CS:GO Hot News: March 2018 in Review

Table of Contents

During March 2018, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive hasn’t presented many significant changes to the gameplay; but still, gamers got quite a big update with a potentially… negative impact on the game. Also, the first month of spring brought us two significant Esports events and a few interesting player transfers. 

Series 3 pins, adjustments to Negev, and new difficulties in skins trading

CS:GO pins are available in digital and physical forms – we can buy them in the game and some of us get access to them in the real world. There were two series of the pins, and at the beginning of March, the developers have presented the third. Here is an image of them:

Negev is one of two machine guns available for purchase at the start of matches. Do you ever use it? This is not the most popular weapon in the game, but still there are guys who like it. So, the developers have come up with improvements to Negev’s behavior, emphasising its more supportive role during shooting matches.

• The speed of players with Negev is decreased to half for periods of shooting;
• The power of Negev is decreased too – its bullets are not so dreadful for armor and especially for helmets;
• Negev is cheaper in the in-game shop;
• Short streams of bullets from Negev are more effective in close and medium range;
• The most powerful period, when Negev’s bullets smash everything around, starts sooner in the process of uninterrupted shooting. The last change is the best for CS:GO players – many like this heavy weapon exactly for this feature.

This update is currently available for testing as a beta release, then it will be live for the whole community.

One of the most controversial CS:GO updates also happened in March 2018. It concerns the process of skins trading: all items received from trade operations will be banned from further trading for seven days. Considering the fact that skins, their value, and the possibility to sell them for real money is one of the bases for the game’s popularity, such a decision may seem especially unexpected. Valve says this should stop scammers, but the gaming community are quite skeptical about this.

The position of Skins.Cash about the trade ban is described in the article “Ban for CS:GO skins – what’s Valve thinking of?”.

Also this update brought slight adjustments to three CS:GO maps: Dust II, Canals, and Nuke.

Esports tournaments of March

Intel Extreme Masters – World Championship

This is one of the biggest events in the Esports industry, and the CS:GO game is one of the main disciplines on IEM. The final competition of Season XII took place in Katowice, Poland. Fnatic won the final match against FaZe Clan, and they got $250,000 and $100,000 respectively. Astralis and Team Liquid are 3rd/4th; their winnings were $40,000. The whole prize pool of the tournament was $500,000.

World Electronic Sports Games

The tournament in Haikou, China, was the final stage of the previous season. Gamers have enjoyed WESG for only two years, but the prize pool here is rather big – $1,500,000. The largest part was taken by the winner, Fnatic ($800,000), the second team, Space Soldiers ($300,000), the third, Russia ($150,000), and the fourth, Team One ($70,000).

Copenhagen Games 2018

This isn’t the biggest tournament, but still it’s quite interesting to watch – we can see the playing style of European teams. The prize pool for this year was increased in comparison to what was announced and reached $100,000. The winner, The Imperial, got $50,000, the second collective, Heroic, won $20,000. The winnings of 3rd/4th teams were $10,000 each (Windigo Gaming and North).

Player Transfers during March

At the very beginning of this month, the American CS:GO team NRG Esports got a new coach, Ian “Immi” Harding.

G2 Esports, the team from Spain, changed its coach – Jérôme “NiaK” Sudries instead of Edouard “SmithZz” Dubourdeaux. Also, this organization took a player for the trial, Oscar “mixwell” Cañellas Colocho.

March 2018 brought three new players to the Polish Team Kinguin: Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas, Paweł “reatz” Jańczak, and Jacek “MINISE” Jeziak. Two players from the rooster are benched: Ricardo “fox” Pacheco and Christopher “MUTiRiS” Fernandes.

Jakob “JUGi” Hansen stopped being an active player of the Danish team Heroic – due to some personal reasons. Patrick “es3tag” Hansen will play instead of him.

Michał “MICHU” Müller signed a contract with the Polish CS:GO team Virtus.pro.

At the end of March, Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham decided to stop his activity in the team Cloud9 and in the CS:GO game. He returned to pro-gaming on April 11. Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip also left this American team, but not through  retirement but as a transfer to the Brazilian team SK Gaming.

Epitácio “TACO” de Melo left the roster of SK Gaming.

Team Dignitas has got a new coach, Josh “shinobi” Abastado. Also, this British organization signed Ryan “Snakes” Amann as a streamer.

If you are interested in the development of the CS:GO game, have a look at “CS:GO Hot News: February 2018 in Review”.