It took nine years of CSGO for Israel to make its first mark on the Major, but in its final throes Israel is inarguably a big player.
Though there are only four Israeli players at the final Major, those players are all integral to their team’s success, and they make up some of the best players in the world. In this feature, we take a look at Spinx, xertioN, flameZ and nertZ
This is the most players the region has ever sent to a Major, and it’s quite telling of how much the game has changed that there are more Israelis than there are French players.
At a French Major.
One of them will have the full force of France behind him, however. Spinx is the glistening diamond, the crowning glory of Israel, a purpose-built super-soldier capable of the sublime and the quietly efficient in equal measure.
If you were building the perfect foil to ZywOo, you’d struggle to do better than Spinx. He was the true superstar of an ENCE team who burst into the upper tiers of Counter-Strike and showed no signs of stopping, but has evolved into more of a lurker on Vitality.
At first it felt like he didn’t quite have the natural cadence for the roles, and his first few months on Vitality exposed that he was still learning. He would get caught out, or his lurks would be a few moments too late, or too early. It seemed like Vitality had stolen the finest jewel without finding a suitable spot in their crown to put it - and ZywOo was never being displaced.
And then, it clicked.
Now, his timing is immaculate. He took a little while to feel the rhythm, but as sure as the sun rises and sets, Spinx climbs to the top. Boasting frankly preposterous numbers with alarming consistency, he is without a doubt one of the finest riflers in the world.
Vitality have to be one of the favourites coming into Paris. With the only two Frenchmen at the event and ergo the power of the Parisian crowd behind them, expectations couldn’t really be higher - especially when you add in that Vitality won the preceding tournament. They’ve won their last nine BO3s, and between the electric form of the aforementioned Spinx and the freakish star power of ZywOo, one can easily envisage them winning the next nine.
xertioN refused to lose.
When MOUZ were one game from the stacked Last Chance Qualifier or Paris, it was their own Israeli gem who rose highest and almost single-handedly forced MOUZ to not miss the event. The team have always had something of a ‘glass jaw’ - that is to say, no matter how hard they punched, one always felt they could be knocked out with a single swing. They could jab and hook with the best teams in the world, but they’d rarely win. xertioN, however, was having none of that.
While the rest of his team faltered a little bit, xertioN leveled up, and in turn his teammates were forced to match him. Few rounds sum up his impact on that game quite like the entry 3k he picked up, where despite being tagged down to low HP early on, xertioN took a gamble and flanked through library. Where many would shrivel up and look to be traded, or hold an angle, xertioN realised that he might as well go for a high risk, high reward play - for the risk was lowered once he was almost dead anyway.
It’s simple - and if it doesn’t work, you might look like a bit of a fool - but it’s a mark of how instinctive xertioN is, and his unerring desire to win rounds, rather than avoid a loss. It also was a display of his phenomenal mechanics, but that didn’t need proving.
If MOUZ are to surprise; if MOUZ are to succeed in any sense, in fact, it’ll be off the back of xertioN. His near-flawless crosshair placement combined with untethered aggression make up a quicksilver player, but one has to wonder if his mercurial qualities are a function of MOUZ as a whole.
Aggressive players are notoriously - by design, almost - inconsistent. This is only exacerbated by the team behind you ebbing and flowing too, and xertioN’s peaks are frequent and devastating enough to make you believe he might be a superstar. MOUZ are a good team, a very good team in fact; but xertioN could be something special.
If I’m to continue the diamond/gems theme, Israel would be Sierra Leone. ENCE lost their superstar Spinx, and after valde struggled to fill his hefty boots, they turned to Spinx’s countryman NertZ. They went underground and found a new gem.
Now, NertZ is a very different player, but it’s hard not to make comparisons. NertZ is a bit more aggressive early on in the round, but shares the absurd mechanical ability and round-changing firepower. ENCE didn’t replace one-for-one, but at the same rate NertZ will be the person they turn to in a moment of need.
With qualification on the line - having fought back from 0-2 - NertZ was the main man. Much like xertioN, he put up huge numbers when his team needed him most, and dragged his team past Cloud9.
