One look at the past winners of ESL over the years will make you notice something immediately: few North American teams are winning. Cloud9 is currently the only North American team to ever win a Counter-Strike major. Team Liquid has made it to the finals before, back in 2016, although this was under the leadership of Ukraine’s Oleksander “s1mple” Kostyliev.
In the decades that Counter-Strike has been an esport, teams from the United States have seemed to struggle to keep pace with their competitors in Europe. Why is that?
A Different Emphasis
Esports and Counter-Strike have not had quite the same cultural impact in North America as elsewhere. It hasn’t had too much support outside of more niche followings, with high schools and colleges just recently starting to develop programs and the United States Esports Federation only forming in 2026.
A lot of esports fans have pointed to the high cost of living in the U.S. as a possible factor. A recent report showed that Tier 2 Counter-Strike 2 pros can make between $1,000 and $5,000 a month, which is not a livable wage in many parts of the United States. And getting the number of practice hours required to make it at the highest levels has an opportunity cost on earning potential elsewhere.
But even for those Americans who have managed to grind a game for hours a day every day for years, most have not selected Counter-Strike as their title of choice. North America’s history has largely been in console games. Just look back to the early days of esports tournaments, back when Major League Gaming hosted LANs. The titles included the likes of Halo and Call of Duty. America also has a lot of incredible fighting game talent, another console-based sector.
There have not been many standout Counter-Strike pros from the United States due to the country’s lack of emphasis on the game. You can name a few, like Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski, Keith “NAF” Markovic, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken – but that isn’t even enough American talent to make up one roster.
Counter-Strike fans have also lamented that no new talent has emerged from North America. Without any fresh players with raw talent and passion to choose from, American teams will continue to struggle for international success.
North America moves to VALORANT
With a relative paucity of talent to choose from and no international success, a lot of North American esports organisations have pulled out of the Counter-Strike 2 scene.
This was especially common after the pandemic, when most tournaments moved online. Ghost Gaming came first, then 100 Thieves, then Cloud9. Despite winning the 2018 Boston Major, a historic moment for Counter-Strike in North America, the latter organisation has seen performances continue to decline since.
After pulling out of Counter-Strike, a number of organisations turned their focus to the Riot Games’ shooter VALORANT. This was also an opportunity for North American players who weren’t thriving in Counter-Strike to switch over, and possibly get a leg up by joining a fresh scene where all of the talent was starting from an even base.
VALORANT has become a more popular competitive shooter in North America, whether that’s due to the more flashy gameplay, the popular American streamers, or the big names in the esports scene like Tyson “TenZ” Ngo. Counter-Strike has never been a big part of the culture, and the learning curve is quite steep with CS2, which is a very technical game to master. For now, it seems like a title where North America isn’t quite able to keep up with global competition.
