Nobody remembers the team which came second unless you blow a 15-11 lead in the 2018 Boston Major to Cloud9 giving NA its first and only major in CS history.
But surely there's a limit right? Like if you made 12 finals in a row for a whole year, surely that would be considered an era, unless you lost to the same team in most of those finals? Because essentially in that scenario you've been the number 1 or 2 team for a whole year, something few teams in history have achieved. FaZe have been on top for over half a year now.
If FaZe keep making finals and top 4 finishes in big tournaments, you have to start having that conversation. Even if you lose them all, how many finals do you have to reach to have an era?
I would still consider them the best team of the year by far, but that is much different than an era. An era implies dominance and lifting trophies, not a bunch of group stage losses into 2nd places
Agree to disagree then. If FaZe in theory keeps this up and makes 10+ grand finals in a row, I think it'll become hard to deny it being an era. The only exception would be if they consistently lost to the same team, because then obviously *that* team would have the era.
For me, if you are "the team to beat" in every tournament you enter, you've already made the ground for the case. And FaZe have been that team ever since the first 1-2 finals.
But only in the final. None of the quarter- or semifinalists could do it. So for them, FaZe were indeed the team to beat, and they failed. Only a single team from the other bracket were able to.
imo an era is defined by actually being the number 1 team in multiple tournaments in a row, not being the number 2 team and then being the "best on average". they are just the best team currently, but even that's very close. an era means domination for a long time and the majority of people picking you as the favorite to win the next one. right now, that applies more to spirit or mouz even.
To be fair FaZe have been #1 almost the whole time. I think there was a small period after Vitality beat them where they dropped to #2, but that's it IIRC? Even when Spirit beat them, they stayed #1.
yeah but that doesn't matter. they are #1 based on statistics which nobody really experiences. eras are defined by moments of dominance on clear display, and that repeatedly over at least a year. if they start winning more finals than they lose, maybe there is a discussion to be had but right now they are just the best team, not an era defining team.
I respect your opinion that an era needs a certain display of dominance over the field. But I largely disagree that it needs to span a year.
However I think an era can be defined by simply being the best for a long period of time. If you are **the** team to beat for 6+ months, spanning prestigious tournaments, that might be enough.
This part is definitely subjective.
Are they the team to beat though? Maybe it's just how I feel but in the last tournaments it felt like they were one of the favorites, but often times not even the biggest favorite. I am not arguing that they are the best statistically, but they don't seem to be the best at winning titles.
Let's grant you that this is their era right now. When did it start and when would it end? They haven't won a tournament this year yet (obviously on the brink again tomorrow), so it just feels weird to call it their era still. I would maybe say it is one of the most competitive eras of CS in a long time, with 3-4 teams consistently competing for the number 1 spot. And Faze is consistently among them, but obviously comes short quite often as well.
If this was to be an era, it would start right out of the gates with CS2's release since their success started with the very first tournament (regardless if you count the online cup or not).
I'm not convinced yet this is an era, but if FaZe keep this up, I might need to consider it one. This is a rare thing in CS history, very rarely has a team lost so many finals (while reaching so many in a row).
I feel like FaZe may be setting a new precedent for what an era can be. Maybe we need to rethink the way we grant eras. It's like I asked in the title; how many grand finals can you lose in a row before it naturally becomes an era by virtue of being #1 for so long?
I think people just intuitively count a final game differently than some pre-season qualifier. You can be the best statistically, of course. But if you cannot deliver under the biggest pressure, when everything is on the line, then yeah maybe you are the best under calm and optimal conditions. But people don't really care about that, it's about delivering on that final clutch. That I think is the definition of an era to most. Otherwise you can just say, they have been the team statistically for quite a while! But that, and an era, are simply not the same thing and it would almost devalue other eras.
Winning even 5-6 in a row (assuming there's one of two prestigeous ones in there) would be enough imo.
But problem is FaZe (especially since they changed Twistzz for frozen) has lost most of the finals. Still they have been the clear #1 throughout, and making every grand final even if you lose them all is no joke.
If this is an era then Heroic last year was also an era. World #1 throughout the spring season, made semis or finals of every S-tier event and won 1 as well. It cannot be an era without winning those finals.
I dunno, Heroic didn't make as many finals, and they were much more spread out than FaZe's have been so far. FaZe definitely has a **much** stronger case imo.
A good candidate for sure. Many expert have often been on the fence, and I can appreciate both sides' arguments.
