This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

　　In a world with League of Legends, Dota2 and StarCraft2 all competing for your attention in the esports sector, why watch competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive? Here are 10 great reasons to give Counter-Strike a chance.

　　

1. There have already been two major tournaments, with $250,000 prize pools each, and a third is likely to be announced for some time this year.

The game has just had it's second major World Championship level tournament, EMS Katowice, and the viewing figures and response was so good it seems inevitable there will be a third major, most likely held this year. CS:GO had plenty of medium and small-sized tournaments over its first 15 months or so of competitive life, but Dreamhack Winter arrived as its first true major, or World Championship, level event, in November of 2013.

　　

2. The majors have opened up the game into one more teams can win titles in.

One of the biggest complaints over the first eight months or so of CS:GO's competitive life was that NiP won every single tournament they entered, so the outcome of most tournaments felt decided before they had even been played. When VeryGames took over the baton as the world's best team, they simply turned it into a two team hegemony, with it seeming inevitable that either NiP or VeryGames would win each event, since it would be so difficult for other teams to defeat both en route to the title.

　　One could compare it to the Federer and Nadal eras in tennis, for a while Federer won almost every major title, barring the French Open, and then that gave way to Nadal winning most of them for a year. Since that time, three different players have won major titles in tennis and the top end of the scene has opened up considerably.

　　Likewise, in CS:GO, the number of teams who can win an event has increased massively since the days when it was going to NiP or VeryGames taking every title. ESWC, Dreamhack Winter, ESEA S15 LAN and EMS Katowice were all won by teams not called NiP or Titan (the new name for VeryGames). In the cases of Dreamhack Winter and EMS, those events being majors clearly has played a role in the old guard not steamrolling events, as they were wont to do before.

　　The beauty of major tournaments is that they are different from smaller ever, both in terms of the prize money to be won and the prestige, but most importantly in terms of the pressure they place upon the competitors in attendance. Part of why NiP was able to rack up so many tournament victories is because they were the best team in the world, so having a tournament every month or so meant it became routine to simply play and know that the outcome would likely go the way it should.

　　When a major rolls around, with a number of months between, all the focus of the previous months has been on preparing for that event and looking only to that as the focal point of the year. The players are so painfully aware of how important it to win the major tournament, not least since neither NiP or Titan has so far managed to, that they can no longer play as freely and as loosely as they might otherwise have done. Suddenly every round really does matter, since this chance to win might be gone for another six months.

　　Conversely, this allows underdog teams a perfect chance to strike, as the top teams are battling through the weight of expectations and pressure bearing down on them. For these underdog teams, these major events offer more than a mere opportunity at an upset win, if these lesser teams can come through with a deep run, then they can make up for, both in terms of exposure and prize money won, all their lower placings in the medium tournaments which make up the circuit.

　　In Counter-Strike 1.6 you can go down the names of the star players who have won the most majors and it will read like a fairly accurate list of the best players to ever win the game. Meanwhile, look at the star names who never won majors and typically you'll find players with key flaws to their games which held them back. Any top team can win a medium event, but it takes something special to win a major. They are less about skill than about will. The fnatic and Virtus.Pro line-ups which have won the two majors held so far played the best tournaments of their entire lives to finish up hoisting the trophy, which is as it should be.

　　The majors even throw in the side storyline that Titan and NiP remain the world's best teams, yet if they can never secure a major then that will start to come into question and it'll be less a case of why other teams did win them and more why the two best teams in CS:GO history have been unable to.

　　

3. The majors gather all of the top teams in the world.

Anyone who just time-travelled here from the mid 2000s would wonder why this heading is of any significance. Of course the biggest tournaments should gather all the best teams/competitors in the world, right? Would that it were the case in all esports games, but it rarely is now. In StarCraft2 there has never been a single tournament, unless one counts the most stacked seasons of GSL Code S, that has gathered the top 15 SC2 players in the world and had them all face-off for a big title.

　　A mixture of geography, prize purses and qualification methods have conspired to ensure that has never come to fruition, despite the kind of record viewing numbers such an affair would seemingly inevitably deliver. Likewise, in LoL a major complaint of fans is that the qualification system in some of the regions means not all the best teams end up at the World Championship.

