NA CS teams have struggled to perform in recent years and Evil Geniuses Gold’s head coach Joeseph ‘Muenster’ Lima explained why he thinks the region has stagnated.
North American Counter-Strike has not had the best results internationally for some time. A full NA team hasn’t had substantial international tournament results since about 2019. That year Team Liquid completed the Intel Grand Slam and the NRG Esports roster, which eventually signed with Evil Geniuses, won ESL One: New York 2019 and was ranked as the No. 1 squad at one point by HLTV.
Cloud9 brought home a CS:GO Major trophy for the region a year prior.
Now, the highest-ranking team with more than two North American players on the roster is Complexity who are ranked just outside the top 15. The last time a team with a roster made up of mainly NA players broke into the top five rankings was Team Liquid in March 2023, before the organization switched to an international roster.
Team Liquid was seemingly the last bastion for NA talent, however, no other NA squad has really broken through on the international stage in recent years.
International rosters seem to be the new trend for North American esports organizations as many are bringing in European talents, or just signing full European rosters, instead of bringing in more native talent.
Muenster, a veteran North American coach, took to social media to explain why he thinks the NA CS scene has entered into an era of irrelevancy, and what needs to change for the region to improve.
EG coach gives opinion on NA CS players and teams
The coach detailed his thoughts while reposting a player’s opinion on the region that said North America is missing players “without an ego and an open mind.” Muenster said he disagreed, and agreed, with the statement.
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“Personally I feel like the best players to ever come out of NA were the ones that had egos, got constantly humbled, and instead of giving up turned around and used that experience to keep improving themselves and their teams,” he said.
IMO:Ego is a very surface level issue with NA. Most of the time having an ego usually isn’t even a problem and is actually a side effect or symptom of a deeper problem with the region/players.Personally I feel like the best players to ever come out of NA were the ones that… https://t.co/0hBLznoLw9
— Joseph Lima (@muenstergg) October 4, 2023
The EG coach explained that in today’s NA landscape, players with an ego are less likely to be challenged by better teams.
“Back in the day, we had EU teams in NA often enough that the best of NA sorted its way to the top pretty easily. The bad ego players gave up and the best ego players made their way onto the top NA teams,” he said.
Muenster also said mid to low-level players don’t get the chance to experience true high-level Counter-Strike play and have “almost nothing to play for” regionally, therefore teams are constantly recycling egotistical players.
“I wish EU would come back to NA,” the coach said in a reply to his post.
Whether North America can change its fortune in CS2 is yet to be seen as the new title should level the playing field across the world for a time.