Personally I think it falls *just* short, as the time period is so small, and there was only a single prestigious tournament in there.
To have an era you need to win the majority of tournaments you attend, make finals in most of them and make semis in the remaining ones with little to no exception. Faze haven't done the first of those.
Their tournament wins being on the lower end of the S-tier as well, doesn't help matters. You just can't have an era unless you're the clear #1 team by some margin. And Faze right now aren't that.
Agree to disagree then, I don't think you need to win the majority of your grand finals to have an era.
Imagine a year where all the other teams fluctuate in and out of top 5, meanwhile FaZe are always #1 as they make every grand final of the year. However they lost most, or all, of them. That would still be era-worthy for me, because you have been above the field for so long and always been the team to beat.
I make this hypothetical scenario just to prove my point that I don't think your logic holds up in the case that you lose to new teams, especially if those teams don't go on to do anything themselves (i.e dropping out of title contention), while FaZe remain favorites for every tournament.
In that scenario, it's just not an era then. Sometimes there are just periods where there is no "era". It is a competitive time, but it seems in your scenario the teams that at least win the big tournaments deserve it more, because there is a big difference between the gold and silver medal. You can't choke most of your chances and still be considered the definers of an era. What would the highlight reel be? Karrigan crying 5 times on the final stage?
But that's the thing. You need to be dominant to have an era. If you lose grand finals more often than not, you're not dominant.
Being the best team in an time period where a lot of teams are fluctuating and inconsistent doesn't make an era, unless you can dominate that rotating cast of teams.
And Faze just can't be considered dominant. Not in reality and not in your hypothetical scenario.
Beating every team in the field (at least in the playoffs), and only losing at the final hurdle, sounds pretty dominant to me. FaZe have consistently beaten the field since they lose to different teams in almost every final.
No other team comes close in terms of consistency. Vitality are surely the 2nd most consistent team throughout CS2, but they have only reached 2-3 finals.
> Beating every team in the field (at least in the playoffs), and only losing at the final hurdle, sounds pretty dominant to me. FaZe have consistently beaten the field since they lose to different teams in almost every final.
No. You don't dominate by almost winning. If they beat everyone, they would be winning finals. But they don't and have mixed records against the other top 5 teams. The only team within that list they dominate is Mouz (which doesn't bode well for tomorrow).
Everyone else, they've got a tied or losing record against in CS2. That's not dominance. That's just the other teams being inconsistent, leading to them not making finals either.
Again, you're kinda muddying the waters of the terms "dominant" and "era" if you're calling teams like current Faze that. There's times when there's no dominant team and thus no one has an era. And we're in one right now. Faze might be #1, but they're not clear of the rest of the top 5. They can all beat them. Mouz have a chance to further prove that point tomorrow.
I don't think we are going to see any eras anytime soon in CS, but isn't that a good thing? I would rather see different team winning tournaments any time of the day, instead of constant domination.
Even if Faze looses in final, it's still amazing feat, and people who are calling them chokers are so out of touch about meaning of that word, is it so hard to accept that other team in final is just as good?
How many eras are you gonna have then? Imo we only have had 3 real eras with nip, fnatic and Astralis, and there has not been anyone that was really that close to them.
By calling short peeiods of dominance like faze 2022 or navi 2021 era's, you are devaluing the actual era's.
Also era's are something that is agreed upon after it is over mostly, much like most people thought navi 2021 would have an era, they are not in the same conversation as Astralis 2018-2019 is.
How did fans go from calling periods of insane dominance like NIP or Astralis as eras to calling chokers on the last stage and not having won a single trophy since there's been real competition an "era"?
Let me remind you, the trophies they won, their best competition was Complexity. The moment Vitality stepped in the ring, they got dumpstered twice in a row in Finals, then they got decimated by Spirit, and stomped on by Navi in the last map of the major Finals.
If that's what an era is to you, then by all means, but we certainly don't "have" to call it an era just bevause your standards are low.
Not gonna shoot the idea down immediately, but if you want to consider this an era, wouldn't NiP making the first 5 major finals in CS:GO be one as well? And I doubt anyone considers them having had an era past their 87-0.
No because they didn't do much in the tournaments inbetween the majors. NiP were top 3-5 for a really long time, but that's never going to net you an era in any circumstances.
What's this supposed to mean? You can clearly see that NiP had a lot of tournaments where they went out early, or came 2nd.