　　In CS:GO, the two majors held so far have featured the top 10 teams in the world amongst their 16 teams total in attendance, both times. It helps that the majority of the top 10 comes from Europe, but it should be appreciated as a beautiful fact nonetheless. When the top 10 are all there then it ensures the hardest possible field, as now teams must battle not only teams better than themselves, but all possible styles and match-up problems. If a key top team is missing from an event, then it's possible that the team who match-up poorly stylistically against them will now have an easier path to a top finish.

　　At the CS:GO majors you know all the best will be there. This also frees up the medium-sized tournaments of the circuit from such pressures, as it doesn't necessarily matter if some are missing a few teams, they serve as storyline points to build up to the majors. If NiP skips ESEA LAN, while Titan attend, then that only ensures people are uncertain about how their rivlary has changed and look to the next event to provide answers. What is crucial is that eventually they are both at the same LAN, so those answers can be provided. The majors ensure this is the case.

　　

4. NiP vs. VeryGames/Titan

This single match-up has been the storyline since CS:GO began. VeryGames were the all-Source team who came into CS:GO as the long dominant force of CS:Source, albeit with a slightly tweaked line-up. NiP had three of the biggest winners of the latter years of CS 1.6, in particular the powerful duo of f0rest and GeT_RiGhT, who represented the very best skills 1.6 was capable of producing. The story began with the same plot point presented over and over: NiP defeating VeryGames and winning the tournament.

　　Even when NiP finally fell in offline tournaments, it was initially to Russian Virtus.Pro line-ups. The story finally changed in October of 2013, as VeryGames defeated NiP in three straight Bo3 series in about a month, winning two of those events. Since getting on the board against NiP, VeryGames have won nine of the last 12 maps they've played offline against the Swedes. NiP won the last key Bo3, winning the semi-final at Dreamhack Winter, so it's far from turned into an entirely one-sided affair now in favour of the French-Belgian side.

　　Not only does this match-up pit the two best players in the world, GeT_RiGhT and shox, against each other, it pits the two best teams ever to play the game and it still has plenty of life in it, as nobody can really be sure who will emerge the victory when the two teams clash. From one of the most one-sided match-ups in the history of esports, NiP vs. Titan has turned into one of the most exciting. A true marquee match-up, the clashing of these two teams accounts for perhaps 50% of my excitement about following CS:GO.

　　Crucially, for newer fans, as long as these two teams remain the elite sides in the game, they will continue to meet in key series deep in big tournaments. This rivalry looks likely to only get better and better. Tactics vs. teamplay. Prediction vs. intuition. Western Europe vs. Northern Europe. You couldn't write a better script than the one in the actors' hands when these two teams clash.

　　

5. GeT_RiGhT and shox

It might seem extreme to list two individual players as a key reason to watch CS:GO, but it is no oversight in judgement. These two are the best players in the entire world and beyond them you can start to have a real back-and-forth debate over who should be listed next and where they should rank, but make no mistake, there is no debate that these two top the list. One (GeT_RiGhT) has dominated the game more than anyone else in its history, the leading star carrying the best team in history to the most titles. The other (shox) was always a talented player, but lacked the team to truly allow him to shine his brightest. That all changed when he was brought into VeryGames, a matter of months later and his play had elevated them to the best team in the world.

　　What's brilliant about the play of both players is that they are so complete in their skillsets and playing style. Both can win in all areas of the game, racking up kills at the beginning, middle or end of the round. Each is known as a deadly clutch player, seemingly unshakeable in terms of nerves and composure. Each has won huge rounds in seemingly every big pressure game they have played for their respective sides. Look at which has the better game, when they meet, and you'll likely know which team is going to win.

　　The best thing about these two players, is that they seemingly never take a game off. Watch them play against any team at any point in the tournament and see their skills on display without any drop off in motivation.

　　

6. Structure aids storylines.

While I dislike only having five maps in the pool, an upside Counter-Strike has always had is that the maps in the pool are so well known that it makes it very easy for regular viewers to understand the flow of a match. Since everyone comes to know which maps a team is good on, they know that it may be more important for the team they like to be winning on the second map rather than the first, if the second is their map pick and the first is one of their weaker maps.

　　Likewise, if their team is losing on their map pick then they can know that their team is in for a hard series, perhaps even a loss. Knowing which maps the best teams shine on also allows fans to see when a true upset is possible, noting that an underdog team happens to be strong on the same map and has drawn the favourites.

