Team Liquid MISS THE MARK / dev1ce as IGL?! / Female agent Twitter SNAFU - Snake & Banter 50 ft dona

Thorin and Mauisnake are joined by content creator dona (@DonaCSGO ) to discuss hype around donk's upcoming appearance at The Major, EspiranTo's return to CS, Jason Lake buying back Complexity, the current weakness of North American CS, the poor directions of both Astralis and NiP, the Astralis women's open letter to Valve, and more!
Thank you to INTOTHEAM for sponsoring this week's episode! You must use our link to receive 10% discount on anything you purchase on the website: www.intotheam.com/lfn
Snake & Banter is a Counter-Strike talk show, hosted by Duncan "Thorin" Shields and Alex "Mauisnake" Ellenberg, themed around each individual selecting a good, bad and ugly topic to discuss.
This video was recorded on March 3rd, 2024.
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0:00:00 - Intro
0:06:51 - dona's good point (EspiranTo's comeback)
0:22:32 - Mauisnake's good point (Jason Lake buys back Complexity)
0:34:48 - Thorin's good point (donk is going to The Major)
0:44:07 - dona's bad point (TL failing to meet expectations)
0:57:09 - Mauisnake's bad point (NA CS is mega weak)
1:06:28 - Thorin's bad point/dona's ugly point (Direction of Astralis + dev1ce as IGL)
1:22:05 - Thorin's bad point (Fans need to consider how much rosters cost)
1:25:58 - Mauisnake's ugly point (Free female agents in CS2)
1:48:06 - Thorin's ugly point (NiP's approach to how roles work)
#CS2
#podcast
#Thorin

[@DonaCSGO]

Thanks for having me💜

[@conxptexe]

Of course, any time

[@KanesDeath]

Riot Games did heavy promotion to attract disenfranchised Overwatch players and Fortnites aging tween players. To specifically appeal towards women players they introduced hero abilities to slightly offset gunplay importance and went heavy into lore.

[@Masi-One]

Why are you saying yeah every time like you have any knowledge about what he is analyzing and talking about LOL...

[@rhyzhyn]

@@Masi-One not her first language buddy.

[@Masi-One]

@@rhyzhyn what does that have to do with what I said? 😂😆

[@Mauisnake]

REMINDER: This was recorded Mar3 the day BEFORE Liquid were eliminated. Thanks for the point about Liquid, Dona

[@paradoxfreq]

I don't think it's fair to call the Skullz signing nepotism without presenting an equal alternative. Don't forget it would have to be someone from the Americas region for major qualification purposes, and you had nothing good to say here about NA talent.

[@sNiPeR95PwnZ]

Jason Lake arriving in Kopenhagen as we speak

[@quincylinder9738]

yea but having to play COl is just unfortunate when they coulda faced Oddik or pain or legacy

[@pkftw4166]

@@paradoxfreqstraw man argument.

[@paradoxfreq]

@@pkftw4166 how?

[@deekayy3222]

dona as a guest is so unexpected but nice to see her on here

[@sidneyjanicki1313]

We’ve only seen Donk on LAN in Katowice, what if he gets nerfed by the higher air quality of Copenhagen

[@MusicJunkie37]

Did you forget Spirit were at the RMR or something

[@sidneyjanicki1313]

@@MusicJunkie37next chance to see him on stage, just phrased it poorly. Not that I actually think the air quality will make a difference of course

[@HaasTheFirst]

Watching you since 5 years thorin and I m betting I m not the only one from Germany. I m here for and not despite the humour ;)

[@ollen1234]

Most German answer. 😭

[@JAYCS2]

Nice to see Dona around for one of the episodes, great work everyone

[@cbenzmc4342]

I need a "The joke is..." Counter on all thorin vids 😂

[@MusicJunkie37]

If people don't know, I am 20 mins in and I can't count how many times he says the word "people"

[@George-hr4ro]

Drinking game - shot everytime thoorin says "the joke is"

[@DavidDeCorso]

"what people don't know is"

[@smoothbrain_cs]

@@George-hr4ro alcohol poisoning speedrun

[@CS2CENTRALL]

I am watching from Germany, keep going Thorin your content is great!