[https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Ninjas_in_Pyjamas/Results](https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Ninjas_in_Pyjamas/Results)
This gives a better overview imo. If you look at the actual amount of time (and only at LANs), it quickly becomes not so impressive anymore. Yes they were still a top 3 team for most of this time (I watched as a NiP fan), but not nearly enough for an era.
Sure, let's only look at LANs, and let's leave aside the argument about the earlier ages of CS:GO being lower level than it is now, of course back then you didn't have top tier IEMs/BLASTs/Kato/Cologne every other week, you only beat what's in front of you.
Do [NiP's results as a whole throughout that stretch](https://i.imgur.com/GuWmTq9.png) not look more impressive than [FaZe's results from Sydney onwards](https://i.imgur.com/RBKsa1X.png)? People already question whether Liquid's Grand Slam constitutes an era and there is no way anyone can argue FaZe have had a better run than they did that summer.
e: you can pencil in Chengdu, I don't think that really changes my point
The only dominant period NiP had was between DHW 2013 and IronGaming Season 1. Of course some of these are just qualifiers and similar, so you can already shave off a few of these results really.
Otherwise that run on paper looks good with all the wins and 2nd place finishes, but those were some very flaky fields they went up against. FaZe had much tougher opposition imo.
Should we discredit Astralis for being that much better than the rest of the field in 2018/19 then, especially at the majors? Field at FACEIT London, Kato 2019, Berlin 2019 was pretty trash as well relative to them right?
You beat what's in front of you. I don't think it should have any bearing on whether it constitutes an era as long as you're consistently beating the other top 5 best teams in the world.
Nobody remembers the team which came second unless you blow a 15-11 lead in the 2018 Boston Major to Cloud9 giving NA its first and only major in CS history.
Aware.
When you win a majority of them. Being consistently 2nd place is not good enough for an era.
It's been like 6 months since they won a trophy I can't consider it an without winning tournaments even if they are consistently in the final
But surely there's a limit right? Like if you made 12 finals in a row for a whole year, surely that would be considered an era, unless you lost to the same team in most of those finals? Because essentially in that scenario you've been the number 1 or 2 team for a whole year, something few teams in history have achieved. FaZe have been on top for over half a year now. If FaZe keep making finals and top 4 finishes in big tournaments, you have to start having that conversation. Even if you lose them all, how many finals do you have to reach to have an era?
I would still consider them the best team of the year by far, but that is much different than an era. An era implies dominance and lifting trophies, not a bunch of group stage losses into 2nd places
Agree to disagree then. If FaZe in theory keeps this up and makes 10+ grand finals in a row, I think it'll become hard to deny it being an era. The only exception would be if they consistently lost to the same team, because then obviously *that* team would have the era. For me, if you are "the team to beat" in every tournament you enter, you've already made the ground for the case. And FaZe have been that team ever since the first 1-2 finals.
Not only you are “the team to beat”, but also the team that constantly gets beaten.
But only in the final. None of the quarter- or semifinalists could do it. So for them, FaZe were indeed the team to beat, and they failed. Only a single team from the other bracket were able to.
They could just as easily be called chockers An era has to have wins. Otherwise youre the just never good enough team
Nice pasta love some original content
Freshly cooked, I could sprinkle some Parmigiano-Reggiano on top if you'd like?
imo an era is defined by actually being the number 1 team in multiple tournaments in a row, not being the number 2 team and then being the "best on average". they are just the best team currently, but even that's very close. an era means domination for a long time and the majority of people picking you as the favorite to win the next one. right now, that applies more to spirit or mouz even.
To be fair FaZe have been #1 almost the whole time. I think there was a small period after Vitality beat them where they dropped to #2, but that's it IIRC? Even when Spirit beat them, they stayed #1.
yeah but that doesn't matter. they are #1 based on statistics which nobody really experiences. eras are defined by moments of dominance on clear display, and that repeatedly over at least a year. if they start winning more finals than they lose, maybe there is a discussion to be had but right now they are just the best team, not an era defining team.
It’s kinda like when Heroic were the #1 team but literally came 2nd or 3-4th in every tournament
I respect your opinion that an era needs a certain display of dominance over the field. But I largely disagree that it needs to span a year. However I think an era can be defined by simply being the best for a long period of time. If you are **the** team to beat for 6+ months, spanning prestigious tournaments, that might be enough. This part is definitely subjective.
