Mutechno:
The state of CS 1.6 is still going strong.

CS 1.6 of 2007 is just as CS 1.6 of 2004-2006 as in teams have been roughly the same skill level, with the exception of COL's winnings at ESWC 05 and ICS 06. What has the US done you ask? Keep in mind that the United States is 3,793,079 square miles in size and has 302,757,000 in population, as opposed to Sweden's 173,732 square miles in size and 9,142,817 in population. So in this case, saying "US has only won 2 major CS 1.6 tournaments/events" is NOT a hyperbole.

The skill level has gone down? Take a look at the following results...

• 3D 2nd @ WSVG 06
• EMG 4th @ WCG 07

The skill level in US has definitely not gone down, it has gone up if anything. US didn't even place top 5 in 06 @ WCG. You guys get the theme here? Platitude.

Like fRoD in 05-06, we have evolution in 07. By the way, evolution vs. PGS on inferno is one of the best HLTV-POV's I've ever seen. This is not saying US used to be good or bad, it's saying that US skill wise has been relatively the same over the course of 4 years. zEx/Rival in 2003 passed on the torch to 3D/COL in 2004-2006 who passed on the torch to Pandemic (s0nNy[st] was beginning to get real nasty on LAN) in late 2006 wgi passed on the torch to EMG/Turmoil/Check6 in 2007. Whats funny is that Turmoil beat out JMC and Pandemic to win CEVO.

• zEx > COL @ CPL 06
• Pandemic > 3D @ CEVO 06

In 2006:

• ESWC: 3D/COL got out of group play and made SOME noise.
• WCG: 3D placed 5-8th.

In 2007:

• ESWC: Turmoil got out of group play and made SOME noise.
• WCG: EMG placed 4th.

EMG's 4th place @ WCG 07 is one of the biggest U.S achievements since COL's ESWC 05 and ICS 06 wins.

The talk about the skill level within TOP U.S teams needs to be put to rest. US Teams of 07 have been just as good if not better than top US teams of 2004-2006.

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Thorin:
Your arguments were entirely based upon the performance and international parity of American teams so I'll address those points firstly.

American CS 1.6 as of 2007 is in no way equivalent to that of 2004-2006 and most certainly not better on the whole (excluding the top two teams as you do in part of your statement but then go on to draw conclusions based on them anyway). When one is discussing skill level and the relative talent of teams, which is just that: their relative value versus other teams in similar competitions, one cannot exclude the most successful teams and their accomplishments in the same way as one cannot exclude the least successful teams in the same peer group and their placing in competitions. This is not a case of removing all outliers and drawing conclusions based on the most tightly bunched together results, that method only yields tendancies or trends.

Besides if we follow that approach for a moment then removing 3D and coL, in other words the only 2 American teams capable of winning against top international teams, we must likewise remove eMg and Turmoil. Mainly as they also represent the two teams who have managed to get into and compete in the biggest tournaments of the year (the wildcard united5 team excluded due to the competition they faced to win their spot) Looking at the teams below the elite group from 2004-2006 we would find in each year there was a group of at least 3 or 4 teams who were not in the elite upper echelon of American clans but who could be relied upon to yield upsets over the course of a year or beat the upper tier American teams on occasion.

Part of the problem of over-generalising like your example of coL/3D is that if one considers coL and 3D as the two best teams for 3 years running and then discounts their results the picture is disjointed due to the number of other teams across that period who had significant placings and throughout online competition and LAN qualifiers gave those two teams close competition. Let's take a closer look at that 3 year span to see the significance:

2004:

• TSG - 4th ESWC
• Rival/GamerCo - 3rd CPL Summer, 3rd CPL Winter
• coL - 5th CPL Winter
• DiE - 5th CPL Summer, 7th CPL Winter
• 3D - 8th CPL Winter

3D's WCG victory can be discredited by nature of it being in CS:CZ so if one excludes that then there are still 5 occasions where American teams break into the top 5 of a major international LAN tournament and we have 4 seperate teams behind those accomplishments. The TSG and coL results both include storm so to compare the whole year and act as though 4 teams existed simultaneously could be disingenuous but looking at the overall picture the US scene produces at least 3 teams who can all break into the top 5 of a big event, 2 of those can continue into the top 4 and one manages top 3s with some consistency. Below those 4 teams you have DiE and 3D rounding out the top 8 of a tournament to give the US one of its best years in a long time in terms of placings and average ability level of the top end of the scene.

2005:

• coL - 2nd CPL Barcelona, 1st ESWC, 9th CPL Winter
• 3D - 9th ESWC, 9th CPL Winter
• JMC - 3rd CPL Winter

While not on a par with 2004's results in terms of the wide spread of quality placings 2006 sees the heights US clans soar to increase and also maintains a stable sub tier of placings. So at the top end we start with coL placing 2nd at CPL Barcelona amongst the likes of NiP, mibr, mouz etc. Not a huge result but a significant one in terms of being overseas and involving top 8 teams at the time. coL then win ESWC and establish themselves as world #1s for a period of time, something no American team had managed since 3D in the Winter of 2002. JMC pulls themselves out of the sub-elite tier of teams to upset a number of known teams and take 3rd at CPL Winter, a result on par with the rival 3rds of 2004 when one considers how stacked that CPL was. Below those performances we have coL and 3D taking 3 9th placings between them in the two biggest tournaments of the year. These may not seem like much but it means that even the teams who were no longer playing on the elite level were able to compete with the bottom end of the top international competition and fell just short of achieving something, not too disimilar to how DiE and 3D had finished 2004.

