being the Stand-in for Into The Breach, the last time the prominent British AWPer was part of a CS:GO organization.

In 2023, smooya has been playing under the name of different lineups in open qualifiers but without achieving successful results.

Smooya: a regular player in showmatch

In tournaments at the highest competitive level of CS:GO, a match called showmatch is played hours before the Grand Final. In these tournaments, two teams of players selected by the organizers or the fans through a vote are pitted against each other.

There is no doubt that these matches are entertaining for the fans because in the games, the players must play with the sv_gravity turned on in some rounds, with the monitors turned off, with the mouse inverted, and even with smoke around them on the stage. In other words, they are entertainment games for fans to enjoy a little before the start of the finals.

Now, smooya is a fixed player in this kind of entertainment match. We all know how popular the player is, mainly because of the great talent he showed at some point in his career. However, the 23-year-old AWPer can only be seen on the top-level stages in showmatch.

For example, in the IEM Dallas 2023 that culminated a few hours ago, smooya was part of the team “The Universe,” which consisted of:

• Smooya
• Keith “NAF” Markovic
• Adam “friberg” Friberg
• Alistair “aliStair” Johnston
• Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek
• Janko “YNk” Paunović – Head Coach

On the other hand, he was also part of the “BLAST Dream Team” at the Paris Major along with the following players:

• Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev
• Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund
• Martin “STYKO” Styk
• Cai “CYPHER” Watson
• James Banks – Head Coach

Smooya’s future

Smooya has gone from being a promising player with impressive talent and exceptional play with his AWP to a player dedicated to playing Showmatch games.

Now, with the scene transitioning to Counter-Strike 2 in the coming months, it remains to be seen if Smooya gets shot with a team at the top level or simply continues to focus on creating content and playing the showmatch he is regularly invited to.

Header: Joao Ferreira | DreamHack