[@railguncs]

donna is a great guest, i hope she becomes a regular

[@LLsunflower]

I disagree about Maui's take on NA teams looking weak -- Nouns and NRG were disappointments, obviously, but M80 and Elevate were playing with stand-ins, with the former still showing a decent result, Wildcard pretty much played to expectations and beat a SA team in a bo3, and Boss pretty clearly overperformed compared to expectations, and just got kind of unlucky with the format. NA also just got fucked in general by the fact that both Furia and Complexity, the unequivocal two best teams of the qualifier, beat three NA teams each to qualify; none of the T2 Brazilian teams had to actually play the top dogs of Furia, Complexity or Liquid. Meanwhile, BOSS had to play both Complexity and Liquid, and Liquid had to play both Furia and Complexity.

[@taziel4615]

19:35 Berreicherung = Enrichment (In english you don't use it this way) The english way to say would be improvement.

[@U4eUh]

35:31 wowwww hearing this metaphor really shifted a paradigm for me..

[@cristoforcasto2400]

I like the agent skins almost entirely for the voicelines and accents and stuff. I think they were a real fun add to the game for casual players (me, I consider solo MM comp to be extremely casual; they are a bunch of randos who don't know each other). I have all 3 voice com wheels full and use them every round and use voice comms. Sure it's not something everyone does which makes doing it all that much more fun. Very cool!

[@navox933]

Just a quick sidenote, as a German CS fan, I love your content.

[@rescoder]

Dieser Kommentarbereich ist nun Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland!

[@dayne6475]

1:26:00 I mostly agree with Dona here. I feel like mainly they couldve just made a tweet instead of an overdramatic private and public letter. Its just so poorly written that its almost embarrassing. Them saying they dont understand why a gory realistic shooter with 99% male audience has the 2 default character models being male and then saying it feels sexist is just so dumb I dont even understand how it was written in the first place. Or saying that Valve are complicit in and supporting sexism because they havent given them free shit, how ridiculous. If there is a sizeable amount of people that want this then sure, but I also feel like its not a good precedent to set that people can just make public, poorly written letters demanding changes based on how they feel and what they think with no real logical basis. Wheres the cutoff to that? Valve usually dont like setting up for precedents so it almost feels like the letter being as poor as it was just hurts this chance lmao. Also Astralis just said that there are 29 free default male skins, but there are only 2? Did people forget that we are playing cs2 not csgo? I think this proposition makes a lot more sense if it was like in CSGO where the default models looked different (take vertigo t side for example) but now its obviously a conscious decision for every default player to look the same. So what now, is 1 person just gonna get randomly screwed over and spawn with a different looking model so everyone can instantly recognize the player? Or do we just make the CTs female or something lmao. Best case scenario I guess is just making a CT and T version that looks and sounds female in inventory that you can choose to equip, but doesnt seem like anyone considers how that impacts the game that now everyone has a free model they can change. I doubt Valve would do this, not cause its a female model, but it seems that they want all the free models to look the exact same and I dont think thats entirely for cash grabbing. Not a big deal either way though EDIT: also a note, I really love Thorins idea of having a faceit hub for women, I think this would probably be one of the most impactful things they could do. Also Dona is right about the aesthetic difference of the games having a large impact as well. Riot games have said multiple times that their female players almost exclusively play the cutesy female characters whereas the male players play anything and everything

[@Gorimu]

Great episode

[@Mark-zg1gz]

In M80's defence they did recently lose their IGL and are playing with their coach.

[@Shinigami.GK3]

This show has taken over my need for BTN it always has bangers

[@Whitect4v]

Not for me, that show made me laugh too hard.

