What Does Space Mean In CS:GO?
Defining everyone's favourite platitude of "space" and discussing the concept of creating and using space in professional CS:GO with respect to the top 5 teams at the Blast CS:GO Major Paris 2023.
Introduction
If you told someone who watched professional CS:GO in the early eras that the French player apEX would become an IGL of an international team vying for a Major trophy, they would probably laugh at you. Back then, he was one of the most prominent entry fraggers, known for opening bombsites. In 2014, one of his best years, 17.5% of his kills were opening kills, and he had an opening kill ratio of 1.12.
In 2023 so far, these statistics are now 13.4% and 0.74 respectively. While the ratio perhaps reflects the fact that he is no longer as individually skilled, the percentage showcases a shift towards a less aggressive playstyle (likely due to role changes).
This is interesting, but when you look at a similar player in dupreeh, this is not the case at all - 2014, 2018, 2023, all of these years return an opening kill percentage of around 16-17% - so does this mean entry fragging hasn’t changed throughout the years?
The same can be said about lurking. GeT_RiGhT, one of the most notable “hard lurkers” in history, had to change his style in the latter portion of his career to continue playing, while some players like Happy didn’t adapt. So why do we call players like ropz, one of the best players in 2023, lurkers?
I’ve taken a look at the T sides of the five teams - FaZe, NaVi, G2, Vitality, Heroic - who are in the best position to win the final CS:GO Major (enough platitudes?) and looked at their entry stats. Before I do, let me explain what I mean by “space”. (If you disagree with it - tell me on Twitter!)
What is “Space” in CS:GO?
I believe space is best visualised when you look at the minimap of a game. If you reduce it down to the most simplistic case, such as a smoke execute on a bombsite, the player who enters the bombsite first (traditionally called an “entry fragger”) is seeking to create space for his team to plant the bomb and reach favourable post-plant positions. In turn, the defending CTs have to choose whether to fight for the space with their weapons or to relinquish that space and play for a retake.
Think of it like chess, but with a twist - when you move a piece, there’s no guarantee that it lands on the square you choose. Instead, you have to engage in a test of game sense and mechanical skill that decides whether you succeed in gaining control of the “board”. In chess, how much space you have can sometimes be measured by how many squares your pieces control on your opponent’s half of the board - in much the same way, the terrorists gain space by controlling territory on the map.
In practice, it’s more complicated. Overextending, utility, the dynamic nature of map control, and much more; Counter-Strike is not just site executes and 50/50 aim duels. That being said, there are players who tend towards creating space for themselves and their team, and there are players who tend towards using empty space for their benefit. The archaic terms for those players are “entry fraggers” and “lurkers” - but I think these terms are simply not as applicable as they used to be.
So, alongside this concept of space, I’ve decided to sort players into the more broader categories of “space creators” and “space users”. There’s also an awkward discussion to be had about AWPers, but that’s perhaps for another article.
FaZe - the best lurker, but it’s not who you think it is
FaZe are a team that most people would consider the “ideal” team in terms of roles - you have a traditional entry in rain, a traditional lurker in ropz, a strong and aggressive IGL in karrigan, and so on.
Given that ropz is the space user, you would assume he performs the strongest on the T side as he has the most resources at his disposal - and this is correct! He has posted a 1.19 HLTV rating on the T side in 2023 so far, which is significantly higher than Twistzz at 1.12 in second place.
The opening kill attempts (OpK for brevity), however, tell a different story - while ropz boasts a 13.5% OpK, broky is actually the most passive player on the T side with a measly 9.6% OpK - the lowest of any player from the top 5 teams. It’s serendipitous that commentator/analyst launders tweeted that “people just think he’s aggro because he has explosive clutches” at around the same time I’ve been writing this - the stats don’t lie.
In this case, ignoring the outlier of broky (not just because of the low OpK, but because he is an AWPer), FaZe does somewhat follow the traditional structure, with karrigan and rain making up 57.7% of OpK attempts collectively and the strongest T sided rifler being the space user.
