IEM Cologne 2023 has brought a breath of fresh air to the final days of CS:GO’s competitive scene and fans from all around the world are more entertained than ever this year, despite the release of CS2 getting closer.
This is because ESL has put the CS:GO teams attending IEM Cologne in front of one another on the stage, allowing the players to interact with each other in between rounds and deliver the most funny and spicy trash talk we’ve seen in years. There’s a glass wall that separates the teams and fogs up when the rounds are live, but once the rounds are over, ESL makes the glass transparent so the teams can throw some banter at each other.
The trash talk has been happening since the play-in stage began at the end of July, but it was during the group stage that it got really entertaining. The best example of how this change has seemingly raised the stakes happened in the Group A upper bracket final bout between ENCE and Heroic on Aug. 2. Heroic’s captain cadiaN is known for being quite loud on stage, but it was actually ENCE’s rifler Guy “NertZ” Iluz who stole the show after getting a decisive quad kill on Mirage.
The trash talk between Heroic and ENCE was so entertaining that fans want other tournaments to use the same structure ESL has implemented at IEM Cologne.
“I fucking love this player setup lol, makes for such hype and entertaining interactions,” one fan wrote on Reddit. “Yeah this is the new meta, hopefully other tournament organizers adopt this player setup as well, brings [a] new entertaining aspect to LAN environment,” another fan wrote.
What we’re witnessing at IEM Cologne thus far is somewhat reminiscent of a forgotten tradition from the early days of CS esports, when teams would sit in front of one another in small internet cafes and trash talk during the whole game.
Of course, there are also fans who dislike watching players talk trash, but it seems like most of the community approves of the atmosphere ESL set for the final edition of IEM Cologne in CS:GO—and the pros are definitely making good use of it.
Related: Heroic’s TeSeS defends cadiaN after CS:GO trash-talk controversy: ‘I think it’s great’
Now that the group stage of IEM Cologne has concluded, all we can do is wait to see if ESL also has the teams playing in front of one another during the playoffs, which will have a massive live audience inside the iconic LANXESS Arena.
If ESL does that, the playoffs of IEM Cologne 2023 will have everything it needs to be epic and set the tone for CS2 tournaments when the game is finally released worldwide.