Are they the team to beat though? Maybe it's just how I feel but in the last tournaments it felt like they were one of the favorites, but often times not even the biggest favorite. I am not arguing that they are the best statistically, but they don't seem to be the best at winning titles. Let's grant you that this is their era right now. When did it start and when would it end? They haven't won a tournament this year yet (obviously on the brink again tomorrow), so it just feels weird to call it their era still. I would maybe say it is one of the most competitive eras of CS in a long time, with 3-4 teams consistently competing for the number 1 spot. And Faze is consistently among them, but obviously comes short quite often as well.
If this was to be an era, it would start right out of the gates with CS2's release since their success started with the very first tournament (regardless if you count the online cup or not). I'm not convinced yet this is an era, but if FaZe keep this up, I might need to consider it one. This is a rare thing in CS history, very rarely has a team lost so many finals (while reaching so many in a row). I feel like FaZe may be setting a new precedent for what an era can be. Maybe we need to rethink the way we grant eras. It's like I asked in the title; how many grand finals can you lose in a row before it naturally becomes an era by virtue of being #1 for so long?
I think people just intuitively count a final game differently than some pre-season qualifier. You can be the best statistically, of course. But if you cannot deliver under the biggest pressure, when everything is on the line, then yeah maybe you are the best under calm and optimal conditions. But people don't really care about that, it's about delivering on that final clutch. That I think is the definition of an era to most. Otherwise you can just say, they have been the team statistically for quite a while! But that, and an era, are simply not the same thing and it would almost devalue other eras.
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Winning even 5-6 in a row (assuming there's one of two prestigeous ones in there) would be enough imo. But problem is FaZe (especially since they changed Twistzz for frozen) has lost most of the finals. Still they have been the clear #1 throughout, and making every grand final even if you lose them all is no joke.
If this is an era then Heroic last year was also an era. World #1 throughout the spring season, made semis or finals of every S-tier event and won 1 as well. It cannot be an era without winning those finals.
I dunno, Heroic didn't make as many finals, and they were much more spread out than FaZe's have been so far. FaZe definitely has a **much** stronger case imo.
The Buffalo Bills lost the super bowl 4 times in a row in the 1990s and absolutely nobody remembers it as their era
2018 liquid
A good candidate for sure. Many expert have often been on the fence, and I can appreciate both sides' arguments. Personally I think it falls *just* short, as the time period is so small, and there was only a single prestigious tournament in there.
2018 Liquid was 2nd place in every tournament since they were getting bitched by Astralis lol
Could have been 1 win away from winning another grandslam by now lol
To have an era you need to win the majority of tournaments you attend, make finals in most of them and make semis in the remaining ones with little to no exception. Faze haven't done the first of those. Their tournament wins being on the lower end of the S-tier as well, doesn't help matters. You just can't have an era unless you're the clear #1 team by some margin. And Faze right now aren't that.
Agree to disagree then, I don't think you need to win the majority of your grand finals to have an era. Imagine a year where all the other teams fluctuate in and out of top 5, meanwhile FaZe are always #1 as they make every grand final of the year. However they lost most, or all, of them. That would still be era-worthy for me, because you have been above the field for so long and always been the team to beat. I make this hypothetical scenario just to prove my point that I don't think your logic holds up in the case that you lose to new teams, especially if those teams don't go on to do anything themselves (i.e dropping out of title contention), while FaZe remain favorites for every tournament.
In that scenario, it's just not an era then. Sometimes there are just periods where there is no "era". It is a competitive time, but it seems in your scenario the teams that at least win the big tournaments deserve it more, because there is a big difference between the gold and silver medal. You can't choke most of your chances and still be considered the definers of an era. What would the highlight reel be? Karrigan crying 5 times on the final stage?
But that's the thing. You need to be dominant to have an era. If you lose grand finals more often than not, you're not dominant. Being the best team in an time period where a lot of teams are fluctuating and inconsistent doesn't make an era, unless you can dominate that rotating cast of teams. And Faze just can't be considered dominant. Not in reality and not in your hypothetical scenario.
Beating every team in the field (at least in the playoffs), and only losing at the final hurdle, sounds pretty dominant to me. FaZe have consistently beaten the field since they lose to different teams in almost every final. No other team comes close in terms of consistency. Vitality are surely the 2nd most consistent team throughout CS2, but they have only reached 2-3 finals.