G2 - star players regardless of opening kills
Anyone suggesting that all NiKo does is bait to get his high stats will be shocked to discover he even outranks HooXi in OpK attempts, with a 1.19 rating (the same as m0NESY) and 1.2 K/D ratio.
Looking at this team, you’d come to the obvious conclusion that jks is the space user, and this is indeed the case, with 10.9% OpK. You would also likely conclude that he is the third or fourth best player on this roster - so why does he get to use the space with a rating of 1.09 on the T side when “better” players like NiKo should, in theory, be given the more powerful role?
This ties into one of the reasons why I believe that it is better to title players with this “space” terminology - it is not necessarily better to be a space user than a space creator, and vice versa. Some players, like NiKo, are capable of thriving in limited space, knowing how to find the entry kill in an intelligent way and not in a brute force, one-for-one style that you would attribute to an entry fragger.
Interestingly enough, the players on G2 are in the same order (m0NESY, NiKo, jks, huNter-, HooXi) with respect to rating for opening kills and for overall kills - perhaps showing that the players are rarely uncomfortable with the amount of aggression their team structure requires of them.
Vitality - Top heavy, bottom heavier
Looking at the distribution of the K-D differential on Vitality’s T side tells you all you need to know - they get carried, hard. The top two produce +178, the bottom three produce -213, a difference of 391; the next highest is unsurprisingly NaVi at a difference of 201 (more on that later).
As mentioned in the intro, dupreeh is the quintessential entry player, and it shows in his entry attempts on the T side with a 24.8% OpK. Also mentioned was the shift in apEX’s gameplay towards a more passive playstyle, but what was omitted was his atrocious success rate with the opening duels he does take. 32.1% is almost as bad as HooXi and a little worse than karrigan, but both of those leaders are attempting way more opening duels than apEX is - so at least they are creating space one way or another. As it stands, apEX doesn’t create space, but doesn’t perform with the space he is granted - not a sustainable recipe for the T side.
The top heavy nature of Vitality is what allows them to have the second highest T side round win percentage of 54.5% despite having so many liabilities - Spinx, the space user, posts a 1.19 rating while taking 14.1% of opening duels. I mentioned before how AWPers are harder to classify with respect to space, but the reality is that ZywOo can only be classified as an alien. He doesn’t require as much space as Spinx does, but puts up a stupidly high 1.31 rating on the T side, which not even the all time greats like s1mple and NiKo are doing right now. Time will tell whether he can do the same thing when the stakes are high - the Major is calling his name.
NaVi - No roles and it shows
A lot of parallels can be drawn between NaVi and Vitality - mainly, electroNic and s1mple vs Spinx and ZywOo. However, this comparison could only be made by name value - in reality, NaVi is now a team without firepower and without reasonable roles as a result, with a 51.3% round win percentage on the T side.
Before you read on, ask yourself this - who on NaVi would you classify as a “lurker”? Who is good enough to demand space? You’d think electroNic, the best rifler, could make a case for himself - but he is leading the pack by far with 27.1% OpK, so clearly he is focused on making space in the absence of Boombl4. This leaves npl, Perfecto, and b1t - and out of those, you would say Perfecto is probably best left in the clutch.
While it’s not by much (15.6% - the least passive “space user” from these five teams), Perfecto is the space user on NaVi. However, comparing him to the three prior riflers (ropz, Spinx, jks) you can probably see that he is the “worst” player of the bunch, with a 1.02 T side rating - an incredibly proficient CT role player, but an adequate T rifler. Once again, the pattern is broken - the best rifler (electroNic, with a 1.09 T side) is not the space user.
Understanding how clueless the T side looks for NaVi requires looking at how they were structured in 2022 - back then, Perfecto took less opening duels, and sdy was a relatively passive player, so he would fit in the middle. These fluctuations of 2-3% OpK have had to occur because there are no longer two aggressive riflers on the T side for NaVi - b1t and npl are both surprisingly passive.
Why is this wrong? Think about it this way - G2 and FaZe have two pretty aggressive riflers. Heroic don’t necessarily have that, but they have an incredibly dynamic calling style that leads to a more even OpK rate as cadiaN bounces around the map. Vitality and NaVi are two teams who play a standard brand of CS - but while ZywOo and Spinx can combine for 1.31 and 1.19 respectively, s1mple alone only provides 1.14 as the best T side performer. There simply isn’t enough firepower for this team to be full of space users; someone apart from electroNic needs to create the space.
