Episode 7: Resurrection, Masters vs. Major

Spike Drop is a weekly (?) newsletter covering VALORANT and its competitive scene from respected (??) journalist and former Dot Esports staff writer, Scott Robertson.

So, what started as a Thanksgiving break turned into a longer holiday break which turned into a pause on Spike Drop to focus on finding full-time work. And after finding some full-time work (yippee!) I kept Spike Drop on pause to focus on getting acclimated at the new place. For those that haven’t heard, I joined The Story Mob as a senior writer.

I didn’t take a complete break from covering VALORANT though, as I contributed some coverage to Insider Gaming from December through March. During that time I did a handful of VCT Americas interviews, including some great interviews with Evil Geniuses’ yay and coach potter, the latter of which got featured on the main broadcast:

Admittedly I have not watched as much VALORANT as I should have, but I want to get caught up and back up to speed with this project. If you’re still here reading, I appreciate you., and if you’re new, welcome!

This week’s big topic: VALORANT and Counter-Strike 2 banging heads together.

Masters vs. Major, VALORANT vs. CS2: An Eternal, Essential Conflict

VALORANT Masters Toronto ran side-by-side with the BLAST.tv Austin CS2 Major throughout much of June. Both events concluded very differently. 

Down in Austin, the consensus favorites in Team Vitality lost map one to adopted crowd favorite The MongolZ, who had already made history by becoming the first team from Asia to reach a Counter-Strike Major grand final. But Vitality showed why they’re the best team in the world, bouncing back from a decisive map one loss to win the next two maps comfortably, capping off their historically impressive first half of 2025. In less than half  a year they’ve won eight trophies including a Grand Slam and now a Major, accomplishing what any team would dream of accomplishing in two years, let alone six months.

Up north in Toronto, Paper Rex and Fnatic faced off in the grand finals, in a culmination of the most topsy-turvy, insane playoff bracket in VALORANT history. Two number one seeds in XLG and RRQ got eliminated immediately, and two more one seeds in G2 and Fnatic faced off in the lower bracket semifinal, meanwhile Paper Rex and Wolves were playing in the upper finals? The script writers were going crazy in the prep phase, but they stuck the landing with Paper Rex winning a close, exciting series 3-1, finally winning the international trophy that’s eluded them for so long.

During both tournaments, there was a fair amount of discourse back and forth between fans of VALORANT and CS2, taking shots at each other about crowd size, formats, viewership figures, you name it. Which event was better you ask? It’s not an easy question to answer. The Major had a louder crowd and a more grand presentation, aided by Vitality captain apEX’s willingness to embrace the villain role. VALORANT Masters had the better format: no best-of-ones, every team played at least two best-of-three series, and a best-of-five in the grand finals. And on top of that, there were crowds present for every stage and every match, even if the Toronto crowd didn’t hit the same highs that Austin did.

The winner of the viewership category will depend on who you ask. Esports Charts listed the Major as having a higher viewership peak with roughly 1.7M against Masters’ 1.1M, but those numbers don’t include Chinese viewership. According to Riot themselves, Masters peaked at 2.8 million concurrent viewers, but we don’t know what the total number for the Major was.

Both games being successful is a good thing, that much is obvious and has been stated over and over. But they’re not succeeding independently of each other, they’re succeeding because of each other, and that’s why I think the trash talking between games is a good thing.

The old saying is that competition brings out the best of both sides. Both VALORANT and CS2 rely on what makes them stand out from each other as their main strength. VALORANT with its diverse catalog of agents that make up a meta that allows for strategic creativity and provides players at all levels the opportunity to be valuable in-game. CS2 with its simple, satisfying, gunplay defined by the mantra of “easy to learn, hard to master” that in turn makes what pro players do on stage and on stream even more impressive.

The two games are becoming more alike than perhaps either side would like to admit. VALORANT is trying to cap the abilities that can break an individual round, and wants the game to be more focused on gunplay. There’s also been rumblings about moving toward a more open ecosystem at the top level of its esports scene. With the launch of Counter-Strike 2, the latest version of the iconic shooter brought on many features familiar to VALORANT players: an updated buy menu with refund options, a seasonal model for its primary competitive mode, and perhaps most drastically, the reduction of 15 rounds per half to 12 per half. Co-streaming is also becoming bigger in Counter-Strike, and it definitely wasn’t as prominent before VALORANT released.

A lot of shots were fired over the past week, and I say keep them coming! I love that there are CS2 fans who, during the apex of their competitive season, take time out of their way to dump on VALORANT, though mostly the digs were based on viewership (get some new material). There are some VALORANT fans who are giving it back, but I need them to step it up a bit. If you want to get in on the action and get under the skin of CS2 Twitter, here are some starting points:

• North American Counter-Strike is a wasteland. Most of the “NA teams” rely on imported talent, and still none of the NA teams in Austin advanced past the stage they started in. Sad! NA’s last international trophy in Counter-Strike occurred before VALORANT even came out.

• The team that won all the other tournaments this year also won the Major. Very boring. Why don’t the other teams simply try playing better?

• When was the last Counter-Strike operation? It was before the first VALORANT Champions tournament? Yikes.

• s1mple is washed. Gambling has poisoned your scene.

For more examples like this, please check out @Bo_Hoogland on Twitter. Don’t delete the app yet Bo, you’ve got more CS2 fans to rile up.

To summarize: CS2 and VALORANT are both thriving, and that’s objectively a good thing. But I think stoking the rivalry between the two is important going forward. These games SHOULD be competing against each other, because it forces them to innovate and adapt and bring their best to the table. 

Things You’ll Like (Or Else)

VALORANT media, and esports media as a whole, has certainly changed since I started covering the game, and even since I left Dot a year ago. There are a lot of creative people doing exceptional work, so I want a section where I can spotlight that content. And here it is!

Ravish, aka RavishingCasts, has quickly become one of my favorite interviewers in the scene. I know firsthand how hard it can be to get pro players to open up in interviews, and Ravish makes it look absolutely effortless, to the point where it looks like two friends shooting the shit with each other. He’s got more than a half dozen interviews on his YouTube channel plus a couple of vlogs from his time in Toronto. Go check them out.

Pedro Romero is one of the most diligent people in esports, publishing insightful interviews with pro players on his channel while also recording and posting all the press conferences from Masters Toronto. He always gets great answers from pros, and I always go to his channel first when I’m getting caught up on press conferences.

When I first started at Dot Esports, Tyler Esguerra was one of the first people I really connected with. And funny enough, years later, HE’S the one that plays and watches more VALORANT than I do. While we’re sadly not at Dot anymore, he’s continuing to put out really stellar content at THESPIKE.GG, including his most recent deep dive into Vandal and Phantom usage in Toronto. Check it out.

Speaking of Dot, it’s almost exactly a year ago that I got let go. It’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and sadly it’s come for the exuberant, hard-working Elisabeth Marchini, who I trust you’ve all seen shine on your screen on VCT Americas, NA Challengers, and Game Changers. I implore all of you to follow her on Twitter and Twitch, drop a Prime Sub if you’ve got one, and truly support one of the best people in esports media.

Liz, we’re all here for you, you got this.

Thanks for reading Spike Drop! I hope you’ll forgive me if this isn’t my most refined version,