After the release of the recent CS: GO update, Valve announced that IEM Fall 2021 will be held using the main version of the game. This decision caused criticism from many players and participants in the professional scene.
The update, which was released on September 22, contained several changes that significantly affected the gameplay. In particular, the game now has the ability to drop grenades, a wall has been added to one of the areas of the Dust2 map, and the balance of weapons has also been changed.
Patrick «es3tag» Complexity's Hansen believes that these changes could make the game more difficult for the attacking side, as it will be more difficult for them to predict the opponent's actions in an environment where players can share grenades. In addition, on maps where players can only get to the bomb site in one main way, it will be easier for opponents to counter them.
Complexity coach Louise “peacemaker” Tadeu believes that this puts teams at a disadvantage: while some of them competed in the IEM Fall group tournament on the old version, others could use this time to adapt to the changes. Thus, those teams that played in the last matches of the group stage will have three to four days less to get used to the new patch.