[@Q2MITSU]

That last comment about OhNe😂😂

[@pkftw4166]

Maui pointing out Yekindar is under performing. Many folks missed that with the skullz take.

[@ViGeeMan]

BANGER

[@Housewallly]

Thanks ❤

[@MusicJunkie37]

54:37 time to panic

[@tolland4433]

Hearing Dona's rant on the astralis fe open letter was so satisfying to hear. Cannot believe how many people think that it was okay to frame the topic as significant as it was and completely ignore how much the toxicity in the game contributes to lack of women playing it. Even if default female agents did draw in a bit more women, it doesn't make a difference if they stop playing due to toxicity anyway...

[@marius.1337]

That Otto clutch vs astralis on dust b site will have a place in my heart forever

[@realsayor857]

German Viewer here :D

[@jah9125]

Regarding Maui’s point about NA: 1. Let’s not forget M80 were playing with their coach Dephh & still almost beat Coldzera’s legacy for that major slot (Reck & Malbs are the truth), 2. ELEVATE were without their star AWP (Dea), 3. BOSS are not a mix like Dona stated (FA team) they’ve been together for over a year and in the meantime were picked up & dropped by Wild Card after that whole ordeal they lost their Awper who stayed (Slight) & grabbed Cynic RIP who tragically passed after helping them to literally qualify for the RMR, 4. New WILD CARD were pretty disappointing but it was their first REAL event especially for the youngsters JBa & Slight, 5. NOUNS unfortunately just fell flat so yes they were very disappointing, 6. NRG are the newest lineup here (newer than liquid or any team at the RMR) & they only just found out 1 week prior that they would be attending the RMR due to losing the CQ to Emiya’s Rocket who cheated, so they had no time to practice for this event due to short notice & playing qualifiers up until it was time to travel essentially. I know it sounds like a lot of excuses but I genuinely believe these unfortunate events had a big effect on the end result of the RMR: 4 🇧🇷 1 🇺🇸 I know for a fact Maui there is no way you believe any SA teams (other than 9z) that missed the RMR are HONESTLY better than the NA teams that were there.

[@Fabsh27]

Austrian here, I've been following Thorin for years now, and given that I'm from the better Germany so to say, I actually am able to understand the jokes. Dona is quite a good guest, keep up the great content!

[@Vlipper2009]

German here, watching your stuff for years, but the humor could be a bit drier

[@dmitrykim3096]

Yekindar is bad in cs2, his aim is average and without his aim he cant open frag and he is a one trick poney so now he is useless

[@orjay6745]

Watching from Germany! Never laughed once btw…

[@Monkeytownboss]

Much ❤ for dona

[@ghettogoblin2840]

Certainly Germans do not watch Thorins content, its in English. SAUERKRAUT!!

[@kamilianos]

you are a real princess Dona.

[@NotoriousFisher]

Did I miss something on twitter? Why is Ohne catching strays? Either way love to see Donna again.

[@d.cirovic1695]

Been watching from germany since 2015

[@foriahn]

Damn very cool getting Dona in nice to see. Next up should be Ohnepixel can give some insight on the cs skin market !

[@liam3104]

you think thorin gives 2 shits about skins?

[@AstroSully]

Richard would break up with Duncan

[@foriahn]

*Sarcasm* and he can also add other things then just cs skins 😂 @@liam3104

[@MrChris00078]

​@@AstroSully And rightfully so 😭

[@kurtaerts1630]

fuck the skin market, its just all gambling.

[@HahsJeje]

Yes, there are germans who love your content. Atleast I do lol ❤

[@kidmoyer4179]

Lmao at Thorin making the joke ‘well you should have dropped the gun for me.’ Then laughing to himself knowing he was talking to a German, who are notoriously joke-averse

[@63alkash]

1:35:35 pure gold

[@TYLERLOVESBMX1]

God bless Jason Lake ❤

[@toniskug6983]

Wait wait wait im 16 but as a Person that loves history i watch your content since 2016

[@alexkennedy6493]

I for one agree with everything you guys said in regards to device as igl however i for one dont abandon all hope for device even as an igl syre he studies his opponents playstyles tendencies etc but he also was igl by Karrigan, Glaive and worked with Zonic for years, so i dont write him off in the role i just hate that hes had to step up and take it cos the orgs making every rookie mistake possible.

