CSGO 2023: A look into the upcoming CSGO season

CSGO 2022 - A Retrospect:

The 2022 CSGO season saw the return of LAN at full power, featuring 13 LAN events. In the first Major of the year, we saw the first international team to lift a major trophy in Faze Clan. Faze Clan was the dominant team in the first half of 2022. The year also saw Vitality finally getting its hands on an S-Tier event. The second Major LAN saw a major upset and the dark horse Outsiders coming out of nowhere to lift the trophy. Following the Major, we saw Cadian and Heroic finally getting a trophy. At the year's final event, G2 Esports, with the youngster m0NESY, won an S-tier LAN event after a long 1092 days drought.

CSGO 2023 - A look ahead:

The upcoming year will also be a bang with CSGO going strong. With the new ranking system in place, Valve is changing the qualification for the Major. The CSGO season will kick off with IEM Katowice featuring the top teams in the world. The year will also bring the first Major in Paris with Blast.tv hosting the year's first major. With the plethora of IEM and EPL events, the year will be full of CSGO action.

With multiple big names returning to action, the year will be a delight for multiple fans. After almost a year of hiatus, KennyS returned to an active lineup. We also saw the return of King Devve to his throne, and we will see Astralis stride to the top of the CSGO world again.

Faze Clan's most successful iteration will try getting its hands on multiple major trophies in the upcoming season. G2 Esports win at the final S-tier event of 2022 will only make them more hungry. They will be looking to harness and make m0NESY the star he's meant to be. Speaking of stars, With NaVi making changes for 2023, we can see them winning more trophies. s1mple despite the lack of trophies, he still stands as the undeniably best player of the year.

With Team Liquid's strong performances since the arrival of YEKINDER, we might see a re-invigorated Liquid which will win more events. Finally, Heroic's long-awaited victory has brought many smiles, and they will try to continue their winning ways in 2023.

Players to look forward to in 2023:

With the old guard holding up the CSGO banner, some new youngsters will join the S-Tier scene in 2023. Starting with Navi Junior's npl getting promoted to the Main roster, we will see the Ukrainian youngster getting impact to his senior b1t a year before. On Astralis, Buzz will join Dev1ce, BlameF, Gla1ve and Xyp9x to make the 2023 roster. Finally, Ninjas in Pyjamas will join the star Awper from Navi Junior in headtr1ck. A role left empty after dev1ce departure. All these players have bright futures ahead of them, and they will surely make their impact. 2023 might also be the year we see S1mple dethroned as m0NESY will be looking to take the spot. With so many storylines, 2023 will surely be a great year for CSGO.

Image Credits: João Ferreira/PGL