With the recent success of the Esports World Cup and the announcement that esports will see it’s own Olympic games in the future, many fans are theorising what such a competition would look like if it was applied to Counter-Strike.

Of course, we have seen competitions like this in both the past (WESG) and the present (IESF), but what would happen if a true ‘World Cup’ was created within CS and in an era in which it could attract the world’s biggest stars?

Because let’s face it, as cool as EWC was with all of the little innovations, just having it feature existing teams from the same old organisations was a little boring and failed to capture the same magic as seeing a ‘Team Ukraine’ that would form at events like WESG.

So, with that in mind, we have created a Counter-Strike World Cup with sixteen teams and a set of rules to make the competition as realistic and as exciting as possible. 

From there, we have asked the expert opinions of multiple talent members to see who they think would be the eventual winners of what would surely be one of the most fun competitions on the calendar.

RULES AND FORMAT

• 4 groups of 4 teams
• Each team plays each other once
• Top two teams advance to single-elim play offs
• 1st place Group A plays 2nd place Group D
• 1st place Group B plays 2nd place Group C
• 1st place Group C plays 2nd place Group B
• 1st place Group D plays 2nd place Group A
• 3rd place decider game
• Teams locked to five players + coach from each nation, no existing cores could be selected
• Groups selected with randomisers after teams sorted into four pots

TEAMS

• Brazil: FalleN, KSCERATO, insani, biguzera, decenty, zews (coach)
• Sweden: REZ, ztr, nawwk, KRIMZ, maxster, Xizt (coach)
  
• UK: mezii, smooya, Thomas, Tree60, CYPHER, ash (coach)
  
• USA: EliGE, Swisher, nitr0, junior, reck, adreN (coach)
  
• Denmark: device, stavn, TeSeS, sjuush, Magisk, zonic (coach)
  
• Germany: slaxz-, s1n, tabseN, Krimbo, k1to, gob b (coach)
  

• Russia: m0NESY, donk, chopper, Ax1Le, Perfecto, hally (coach)
• China: Westmelon, JamYoung, Jee, ChildKing, Starry, GUM (coach)
  
• Mongolia: bLitz, Senzu, Annihilation, Bart4k, sk0r, maaRaa (coach)
  
• Australia: jks, dexter, INS, hazr, SaVage, AZR (coach)
  
• France: ZywOo, apEX, Maka, bodyy, JACKZ, XTQZZZ (coach)
  

• Poland: siuhy, mantuu, kRaSnaL, dycha, Kylar, kuben (coach)
• Israel: flameZ, Spinx, xertioN, NertZ, HeavyGod, Sprayxd (coach)
  
• Canada: Twistzz, NAF, stanislaw, FaNg, HexT, daps (coach)
  
• India: DEFAULTER, reV3nnnn, Ph1NNN, Rossi, CycloneF, ace (coach)
  
• Ukraine: s1mple, npl, w0nderful, b1t, DemQQ, B1ad3 (coach)
  

Seeding

Pot 1:

Russia, Denmark, Brazil, Ukraine

Pot 2: 

Sweden, France, USA, Germany

Pot 3:

Poland, Israel, Canada, UK

Pot 4: 

India, China, Mongolia, Australia

Groups 

Group A:

Ukraine, USA, UK, China

Group B: 

Denmark, Germany, Canada, India

Group C:

Brazil, France, Poland, Mongolia

Group D: 

Russia, Sweden, Israel, Australia

The predictions

For the predictions we asked three talent members (Freddie “GrimyRannarr” Pritchard, Neo “Ne0kai” Caine, and Travis “Trav” Landaw Mott) the following questions in order to ascertain the most accurate results that such a competition would produce. 

1. Which two teams would advance from each group?
2. Who would be the top four?
3. Who would win the bronze medal?
4. Who would win gold?

Oh, and we’ll be giving our opinion on it too, because this was just too fun of a concept to not do that.

GrimyRannarr

Which two teams would advance from each group?

• Group A: Ukraine and USA
• Group B: Denmark and Germany - “But not because Germany are good, rather because both Canada and India suck.”
• Group C: Brazil and France
• Group D: Russia and Israel

Who would be the top four?

• Russia, Denmark, Ukraine, and Brazil.

Who would win bronze?

• Ukraine would beat Brazil.

Who would win gold?

• Russia.

Trav

Which two teams would advance from each group?

• Group A: Ukraine and UK
• Group B: Denmark and Germany 
• Group C: Brazil and Poland
• Group D: Russia and Israel

Who would be the top four?

• Russia, Denmark, Ukraine and then either Poland or Israel because siuhy can do so much with any roster and Israel could entry anybody.

Who would win bronze?

• Denmark.

Who would win gold?

• Russia.

Ne0kai

1. Which two teams would advance from each group?

• Group A: Ukraine and UK
• Group B: Denmark and Canada
• Group C: Brazil and Poland
• Group D: Russia and Israel

2.  Who would be the top four?

• Russia, Denmark, Brazil, and Ukraine.

3. Who would win bronze?

• Brazil.

4. Who would win gold?

• Russia.

BO3 Editorial team

1. Which two teams would advance from each group?

• Group A: Ukraine and USA
• Group B: Denmark and Germany 
• Group C: Brazil and France
• Group D: Russia and Sweden

2.  Who would be the top four?

• Russia, Denmark, Brazil, and Ukraine.

3. Who would win bronze?

• Brazil.

4. Who would win gold?

• Denmark.

The results

So, the results are in and it looks like Russia would be a clear favourite. Of course, that is understandable given the presence of both donk and m0NESY on the same team, but in our opinion, you should never count out a group of Danes and just how well they would be able to come together in a very short space of time. 

Interestingly, however, the race for a bronze medal seems to be pretty split. Brazil had two votes from both ourselves and Ne0kai, but GrimyRannarr was adamant that the boys from ukraine would be able to take home some glory. 

The other interesting thing to note is the faith in firepower from the analysts. Although we said that they would be eliminated in groups due to their lack of a real team structure, all three of the analysts think they would advance from their group and Trav even thinks they could go as far as the top four. 

In conclusion, we think this event would be a hell of a lot of fun and a huge change to what is a schedule that goes from event to event in a rather monotonous fashion.