One of the major changes to CS:GO in recent months has been the massive shift of competitive tournaments to an online format. Although the abandonment of LAN matches was forced, one way or another, it has had an impact on how eSports competitions are run and has been a real challenge for many teams. In a recent interview with HLTV portal Andrey «Jerry» Mehryakov from team forZe talked about how the coronavirus pandemic affected the competitive scene in general.
According to him, one of the main changes was the fact that teams that had more experience in LAN tournaments lost their psychological advantage. ForZe, this has manifested itself in the fact that some teams that they used to be able to defeat with a resounding score have now turned into equal opponents for them. Jerry mentioned Nemiga and Team Spirit as examples. Attempts to find reliable solutions to this problem have been unsuccessful.
Many cyber athletes have become more confident playing at home because they are not stressed by the unfamiliar environment. The result was a change in the meta of teams, especially those below the top 30. They began to climb to higher places in the rankings, which means that they are getting closer to participating in major tournaments.
Jerry attributed the poor performances in the first half of 2020 to underestimating their opponents and the fact that the team often takes a too relaxed approach to the game, despite careful preparation. He hopes that forZe will be able to rectify the situation in the near future. The team is currently ranked 27th in the HLTV rankings.
