The attack began to win much more rounds than last year.
One of the year's most prestigious events - IEM Katowice 2023, has ended. G2 became the tournament champions, but we will not talk about the teams in this material. The interesting point is that at the end of the last season, CS:GO received several patches that nerfed AWP, added Anubis, and weakened M4A1-S, which should have directly affected the defense side. What is the distribution of forces now?
IEM Katowice 2022 vs. IEM Katowice 2023: how did the attack perform?
Speaking of IEM Katowice 2022, T took a lot of work to play in this tournament. It is worth starting with Ancient, a paradise for the defense at the beginning of last year. CT won more than 59% of the rounds on this map. Such an imbalance of sides has not been observed on the pro scene for a long time.
And in general, the defense at IEM Katowice 2022 looked much better. At that event, the attack won only 45.3% of rounds, which indicates the dominant position of CT at the beginning of last year.
However, at IEM Katowice 2023, the situation has changed a lot. Ancient became a much more equal map in terms of balance. The victories in the rounds were shared almost 50-50 between the sides. At the same time, on Inferno, Anubis and Vertigo became better for T. The result was that the attack won 49.8% of the rounds at IEM Katowice 2023, which indicates an almost perfect balance at this event.
What led to this distribution?
A vast number of factors cause such a result. All last year, Valve actively fought against the dominance of the CT side. It all started with changes to the Ancient map, which left CT with some positions and the possibility of a simple retake of the A site. Next, Anubis was added to the competitive map pool, which is still a map with a strong attack.
Weapon nerfs also hit the CT dominance: the AWP magazine was reduced to five cartridges, and the M4A1-S stopped killing with four shots at medium and long distances. At the same time, the AWP nerf hit the defense harder because it is now more difficult for snipers to hold a position for a long time due to fewer cartridges.
Changes to the M4A1-S affected not so much the playstyle, but the economy, because the M4A1 became ineffective in many positions, and the M4A4 is more expensive, which is why in many cases, players who chose a rifle without a silencer cannot afford additional grenades.
Is this balance ideal?
One major tournament is different from the distance at which it is possible to talk about the balance of the parties. Top teams still underexplored Anubis, which is one of the reasons why T is stronger on this map. Also, not all teams decided on what positions and how to use the M4A4. This will be an almost ideal goal if the balance remains 50-50 after the whole season.
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