Five things we have learned from EWC so far

The early season is a wonderful time for Counter-Strike because you can be reactionary as teams try to figure out what to do in an ever-changing landscape.

So, we’ve been watching every game at this event to try and get an idea of what’s going on in the scene right now. Some are more obvious than others, but not everyone can spend their days watching two CS games at once. That’s why we’ve compiled our top five things we’ve learned so far:

#1: Vitality’s era is on life support

By the time you’re reading this, it might even be over.

With the news of both apEX and mezii becoming dads and taking a step back, there were instantly questions about the future of this team. For one, do you practice with your stand-in? Do you make any changes in preparation, or is he being thrown in as soon as it’s his turn at an event, when you have way less practice time? Until we speak to someone at Vitality, we can’t be sure.

But we’re sure they can’t be losing to B8.

Regardless of why they lost focus, they lost focus, and their level isn’t at 100%. When we spoke to XTQZZZ, he talked about the importance of a few percentage points in Counter-Strike and how close the game is right now. This is an example of what happens when you lose a few percent: you go from dominant to a 2:1 loss against a team on the outskirts of the top 20.

Vitality aren’t out yet — they could still win the event — but if they go out looking like this, we can call the era officially over.

#2: FaZe are legit

FaZe look like a real team again, and the best news is, they’re probably already set for Singapore.

We’ll happily admit FaZe had an easy path to the playoffs at this event, but the previous iteration of this roster failed on much easier routes. Their relative comfort here is a great sign that they’re back at the tier 1 level we’ve come to expect from their organization. The main question now is how well this will work in the playoffs and against top 5 teams.

Though you must admit, the fact they’re in these conversations so quickly after missing the Major in the fashion they did is impressive.

Especially when you consider they’re likely to make the next one already. They’re now projected to rank #7 in the VRS standings; with the EWC playoffs still to play, they have even more room for growth given this event's prize pool. And even if they go out early, they’re now invited to IEM Beijing, where if they can manage to win a single game, they’ll likely be set for the Major at that point.

The only way this could go wrong for them is if they didn’t negotiate a buy clause in JBOEN’s loan, but surely they wouldn’t do that, right?

#3: FUT aren’t done yet

You wouldn’t have sounded weird if you doubted their future without lauNX, especially after replacing him with xfl0ud.

Today, however, xfl0ud looked like a borderline upgrade. Now, that’s a bit facetious, but he was incredible for FUT against MOUZ, and if this is a taste of what we can expect from him in the future, FUT are still a scary team. Especially as dziugss looks every bit the prospect we thought he was. He’s likely going to become a great second star on some top team.

Huge appreciation has to go out to Krabeni, though.

For an IGL to lead a team of youngsters the way he has over the last year is an incredible achievement, and qualifying for the playoffs at EWC is going to be big for them. If the draw is kind and they play an “easy” opponent — if there is such a thing — they will likely cement themselves as a mainstay of the circuit this year. Hell, maybe they have already at this point.

This project is exciting, and we’re super curious to see how it works out.

#4: 100 Thieves have a way to go

For as much as we like what they’re doing, this wasn’t a good showing.

After the hype of making it through the open qualifier, a lot of people got excited to see what this roster can do in the main event. As we soon found out, they couldn’t do a lot. Vitality shut them down hard despite our prediction that it’d be close, and they got 2:0 stomped by Jame, who bullied Device like prime MSL.

You know, maybe we could’ve stomached two losses if they had some dignity in them.

They got 14 rounds in three games, and only 10 in the whole PARIVISION series. That’s just not showing enough for this level right now, which is a shame, because they looked so fun against BC.Game in the OQ. On the bright side, it’s early days for them, so there’s plenty of room to grow.

Still, we can’t shake that this feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

#5: Falcons are the best team in the world right now

While everyone else is shooting themselves in the foot, Falcons are shooting heads.

It’s probably not controversial to say the Major-winning #1 HLTV-ranked team is the best team in the world, but it’s a karrigan team, and sometimes those just have their down moments. Not this one, not yet anyway, because they’re looking like the only real elite team at the moment.

Their competition is also just poor right now.

For some reason, Spirit are giving magixx high-fragging roles on the CT side and letting tN1R play the low-quality spots, and it hasn't been looking great yet. We already discussed Vitality, and FURIA didn’t look like a threat in Cologne, and we’re not convinced they’d be now. Obviously, if it came to a final, who knows what any of these teams can do, but dear reader, if you saw Falcons eye-to-eye with any of them this event, would you bet against karrigan?

For the sake of having a chaotic era, we’re down for this to sizzle out in the playoffs. Just don’t bet on it.