Self-accountability

This isn’t just for my own sake, but for others. For those of you who are unaware, I have been playing quite a bit of CS2 in my free-time lately. I’ve actually been solo-queueing (which in of itself is a mental illness) and there is a small subset of players that ultimately ruin games and ruin the environment when playing. What these players don’t realize is that most of competition in general is mental, and bringing everyone else down mentally is a very easy way to ensure a loss. These players attribute a lot of their own ego and self worth into their gameplay, and for someone who wants to climb the ladder these teammates are the absolute worst people to come in contact with. So let me vent.

The ego-driven player

Without getting too in-depth, I think easily the worst type of teammate I can have on my team is one that is purely driven by their own sense of self-worth, because they are super volatile. It’s like playing with a ticking time-bomb. It’s like playing with Hellraisers s1mple before he got kicked. If I were to pin any kind of blame as to why these people are the way they are, it’s due to them looking up to other cocky/brazen online personalities who have made it, and have made a name for themselves, and have actual talent and a deep fundamental understanding and knowledge of how the game works. They’re loud and blunt, and can be taken as toxic. But they’re the “cool bad-boy”. What’s worse is that a lot of the times these professionals have a very flashy playstyle to them that’s super entertaining. Once again, going back over to prime s1mple and electroNic, Leffen, MaNg0, Hikaru Nakamura, etc. But this type of player takes away the wrong lessons from their play and their personality, and inherit all the worst parts of them without getting the skill to back it up. This in turn, more often than not turns them into tilters.

People with poor mental can have really good mechanics and aim, but they have the absolute worst ego or attitude I have ever experienced, and it brings down everyone else with them. It’s not a 1v5 or a 1v9, it’s a 5v5 game, and this is something they fail to realize. They also hold everyone else up to their own unrealistic standard and absolutely barrade anyone when they slip up. That’s not a healthy environment to play in. There’s a lot of psychology that goes into playing a competitive video game, and constantly screaming at others is a very easy way to ensure that you don’t want everyone else around you to perform. They want to believe that everyone at their level can be a team of s1mples. They don’t think they’re that good, but they think everyone else is worse and that everyone else should be reminded it at every second during every single one of their small individual failures. Perfection is expected out of everyone, including themselves. But no responsibility can ever be put on them because they’re the best!!! Everyone else are just bots!!!

In my opinion, it’s as if they are cosplaying and pretending to be that really insane and cocky player, without having any of the accolades to back it up because quite frankly, they aren’t that great. They aren’t pro. These players are level 3-7 on FACEIT. They are nobodies treating everyone else like trash pretending like they are something themself. It’s one thing to have an ego, and another thing to have an inflated ego, and it’s an entirely different thing when that ego bleeds into how you treat others around you.

Being “soft”

I believe there is a certain level of toxic masculinity in CS when it comes to being toxic. They can treat everyone like shit and then not take any blame for pissing off everyone because “they didn’t take it properly”. It’s like they want to be the conductor from Whiplash. It’s actually like they took ALL the wrong lessons from Whiplash and they’re implementing them into their FACEIT games. I think the point I’m trying to make here is there’s HUGE difference between speaking to someone with respect, and speaking at someone with 0 respect. If you need anyone to help you out with something, you can ask. It doesn’t have to be backhanded. It doesn’t have to be lead with an insult.

It doesn’t make you soft when you snap at someone constantly mistreating you round after round. It makes you a normal human being with your own self respect. This isn’t the big leagues. We aren’t playing for any money. We should be playing for the love of the game. Just show respect to those around you. If you lose a game, then you lose one. Elo isn’t forever. It can be gained and lost, and sometimes we really do just get either unlucky or play bad. That’s just how it is. None of us are the perfect player. Just look at pro games. Mistakes are made there all the time.

That’s all I have to say. Hope you enjoyed this read.