ENCE are a dark horse to win the whole thing, realistically, and if they do go all the way one would imagine it would be predicated on NertZ bringing that form into the main event.
Despite coming into OG with the reputation of a potential superstar, flameZ has become something of a quietly efficient team player. Despite not boasting the same god-tier ratings of his fellow countrymen, he’s a very important part of everything that OG do well.
He’s often used as a first man in on the T side, and is usually given anchor-type spots on CT side. Not quite B anchor on Mirage, but usually more static, lower fragging spots. It goes under the radar because, well, he does them really well.
The sort of jobs he does are the type that when done well, you don’t notice. He’s quietly very efficient in terms of CT side holds and takes space very well on bomb site hits. He’s not the superstar he was billed as - though one could debate in a different team he could be - but he’s somewhat more valuable.
Finding reliable players who can take tough roles without complaining is not easy, yet flameZ is willing to put aside his ego and do what his IGL feels is best.
flameZ likely won’t get the credit if OG succeed, but he will deserve it.
There are a handful of nations more likely to have a Major winner at this event. There’s Denmark, and Russia, and… that’s basically it. The odds of MOUZ, Vitality, OG or ENCE winning a Major combined has to be better than the odds of any team, so it’s truly only those with multiple shots.
Which is… a wild thing to think about, but completely true.
Israel has somehow created four excellent tier one players, spread out over four different tier one teams, all of which are key parts of the team’s rifle cores. Not only that, but there’s a very real chance that if their team won, they’d be the MVP.
Although it does seem unlikely for Spinx to win it, given he’s paired with ZywOo.
This is completely unheard of, not least because as mentioned in the opening paragraph, they’re not even really used to having players at a Major, never mind in with a shot of winning it, never mind being one of the more likely candidates.
If that’s the case, why don’t they join forces and create a super team
We’ve seen pretty mixed results on national galactico rosters. While the idea is alluring, limiting yourself to that pool of players can make it tough to make changes when things stop clicking.
One issue an Israeli super team would have would be finding the AWPer. While good AWPers in the region do exist, the four players named in this article seem necessary for any success, and you’d probably want an IGL.
In fact, the biggest problem with this team would be that Israel has too many superstars. Spinx, xertioN and NertZ are all sensational players, but would overlap in terms of roles and positions somewhat. That’s normal, of course, but which one do you give the off-roles to?
Indeed, it seems better for them to leverage a big advantage Israel has over many of the other nations who find themselves in international rosters - excellent English. So many of the international rosters default to English, and English is taught from a young age in Israel somewhat akin to the Scandinavian countries, though not quite as proficiently.
It’s tough to know for sure what changed that propelled Israel to this status. As mentioned above, that so many teams were open to international rosters almost certainly helped, as well as a general growth in the quality of the region Israel exists in.
Due to being located in the Middle East, Israel has often struggled to get high quality practice - but as the teams have improved around them, this has helped them improve with them. But it’s more than that - a large part of the reason Israel is finally flourishing is, bizarrely, Endpoint.
The British org’s unique methods in terms of scouting brought them to flameZ, and also to NertZ. Players who would be ignored by most European teams were instead being flagged as potential superstars by Endpoint, who took the gamble knowing that getting it right would mean big bucks.
This in turn made people reevaluate - were they missing something?
It’s also possible that rather than some grand change in the fabric of the culture over there, this is a case of good fortune, of a golden generation that comes through from time to time. Similarly to how Croatia has produced a world class football team for possibly the first time in its existence in the last 10 years, perhaps Israel has gotten a bit lucky.
The players’ willingness to prove themselves in Europe and grind to improve in a region that is often ignored, however, is no fluke. That is a case of desire, self-belief and grit, and the rewards are spectacular.
Israel might well win its first and only CSGO Major in Paris, and it’s tough to bet against it happening. A nation so easily ignored for the first 8 years of Counter-Strike is now impossible to disregard.
Israel is a Counter-Strike powerhouse, and this Major is a chance to cement it.
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