[@dmitrykim3096]

Imagine imperial and furia got trashed 0-3 at the Major

[@sNiPeR95PwnZ]

Dona einfach ne lockere. Nice Episode meine Freunde

[@DonaCSGO]

Kuss

[@whoaitstiger]

"By the way guys, and I'm going to make a point actually and it's this: The thing I always say is, and spoiler, the joke is, and people won't know this but the joke is actually this really is in some sense the way it is you know! It really is like this guys, look I get the whole thing of being like oh I don't get that it's like this, but at some point it's like come on mate if you don't know what it's actually like by now then you're just telling on yourself as far as I'm concerned, but anyway. Go on."

[@dmitrykim3096]

We need to remmeber that players that were great in cs go may not be great in cs2, some players that were heavily reliant on their aim, picks can drop the balls

[@AM2K2]

Cheers

[@PandabearFPS]

if liquid gets in the major oof that didn't go as planned.

[@marcelfunke7261]

HAHAHA Bereicherung, really hard to translate

[@namas000]

Espirantos comeback would be epic..

[@dmitrykim3096]

The reason south america and cis bring so much more talents is that those money they can get in cs - thei are huge for brazillians and cis guys, but not so much for european and us guys. Motivation is not there

[@adityasingla2548]

Liquid not making it to the major... FeelsBadMen :(

[@TYLERLOVESBMX1]

Jason lake effect

[@knabla]

Regarding Maui's point about NA CS being weak: People outside of the US do not understand how slighted the NA CS scene is. Here in the US, PC gaming is growing all the time, but the vast majority play console games and titles like Call of Duty, etc. are more well known. I have not met many CS players in real life and I am an American. Secondly, the US population is much larger, thus people from EU think our talent pool should be very deep, but proportionally it isn't even remotely the same as EU. There are simply too many distractions in the US that keep the CS scene from growing, and when the COVID pandemic + Valorant released, it killed the scene by pulling all of the current, upcoming CS players/teams with any talent away to pursue opportunities with large organizations that were not available (or already taken) in CS. This is evident if you look at the current NA Valorant scene and see how much more successful it has been in contrast to CS. Of course, you cannot compare the two scenes equally but the difference is obvious. I know this has been addressed in the past, but the root of the problem has not been corrected so I don't foresee much changing in the future unless CS changes and attracts new NA players.

[@olsaaan]

US population is much larger than what?

[@knabla]

@olsaaan than many countries in the entire world. For example, Denmark is one of the major nationalities in CS. However, it has a much smaller total population than the US, and especially so if you consider NA as US/Canada/Brazil/etc. As a hypothetical, let's say that 25% of the Danish population plays CS (this is an arbitrary value as the trends will be the same) then the total number of Danish CS players is between 1 - 3 million conservatively. If the same ratio of players in the US play CS, the total number of US players is already nearing 100 million people. Therefore, you would assume the available generational talents that come from those 100 million would be higher.

[@olsaaan]

@@knabla The US population might be bigger than individual EU countries but the pool of competition is much smaller. There’s about half the amount of people in NA when compared to Europe.

[@belair5009]

CS at the esports level is a male-centric game. It's also a male-centric game at the casual level, one reason being that it is not a hero shooter. As a general rule, the more you appeal to women at the casual level, the more the esports level of the game will suffer. This can be seen in Valorant of course, which has a very entertaining level of play among the top teams but with much less emphasis on mechanical prowess.

