MalbsMD: "NA has been dying since 2019 and ended up completely dead when Valorant came out"
2024-11-02 11:39:00G2 Esports CS2 player Mario "malbsMD" Samayoa released a follow-up to Keith "NAF" Markovic's interview, in which the rifler suggested talented NA prospects should play Valorant. The Guatemalan agreed with the veteran and added that the local scene had been slowly dying since 2019. He shared his thoughts on X.
Sucks to admit the truth, but it’s just what it is: currently, the scene is just dead. Good NA teams need to leave home the majority of the year or completely live in Europe to "make it." Of course, there is talent here and there, but with only M80 willing to invest in developing young talent, this will just be an endless cycle of getting 1 talented player every 1-2 years and having good NA teams just be in NA for ECL and maybe Mythic Cups, even worse now that RMRs will be gone.
And that's the difference on why Valorant is better than CS in LATAM-NA: they have orgs willing to pay people to play the game and develop a growing system of talents. The last time this happened to my region (LATAM North) was in 2019 with Infinity when NA EPL was still a thing, and there was some investment in NA because of this. So, basically, NA has been dying since 2019 and ended up completely dead when Valorant came out, as the game brought more opportunities for talents to actually get paid to play and not just grind pugs and ESEA main/advanced just for fun.
I come from a country where my role model was RAINMAKER, who only played 1 season of MDL when I was around 13 years old before we played together in FULL SEND. Now I’m playing for G2, competing in the biggest events. Of course, there is talent in NA. We just need help to develop this talent and invest in them to eventually get more people like me on the server without having to think if they’ll make it to pay the bills, and then the scene will start growing. EU has more academy teams than NA actual teams, and that just sucks, lmfao.
NAF claims there is little to no chance for a North American player to advance to top-tier CS. Valorant is definitely bigger in these countries. The NA scene struggled with achievements for the most part of CS:GO's history. Its best years were 2018-2020, when Liquid and Cloud9 were winning events and big organizations, such as EG and 100 Thieves, were willing to enter the scene.
