One of the main changes in CS:GO in recent months has been the massive transition of competitive tournaments to an online format. Although the abandonment of LAN matches was forced, one way or another, it had an impact on how eSports competitions are played and became a real challenge for many teams. In a recent interview with the HLTV portal, Andrey “Jerry” Mekhryakov from the forZe team spoke about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the competitive scene as a whole.
According to him, one of the main changes was the fact that teams that had more experience in LAN tournaments lost their psychological advantage. For forZe, this resulted in the fact that some teams that they had previously been able to defeat with a crushing score, now turned into equal opponents for them. Jerry mentioned Nemiga and Team Spirit as examples. Attempts to find reliable solutions to this problem have not been successful.
Being at home, many esports players began to play more confidently because they did not experience stress from an unusual environment. As a result, the meta of teams, especially those below the top 30, changed. They began to rise to higher places in the rankings, which means they were getting closer to participating in major tournaments.
Jerry explained the unsuccessful performances in the first half of 2020 by underestimating the opponents and the fact that the team is often too relaxed about the game, despite careful preparation. He hopes that forZe will be able to rectify the situation in the near future. Currently the team is in 27th position in the HLTV rating.