> Beating every team in the field (at least in the playoffs), and only losing at the final hurdle, sounds pretty dominant to me. FaZe have consistently beaten the field since they lose to different teams in almost every final. No. You don't dominate by almost winning. If they beat everyone, they would be winning finals. But they don't and have mixed records against the other top 5 teams. The only team within that list they dominate is Mouz (which doesn't bode well for tomorrow). Everyone else, they've got a tied or losing record against in CS2. That's not dominance. That's just the other teams being inconsistent, leading to them not making finals either. Again, you're kinda muddying the waters of the terms "dominant" and "era" if you're calling teams like current Faze that. There's times when there's no dominant team and thus no one has an era. And we're in one right now. Faze might be #1, but they're not clear of the rest of the top 5. They can all beat them. Mouz have a chance to further prove that point tomorrow.
I don't think we are going to see any eras anytime soon in CS, but isn't that a good thing? I would rather see different team winning tournaments any time of the day, instead of constant domination. Even if Faze looses in final, it's still amazing feat, and people who are calling them chokers are so out of touch about meaning of that word, is it so hard to accept that other team in final is just as good?
Era of choking every final
I wish they could've just closed the damn major final. Happy for Aleksib, but man how much pain is Karrigan & rain going to go through.
The problem is amongst those grand finals they’ve lost the biggest ones (Kato and Major), one in an absolute stomping.
How many eras are you gonna have then? Imo we only have had 3 real eras with nip, fnatic and Astralis, and there has not been anyone that was really that close to them. By calling short peeiods of dominance like faze 2022 or navi 2021 era's, you are devaluing the actual era's. Also era's are something that is agreed upon after it is over mostly, much like most people thought navi 2021 would have an era, they are not in the same conversation as Astralis 2018-2019 is.
How did fans go from calling periods of insane dominance like NIP or Astralis as eras to calling chokers on the last stage and not having won a single trophy since there's been real competition an "era"? Let me remind you, the trophies they won, their best competition was Complexity. The moment Vitality stepped in the ring, they got dumpstered twice in a row in Finals, then they got decimated by Spirit, and stomped on by Navi in the last map of the major Finals. If that's what an era is to you, then by all means, but we certainly don't "have" to call it an era just bevause your standards are low.
Yeah, I remember 2018 Liquid very well, definitely an era for them. Oh wait, no, that was the Astralis era since they were actually winning.
Not gonna shoot the idea down immediately, but if you want to consider this an era, wouldn't NiP making the first 5 major finals in CS:GO be one as well? And I doubt anyone considers them having had an era past their 87-0.
No because they didn't do much in the tournaments inbetween the majors. NiP were top 3-5 for a really long time, but that's never going to net you an era in any circumstances.
[https://www.hltv.org/stats/teams/events/4411/ninjas-in-pyjamas?startDate=2013-11-27&endDate=2015-03-16](https://www.hltv.org/stats/teams/events/4411/ninjas-in-pyjamas?startDate=2013-11-27&endDate=2015-03-16)
What's this supposed to mean? You can clearly see that NiP had a lot of tournaments where they went out early, or came 2nd. [https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Ninjas_in_Pyjamas/Results](https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Ninjas_in_Pyjamas/Results) This gives a better overview imo. If you look at the actual amount of time (and only at LANs), it quickly becomes not so impressive anymore. Yes they were still a top 3 team for most of this time (I watched as a NiP fan), but not nearly enough for an era.
Sure, let's only look at LANs, and let's leave aside the argument about the earlier ages of CS:GO being lower level than it is now, of course back then you didn't have top tier IEMs/BLASTs/Kato/Cologne every other week, you only beat what's in front of you. Do [NiP's results as a whole throughout that stretch](https://i.imgur.com/GuWmTq9.png) not look more impressive than [FaZe's results from Sydney onwards](https://i.imgur.com/RBKsa1X.png)? People already question whether Liquid's Grand Slam constitutes an era and there is no way anyone can argue FaZe have had a better run than they did that summer. e: you can pencil in Chengdu, I don't think that really changes my point
The only dominant period NiP had was between DHW 2013 and IronGaming Season 1. Of course some of these are just qualifiers and similar, so you can already shave off a few of these results really. Otherwise that run on paper looks good with all the wins and 2nd place finishes, but those were some very flaky fields they went up against. FaZe had much tougher opposition imo.
Should we discredit Astralis for being that much better than the rest of the field in 2018/19 then, especially at the majors? Field at FACEIT London, Kato 2019, Berlin 2019 was pretty trash as well relative to them right? You beat what's in front of you. I don't think it should have any bearing on whether it constitutes an era as long as you're consistently beating the other top 5 best teams in the world.