Heroic - dynamic, yet structured
Once dubbed the “fakey boys” by SPUNJ, Heroic have been defined by a brand of proactive T side play that sees them have the highest flash assists of the top 5 teams at 0.33 flash assists per round, much higher than the 0.28 that Vitality, G2 and FaZe have.
The most passive/clutch players on Heroic are stavn and sjuush, and the statistics back this up - both hover around 17-18% OpK. cadiaN, however, is more passive than both of them, something that Jame also does as an AWPing IGL. It seems that while being an IGL as a rifler compels you to push for information and take unfavourable duels in order for the better players on your team to gain space, AWPing IGLs seem more likely to flash for their riflers and observe the battlefield from the back, and either playing out clutches or saving the AWP depending on their preference.
TeSeS and jabbi are the two aggressive riflers of the pack - and it is jabbi who has performed the strongest with a 1.13 rated T side despite being a relatively aggressive player, similar to NiKo. However, stavn is right behind with a 1.1 rating, suggesting that there is a remarkable consistency with the riflers on Heroic being capable of performing in openings and performing during the end of rounds.
In this case, Heroic doesn’t conform to the typical standards of OpK percentage and T side rating, but that was to be expected - the team itself doesn’t have a particularly normal style. Relying on the system instead of the players is simultaneously why the team almost never loses to worse teams, but caps out so frequently against teams with strong individuals. Other teams have started to include parts of this back and forth playstyle, and I fully expect the next “era” team to incorporate this style with actual experienced players and a stronger AWPing IGL.
Conclusion
Out of all of the top teams mentioned here, only FaZe and Vitality have their best riflers, ropz and Spinx, being the prominent space user on the team. G2 and NaVi have their strongest riflers as the space creators - NiKo and electroNic respectively.
Heroic is the only team that doesn’t follow either pattern, but you also wouldn’t necessarily know which rifler is the “strongest” on that team to begin with! Some would say stavn, some would say jabbi, and depending on your eye test, others may even prefer sjuush or TeSeS. Whether the Heroic style is a consequence of this or whether it causes this is something to ask cadiaN in an interview one day.
Classifying these riflers into space creators and space users allows their skill set to be better framed. On the basic level, if you take fewer opening duels, your current play style is geared towards using space. Players like jks embody this philosophy, where they work best with all the information in the late rounds.
Alternatively, great riflers also choose to take more entry duels if they are comfortable creating space - players who have recently adapted to a more aggressive playstyle like NiKo (OpK from 19% in 2018 to 27.8% in 2023) and electroNic (20.1% to 27.1%) are demonstrating it is possible for players to perform while having to take space. (It’s not a great sign that two of the greatest riflers of all time are the examples though).
The modern entry fragger in YEKINDAR deserves a mention - in 2023, he has an outstanding 34.4% OpK attempt rate, and has a 1.04 rating for the T side overall. There’s something to be said for electroNic being an IGL and still outperforming dedicated space creators with his shift to that role.
NiP in 2013 had friberg with >30% OpK as a traditional entry with no clear lurk, but fnatic in 2015 had no real lurker with two players around 25% OpK and three players around 16% OpK - meanwhile, Astralis in 2018 had a lurking, passive player with Xyp9x with multiple players taking opening duels. It’s never been as cut and dry as “every team has an entry fragger and a lurker”. I propose we retire these terms, or only use them when talking about a specific situation like a lurk in a specific round, or an entry in a specific site execute - and focus more on space.
At the end of the day, it’s just easier to explain how space works when you watch a game, rather than having to explain every time an “entry” doesn’t die first that he is still in charge of taking space on average, and vice versa for a “lurk”.
Afterword
Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this article! I wanted to get something out before the Major got fully underway, and since all the top teams are going to be playing in the days to come, no better time to get it out than now.
Work still ongoing on YouTube ideas - perhaps pick’ems soon? Let me know if there are any ideas you want me to try covering.