[@chabetto]

the more you appeal to women the worse esport level drops? theres absolutely no correlation. adding more women doesnt dilute the esports level due to the filtering of skill as you move up the scene. what reduces the level is poor tournament management. cs has a healthy (kind of) tier 2/3 scene, with many teams being competitive against tier 1 opposition. you also have many regionals and many 'prestige events'. the same cannot be said for valorant. valorant and cs come from completely different perspectives, cs focusing more on gunplay (and thus mechanical prowess) and valorant focusing less on gunplay and interplay between heroes.

[@belair5009]

@@chabetto Valorant has appealed to women in order to get them to play the game casually by deemphasizing mechanical skill. Even if you are Zywoo you can't show use your mechanics to win in the same way you can in CS. That goes for casual and pro play. Agent composition and innovation are interesting and makes Valorant fun to watch but I still prefer CS.

[@chabetto]

@@belair5009 valorant appeals to women by their characters and fostering a less toxic environment for women. i dont really understand how theres any correlation from women gamers to mechanical skill needed. theres a much stronger case for inclusivity and trendiness (i.e. what are other women playing) being driving factors.

[@belair5009]

@@chabetto Women have worse aim and movement than men, at least if we're talking about FPS games. It's pretty obvious they're going to have less of a barrier playing Valorant because the gap between them and men mechanically isn't as high as with other games. I think it's weird to ignore that Valorant is one of the only esports that women can see other women be in radiant or on pro teams, and even have a Game Changers league dedicated to them. This would not be possible in a game with more punishing mechanical gameplay. You are pretending to not understand that mechanics is important to how much people play a game lol.

[@shintyxd788]

agreed with thorin where he said that the online characters gender dont even matter much when 99% of the game you dont even see your own character. The more important thing over here is that the female pro scene is almost non existent where they make some exclusive tourneys few times an year and then thats it. we need to support the female pro scene more (than having free female agents kekw) which has way more impact to esports in general. I think we can say the day a female pro team qualifies for major, we have achieved gender neutrality in e sports.

[@NaarO902]

we germans do watch your content :D

[@joshuac.402]

nice

[@blakeschannel1956]

Ok. Mauisnake is my favorite

[@ims0ul]

Since you have been roasting hallzerk, imagine if Complexity got dev1ce??

[@ShadowWasntHere8433]

Stavn and Jabbi leave Heroic, see the grass is always greener on the other side, stabbi their new IGL, and try to turn Device into CadiaN

[@Tophe]

I know a savant when I see one. Donk fits the bill.

[@FPSxD]

1:31:41 🔥

[@sthlmfps]

fanboy casuals like ohnepixel xD

[@neues3691]

Why should any sane person care how your character in a first person shooter looks.

[@BratShemi]

I'm surprised by Donas knowledge of the game tbh 👏

[@user-yz7uu5xw7m]

Yeah women don't play cs because of sexists. Brought by the same people who say women don't go into coding because of IT's toxic sexist corporate culture. Of course this is the only reason. As a man I have to say I got 0% of toxicity even when I was losing on purpose. But when I used AI female voice I got death threats even though I would ace every round

[@Phantox1101]

Where are the germans? :D

[@mushy5518]

Can we get ohnepixel as guest?

[@peepopoo4387]

Only if Thorin bullies him.

[@pardinho2000]

Moui is so mad cuz liquid didn't pick a NA player for their roster lol

[@thenightmancometh93]

For real lol skullz isn’t the problem at all but nothing will stop him from doubling down on hating on him

[@rx.ar1414]

ohnePixel fans 🤝Thorin fans

[@fdsafdsafa4144]

yeah I am both too. but damn he did our boy dirty with that last line lmao

[@gustavskavacs9991]

i do think that boyz often are like, that's literally me. Idk, had that often. Like the reason of doom eternal lovers are in some way you're like"F yeah I love it, this literally me. The only thing they fear is me, baby." I think that is more important than we think. Because we have that shit, right? I mean I also fucking hate the big corps making shit just for being woman, but yeah.