　　Another key structural element is that while many games, LoL and SC2, suffer when forced into Bo3, as this format often doesn't have enough wiggle room to determine the better of the two competitors, in CS Bo3 is absolutely great at determining the right team. It's rare that a lesser team can beat an elite team in a Bo3 in CS:GO and if it does happen then likely that team played incredibly, as with fnatic at Dreamhack Winter.

　　

7. A history dating back into 1.6 and Source.

CS:GO may be less than two years old, but it has the benefit of the majority of the competitors having careers which date back into Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source, two very different predecessors to CS:GO. This allows for a lot of previous history both individually, in terms of past team-mates and in terms of old battles between players. A game is enriched the more history it has, so that more context can be built up around the current storylines and the past of the game can breathe more life into the present. CS:GO now has this both in itself and in its predecessors.

　　When f0rest and GeT_RiGhT play a major tournament final now, it is less significant that they lost the last two, than that they lost the last two and also had a history of often losing them in CS 1.6, even if they were the favourites. When Virtus.Pro made the final of EMS Katowice, the storyline of a team who had never made a big tournament final was less exciting than the history of NEO and TaZ so many times being underdogs in major finals and emerging with the trophy and the title on the other side.

　　

8. The game is the most competitive it has ever been.

After VeryGames seized the top spot from NiP, there has been an opening of the flood gates in terms of teams winning titles and big upsets occurring. Clan-Mystik won ESWC, fnatic won Dreamhack Winter, iBUYPOWER won ESEA S15 LAN and Virtus.Pro won EMS Katowice. At these events we saw other upsets, with coL beating Astana Dragons at Dreamhack Winter, LGB beating fnatic at EMS Katowice and so on. Once you get past NiP and Titan, you get a pack of maybe four teams who are battling for a chance to win titles as well, or at least place top four. Go beyond them and it opens up into maybe 6 or more teams who can all place in the next spots.

　　Put together the right match-ups and some of those bottom six can beat the four above them and some of those four can beat the top two. In combat sports, styles make fights. So it is in CS:GO now, so there are plenty of interesting match-ups which are possible, regardless of where teams are ranked in the world.

　　

9. A very simple game to understand, but with a lot of depth.

League of Legends is the most popular esports game in the world to watch and yet one of the most difficult to understand for casual viewers. To even know what champion is doing what ability and what the result of that will be involves a lot of base knowledge for the viewer to gather and be able to process. If one has not played LoL, then likely this will take a lot of time and effort, especially when you throw in combinations of champions and abilities.

　　Counter-Strike is relatively simple, upon first glance. Two teams are trying to kill each other or accomplish a single objective, planting or defusing the bomb. That lets the casual viewer in at the ground floor with a game he can already enjoy and appreciate. If it ended there then the viewership would not have much to work with as they grew in knowledge, but luckily CS:GO doesn't. Go beyond simply the kills and a whole world of strategy and team-play opens up which is nearly endless.

　　Just as basketball can appear to simply be about putting a ball through a hoop, but in fact contains a complicated web of flowing tactical adjustments on offense and defense, so CS:GO contains as much depth as the viewer can handle. A good CS:GO in-game leader isn't worried about the outcome of one fight or round as much as he's looking at the success of his tactical decisions, the tempo of the game and which of his players are struggling or succeeding in which situations.

　　

10. It's a game of stars, similar to hockey or basketball.

One of the secrets to the succcess of sports like ice hockey and basketball has been that if you simply put a star player, minimum, on every franchise, then there will be something for the fans of that team to watch, since the stars of the game are so incredibly skilled and exciting. Likewise, CS:GO is a game of stars.

　　Even if you don't understand the subtleties of NiP's approach to the terrorist side of dust2 or how they try to exploit Team Dignitas' CT rotations on nuke, you can look at GeT_RiGhT and f0rest's actions in the game and both appreciate something significant is happening, which is likely helping their team win, and marvel at how amazing their performances are. Go beyond the top teams and every big named team has players who are worth the price of admission.

　　Watch the confusing and yet incredible skill level of the Russian monster Dosia in HellRaisers. See the free-roaming and mercurial talents of kennyS wielding an AWP in Clan-Mystik. As you go down the teams you will find names who are worth your time watching, even if their team ends up losing the match in questions.

　　Those are just 10 reasons to start or continue watching competitive CS:GO. Head over to HLTV.org for information on the latest matches and news. Also, subscribe to /r/GlobalOffensive/ on reddit.

　　Photo credit: eslphotos, fragbite, Helena Kristiansson