Virtus Pro’s Read and React CT Side
Last year was an extremely tumultuous and dynamic year, not only in the global scale of things but also in the realm of Counter-Strike. Large edifices whose everlasting presence the world had begun to take for granted had started to fall to the wayside as the winds of change beat upon them. However a large portion of life is cyclical, and that which loses its place ultimately gives way to another to take its place. In Counter-Strike, over the year 2020, Virtus Pro began to steadily gain steam ever since they brought in young prodigy Yekindar into the lineup. They began to make headway into the HLTV rankings by playing well-disciplined Counter-Strike, which finally culminated at IEM Katowice 2021 where they made a magnificent run to the finals beating longstanding giants such as Team Liquid, Natus Vincere, and more. While watching their beautiful matches I felt I had to write something up as I was inimitably moved by their CT sides.
The reason I was moved by their play on the CT side was that it put on full display a level of adaptability and flexibility that is very rare to come by even within the pro Counter-Strike scene. In a way, there is a clear analogous relationship between CT sides in Counter-Strike, and defense in basketball. In both cases, there is a clear need for flexible play that is meant to be adapted to the needs of the situation. In basketball when defenses hit an elite status, such as the Pistons of yesteryear or the 76ers of 2021, people say that those teams are playing defense on a string as if to indicate there is a common brain coordinating all their actions at once and that is why they look so gelled together. After watching Virtus Pro’s CT side on Mirage versus Team Liquid I feel that the same can be said about them, it truly does feel like they are playing as one unit, one hive mind working together for a common goal, reading situations through the same lens.
A great example of Virtus Pro’s adaptable play was during round 6 versus Liquid on Mirage. During the round Elige gets an opening pick on Yekindar on bottom mid, which gives Liquid a man advantage and an extremely good chance at a round win, as after all 5v4 as a terrorist side is ideal. In such a situation a CT side, if they do nothing, are going to be facing down the barrel of a loaded gun that will undoubtedly go off in their faces. Virtus Pro instead immediately recognized the direness of the situation and proceeded to adapt as a complete unit. They sent Jame to connector to look underpass in order to find the pick that could equalize the situation, a smart move as the awper is the best for that. In conjunction, they also sent a rifler to catwalk who essentially gave up the B site and covered Jame on bottom connector. After getting the pick they then rotate into a 3 man setup on A, with two members that had already preemptively taken advanced map control on A when Liquid had shown presence towards B and mid. From there the man that was playing retake on B managed to survive while also doing damage and then finally culminating in a round win for VP.
VP realized that they needed to work as a unit in order to maximize the probability of winning the round so they made a flexible ct adjustment that was a semi gamble, but an extremely intelligent one. They realized that playing the whole map would spread themselves too thin and would leave themselves taking disadvantaged aim duels versus a high octane lineup such as Team Liquid. Why play into a win condition that is heavily favored for your opponent?
(Virtus Pro abandons B site in a 4v5 in order to stress other sides of the map)
This is a type of fundamental play that is very similar to how defenses play in basketball where they adapt to the circumstances at hand. As a defender in basketball the type of shot that you want your opponent to take depends on the type of opponent you are facing, you wouldn’t give Steph Curry a look from three but if it was Kawhi Leonard you might try to let him have that instead of his mid-range game. Similarly in Counter-Strike one should always take into account the ideal win condition for your opponent and try to put the game in situations that are not to the advantage of said win condition. Why would someone constantly give Team Liquid raw aim duels, such a thing is not conducive to winning Counter-Strike games.
What this article has illustrated was only one instance, out of a large sample size, of Virtus Pro’s counter-terrorist side functioning as a puppet does on a string. This type of CT side play fits very well within the infrastructure of Counter-Strike, after all, CS can be aptly described as a series of calculated gambles, an environment of imperfect information where the supercomputer that is the brain must process large swathes of information and make an apt correction in the magnitude of microseconds. In essence that is what Virtus Pro is trying to perfect through their read and react Counter-Terrorist play.