[@peepopoo4387]

TL shouldn't enable Cadian's terrible awping. This man got dominated by Junior in these RMR's. Cut Kekindar and get Degster. If Cadian can't make that work, get rid of him.

[@djayt]

The joke is btw

[@identifiesas65.wheresmyche95]

Dont understand this "which player is holding us back" mentality. Look at their roster - if yekindar is your worst player and youre not performing; could it be a teamwork issue?

[@xgui3136]

yekindar being worst player is actually not surprising, he sucks in cs2 him and skullz disappointing

[@identifiesas65.wheresmyche95]

@@xgui3136 That says something about the caliber of the team. The fact that they couldnt beat Furia OR Complexity means they have bigger problems than yekindar and skullz.

[@Mad1Lee]

Man, that Liquid and Yekindar cope aged like milk.

[@Jerome-iwnl]

TL did not survive...

[@8roma8]

i hear that one of the t models fells female, aside from that idk

[@8roma8]

i got lost in the model discussion, there are female agents, the issue was agents for the epost official matches?

[@dmitrykim3096]

I will be always happy when stabbi lose

[@rufio171]

I think CS is enabling europeans to get better at speaking English

[@frenchtoastfps3217]

What’s awful on the women who play cs thing is that it doesn’t even matter how well you perform. Some of my friends can literally 5-stack with me and other college friends and she can top frag 3.0 KD and if they look at her steam profile, they’ll call her fat and shit and tell her to go to the kitchen even if we sit them down 13-2 or something. And obviously if you bottom frag you get the worst of it. Incels on the internet, nothing new. But the community only hurts itself

[@fVNzO]

Great friends you have bro.

[@funkygizmo]

a lot of people don't realize that the reason Riot Games games attract more female players is due to the male playerbase being drastically different. those games (even overwatch) attract a more "feminine" group of male players because the characters have real personalities and are quirky in game with voicelines. this causes players who ARE looking for representation in games because they want themselves to be shown to the mainstream (gay/trans people, etc) to play those games more because they can identify with those characters. and people of these groups tend to be way more socially accepting of everyone thus creating a more welcoming environment for women. no one plays cs because of the characters, they're just nameless faceless entities that mean nothing, so the game doesn't attract those kinds of players and instead attract players who really just want to compete in a competitive game. and the problem with that is competitive environments breed hostility to people who are different whether is be in skill level, map knowledge, and for extreme losers different genders.

[@dmitrykim3096]

Elige is good but comoelxity will not get to playoff, so liquid is weak

[@rx.ar1414]

yeah Floppy, hallzerk and Grim are far too inconsistent

[@dmitrykim3096]

@@rx.ar1414 yep seeing American rmr it may seem like furia and complexity are crazy strong but Mongols will beat them at the Major

[@slayinkittys2843]

Also Maui complaining about skulls all the time is pathetic. If skulls is required to put up a 1.2 rating in order for liquid to win, then liquid has failed...

[@BratShemi]

Liquid should ve got autimatic instead of skullz

[@tech4172]

I give up on maui man how can you say jabbi is the worst on that team when stavn is, and btw device is consistent these days his consistency is being below par for an average pro. -BlameF was good because anyone who doesn't have bias can see he's not a team player and his style has been costing his career. Glaive should never go back to that org just give it up you will never have a dominant Danish team after the old astralis the while org changed it used to be Team first now its just org first players last.

[@Mauisnake]

You just said in a lot of words they all suck

[@user-qc5kp1cy5s]

espiranto good point? bro nobody ever see anything great out of the guy thats why hes name never mentioned within the scene unless hltv announces something about him. nothing against him but he need to solidify himself as great player at tier 1 scene then people might have more good opinion about him.

[@Phantox1101]

1:48:00 This was the old nip management :D

[@63alkash]

Since then it only went downhill

[@Phantox1101]

@@63alkash the young ninjas are cooking since then. The main team was temporary. You can rate them after the roster changes