At the moment, one of the most popular and interesting eSports disciplines is Counter Strike: Global Offensive, which attracts spectators primarily through its versatility. Unlike the same Dota 2, where the audience is constantly watching the confrontation on the same map, here there are many different locations, and the most convenient and balanced of them make up the pool, which is used in various tournaments and competitions.
Admittedly, the creators of the game never stop, as they are well aware that it is impossible to achieve perfect balance, so they try to refine those or other points, make various changes to the locations. This all has a direct impact on the chances of winning. Therefore, before betting on Counter Strike duels, you should carefully analyze on which map the attackers have an advantage, and on which defense dominates the vast majority of cases.
Interestingly, the organisers of eSports tournaments have recently announced a rather serious change. The number of available maps remains unchanged, except that players will no longer be able to show their skills on Cach, instead the Vertigo location will now be used.
Table of Contents
Cache
Let’s start with that location, which will be out of the main pool very soon, it’s one of the last competitions, but you can still bet on it, so it’s worth taking a look at the stats. The interesting thing is that at the moment this is one of the most balanced and playable maps for both sides, but that’s probably the reason why it didn’t end up in the pool, as it didn’t allow to gain an advantage with its spade.
As we can see, there is a tiny advantage in winning percentage for the attacking side, but it is far from fatal. The same goes for pistol rounds, for example, which are also at a slight advantage for the attacking side. The stats are all very close to each other, so by choosing the Cache card players should have relied solely on their skill.
Vertigo
The newcomer of the pro-series, on the other hand, shows quite the opposite indicators. Defense takes precedence over attack, and this is even more evident in the pistol rounds. But this card is almost even when one of the sides makes the first frag.
Such an innovation could have a major impact on the overall game balance, and the outcome of the first duels will only depend on how much attention the teams pay to this map in training.
It seems that the tournament organisers have decided to bring something new to the gameplay. And here, unlike in Cache, the advantage of one of the sides immediately emerges after the pistol round, and finally there will be another good option for those teams who are trying to focus on defense.
Dust 2
Another location where the attacking side has a clear advantage. The reason is that the defending side is in a weaker defensive position, as it has to repel their opponents on both sides. This is often used by the attackers, who put their opponents in a real vise.
The most interesting thing is that on this map there is a significant divergence in the results for pistol round wins, as well as the superiority of the team across the map as a whole. But in general we see an obvious bias towards the attacking side, so if the stronger team gets such a peak, it’s safe to say that its possible victory in this fight.
Nuke
The Nuke is probably the most imbalanced map at the moment, with the defending side showing a huge advantage. First of all, you have to pay attention to the pistol round, which already shows its huge advantage. If it’s hard to defend on Dust, then all the attacking movement points are clearly visible, which allows you to get into positions that are incredibly difficult to knock players out of.
Overall, defence has an advantage in absolutely all key metrics, which naturally translates into an almost thirteen per cent advantage in win rate. However, the creators of the game are not too keen on overhauling the status quo, as this helps to smooth out the impact that the presence of cards such as Dust 2 has on the competitive scene as much as possible.
Mirage
Another map that is predominantly sharpened for the team’s performance on the defensive side. Once again, we see a formation where the defence is given every opportunity to get to the right place as quickly as possible, as well as defending it with confidence. In addition, attacking players have very limited room to manoeuvre, this also significantly affects the process of their movement around the map, all attacks take a long time to prepare, which leaves little time for their implementation.
Therefore it is easier to play for the defending side, as the statistics show. If in the pistol rounds the gap is not felt too much, as it is the individual skill of each performer that comes first, then in the long range this advantage becomes more tangible, resulting in an almost six percent difference in the proportion of sides won for defence.
Inferno
One of the most balanced and level cards in the tournament, that said, it has a huge disadvantage. It very rarely gets picked for one simple reason. Over time it has become obvious to everyone the similarities it has with Overpass. That said, the new representative of the world of locations is much more successfully integrated into the cybersport system, so it is picked many times more often.
But there is still a need for analysis, as some teams even like to play on Inferno, because other teams do not train this location much and often fail on it. Another controversial map, as the pistol round is overwhelmingly left to the attacking side.
With light pistols it’s much easier to take up footholds. But on the long range it is not possible to gain the advantage, and here the defence has a definite advantage. This is due to the fact that once the team has the economy to buy good equipment and acquire the necessary defensive tools, it becomes a lot easier to perform.
Overpass
A lot of experts, commentators and players seriously criticize this map, for the reason that it is quite difficult to play for one side, but this only happens in one half of the map, and in the other half, the opponents usually cannot form as good a defensive redoubt. This results in an unfortunate situation for cyber sport, in which much depends on the defence guessing the place being attacked.
That said, this certain randomness does allow for a statistical advantage to be given to the defenders. The creators of the location make changes that allow you to move and get from one part of the map to the other faster, so the pulls are really lightning fast in some situations. You get exactly six percent defensive advantage, and roughly the same figures for gun battles.
Train
The favourite map of almost all good old-school players is Train, which has seen a huge amount of competitive battles. But with all that said the map is considered to be as imbalanced as possible, if a team wins a spade and chooses the defending side, then it can be said with great certainty that they have a huge chance of winning. That said, many tournament organisers have already started to actively combat this situation, personally removing the map from the general pool to avoid situations of such abuse.
If we turn to the bare numbers, however, it is clear that the situation is really dire for the attacking players, with only Nuk being worse off. In the pistol round the defence has the opportunity to win by almost eleven percent more, and in the full side format the situation is not too much different, there the handicap stopped at the nine percent mark. This map is really very hard to attack on, but some teams have shown in their time (such as Natus Vincere) that you can also come up with a lot of interesting combinations for cavalry swoops.
Conclusions
As we can see, the chosen side can make a huge difference in terms of how a particular team performs in a particular match. A key piece of advice for those who prefer to bet on CS: GO eSports tournaments is to keep a close eye on the process of picking cards and sides to bet on teams that can compete offensively and defensively.