2006:

• coL - 2nd WEG masters, 5th ESWC, 7th WSVG finals
• 3D - 4th ESWC, 5th WCG, 2nd WSVG finals, 9th CPL Winter
• Pandemic - 4th WSVG finals
• JMC - 5th Kode5, 8th CPL Winter

In 2006 where 2005 saw a few great placings and less good instead we see one great placing from the US scene and then a handful of good placings and lastly a few that border on being good. 3D placing 2nd at WSVG finals and 4th at ESWC gives the year a great placing and one at the top end of good. coL's 2nd at WEG masters counts as a genuinely great result for the American scene. coL's 5th at ESWC is as good as a top 8 in a stacked CPL event, likewise JMC's 5th at kode5 may not seem like much but it comes after losing in single elimination in an overtime thriller to hoorai who had one of the most consistent 2006s of all. The results of JMC taking 8th at CPL Winter and 3D and Pandemic taking 9ths at CPL bear breaking down for a moment also. JMC's 8th is as good as any other top 8 at a CPL due to having to survive two groups and win in single elim to earn it. 3D and Pandemic's isn't too glamourous bearing in mind they share it with 6 other teams but in 3D's case one needs to bear in mind their 2nd group stage was the appropriately titled 'Group of Death' featuring coL, fnatic and zEx. Without straying too far from the path 3D emerged from this group in no smooth manner, coL beat them in a tight overtime game but thanks to having fnatic to face and then losing in an upset to zEx coL had been clusterfucked out of continuing beyond this point.

Results are what they are and I have no interest in reappropriating their meanings but that group meant since fnatic were a lock to qualify that out of 2 teams with a potential to break top 8 and a team with upset potential the US would only carry on being represented by one. 3D was the one who made and they went on to lose immediatly so it is safe to say that the worst that could have happened had zEx or coL progressed instead is that they would have also taken 9th, in coL's case though it is plausible they might have beaten at least one team in single elim.

This history lesson may seem a little labourious but with only 2007 to run down there will be conclusions to be drawn that require readers to have analysed the breakdowns of the years' results as closely as we have done here.

2007:

• eMg: 4th WCG, 6th EM LA
• Turmoil: 9th ESWC, 9th EM LA

The year is not over just yet and room must be left for the results of CPL Winter and kode5 (if the finals take place within this year) Based on the results so far it would seem unfair to conclude that either of these 2 teams will win CPL Winter or place top 3 unless there is a significant lack of overseas competition involved. The trend this year has shown in the American scene is that two best American teams that can be put forward are capable only of placing marginally well in the case of eMg and not very well at all in the case of Turmoil (relating their placings to the accomplishments of the American teams from 2004-2006) Turmoil's ESWC 9th certainly wasn't terrible considering the caliber of the teams who progressed from their group but it's at best equivalent to a top 8 at a CPL even being generous. Their EM LA result doesn't show a whole lot overall, people will crow a lot about their 14-16 result against fnatic but what matters in CS isn't the number of rounds you win, it's whether you win the game and then how many more games you go on to win until you take a placing in an event. In that light 9th ranks as no achievement at all, there are no medals given out for nice tries, fnatic's dad isn't gonna drive everyone out to pizza hut cos they gave it their all.

eMg's results are more deceiving than they appear on paper without context. Their 4th place sounds impressive when we relate 4th to being equivalent to 4th in a CPL or at an ESWC, in reality they had a run of opponents where to finish outside of the top 8 they'd have had to lose in surprising fashion to lesser teams. Then upon getting into the top 8 they had merely to beat a mix team of talented Russians to lock up 4th. They managed that, which deserves some credit in showing that skillwise they can compete but these are team accomplishments we're comparing here. Taking a map off NoA is nice but once again nice tries don't count for much and since they ended up taking 4th they may as well as have lost 16-0 on that map to NoA for all it matters in the long run. Sometimes close games mean a team was unlucky, sometimes it means things could have gone the other way and sometimes close games just mean the better team's performance level dipped when the lesser team's performance level peaked and the better team pulled it out in the end when it really mattered. That's what makes them the better team.

Before I have to send this response off to the binders to get it ready for publishing in CS libraries across the nation I'll draw all those points together to sum up my position in relation to your arguments.

Subjectivity is a free for all, anyone can watch POV demos of players or look at their closest games with big teams while ignoring their worst games against similar calibre of teams. Doing so can easily skew one's interpretation of results or allow an over-estimation of the potential for things to go the other way. The only way to view things of this nature when we're taking about a span of 4 years in total is to take an objective approach and look at things on a smaller scale but then assign them appropriate relavence to how to fit into the bigger overall picture.

American CS has had 3 years of varying results: 2004 had a decent chunk of big results and some minor ones, 2005 had one or two great results with a bunch of minor ones and 2006 saw a couple of great results with a few good ones and then some questionable minor ones. Rating those three years in order would be difficult since each has its merits and the overall result for all of them is that American teams were getting into all tiers of placings. One thing that can be ranked is 2007 as being the worst of those 4 years as whole. Even if eMg were to win CPL Winter and Turmoil took top 5, an unlikely situation even the most generous of observers should admit, the year would still only just be in competition with the worst year out of the 3 year 2004-2006 span. Based on results alone the American scene is in a sorry state in terms of CS 1.6. The top clans are only top clans when you consider them in that context: the American CS scene. In an international context they are being outplaced by teams from Korea, the Ukraine, France and the list goes on. I'll go into my further points on why the scene has declined in the next round.

I figured it was worth saving until last the point that you can't even hope to compare fRoD from any year in the 2004-2006 span to evolution in an equivalent manner. Even from a pure stats point fRoD has dominated in all of those years while evolution hasn't even significantly seperated himself from his American team-mates or peers. Don't go comparing a Michael Jordan figure to a the equivalent of a Vince Carter, it doesn't help your point along.

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