What makes a team a good team? Many organizations have tried to figure it out. Is it the big names who have always done good at tournaments or is it the underdog players that nobody expects to do good? There have and always will be teams that consist of some of the biggest names, and fall short of expectations. And on the flip side there will always be teams who nobody expects to do good but end up becoming one of the best. What it all comes down to is attitude.

For example; take a look at NiP (hate to rag on them so much but they are a perfect example). A team with probably the biggest names in all of Counter-Strike including the name of the team. They were hyped to be unbeatable, and many predicted them to rarely lose a single event. That hype, however, was their downfall.

The hype surrounding the Ninjas likely changed their attitudes. Everyone believed they were the best, everyone believed they couldn't be beat, and everyone believed they were unstoppable. That eventually changes their mindset to the same thing, until the attitude they have is "We are the best why should we practice this hard."


Whether or not that is what the players were thinking, in a recent interview HeatoN told the world that the team didn't have the right attitude to practice hard enough to be the best. They didn't have anything to gain because everyone already knew they would win every event. Now how could they hope to beat out teams like coL who are five players with five of the best attitudes in the game?

The bottom line is that coL wants to practice, they want to work hard, and they want to win. That is WHY they are one of the best teams out there right now. They work hard and they WANT to. fRoD has the best work ethic of any player I've ever seen or played with. Coincidentally he is one of the best players in the world right now.

Everything you need to be the best builds off your attitude. You can't have a team that works good together if the attitudes aren't right. A good attitude allows players to work together, to fix mistakes, to remain calm and not get angry when something goes wrong.

It doesn't take the best players in the world to win. It doesn't even take amazing players to win. But it does take a great attitude. Winning requires desire. You need to want to win, and you need to want to work hard to win. Tons of teams out there are working hard trying to prove that they are the best, and these are the teams that we see upsetting the bigger names.

Anyone remember CDT??? Canadian Dream Team. The "best" Canadian players (Shag, Steel, Revenge, Wiseguy) all created a pug/team to win WCG and get to the finals in Korea. Well they got beat pretty bad. With rumors of conflicting personalities between Shag and Steel the team fell due to seemingly terrible attitudes.

What people need to start realizing is that a player is only as good as his team. Five people make a team, and four teammates make the 5th good.

Thank you to Mxyah for all his inspiration