What if Counter-Strike had no nade limits? Innocent question, but when investigated, all we found was pure hell. Greetings, I, the War Owl, greets you.
four. You can carry a total of four grenades in competitive Counter-Strike, one of each type, two flashes. I changed the settings on my competitive server to allow for five of each grenade.
Five nades, five smokes, five molotovs, five flashes, and yes, five decoys as well. Grenade limits in Counter-Strike exist for many reasons, as you will soon find out. Here's what happened.
First, we decided to play Inferno, since it was the map that would probably be the most broken. It was. Wait, It's okay chicken.
We got this One tight Let's just make sure we have enough smokes to keep mid and banana smoke the whole round. Yeah, I have five smokes I'll focus on mid the first noticeable change in meta was that if the CTs had enough money No matter what happened in the round the terrorists would have to push through smokes at some point A whole W on mid kind of play A lot of flashes mid I hear him close mid I think throw your nades there Oh, he just ran out! It cost $1500 to purchase 5 smokes each round and infinitely hold off the choke points.
Eventually, we got bored of this turtle play and decided to be a little stupid. Wait, wait, wait, WarOwl, go peek alt mid, I got 5 flashes to- Now? Second. What happened?
Nice. He's hurt. I'm smoking mid.
Go! Here he goes. Get you some content! Get you some content! That's content, baby!
That's content, boys! It had nothing to do with the nades, but that's okay. This is a decoy round guys.
Buy five decoys and just keep throwing them. Deploying decoy. Deploying decoy. Deploying decoy. Deploying decoy.
Banana's clear again. Deploying decoy. Guys, deploying decoy. And now I'm going to go and get the Now we run through the smoke mid. Come on, let's do it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, that's a good mini map. Let's go. Let's go.
Oh my gosh. It's okay, chicken. We got this. It's okay chicken, we got this. Can I have- can someone grab me a rifle?
Uh, yeah I kinda wanted to buy a- 10 molotovs, but yeah, I'll give you the... I have four molotovs. I think I need my nades for banana more. Oh, so you're just buying nades and then taking the drops?
Yes. Oh, that's perfect. Watch out.
Lord Wen, that's a standard nade position you're standing in. So Inferno was a mess, but what about a map with a few more hallways, a few more contact points, and a few more ways for the T side to abuse the new nade limit? With so much utility, ops weren't very useful. You could infinitely...
Smoke them off, nade their positions, flash them, mid control became a lot easier for the T's. And realistically, a single player could throw all the utility needed for an A site take, including re-smokes to prevent the retake. Throwing my first flash Second flash third flash.
One's window. Fourth flash in the middle of the site Oh my smokes, they're beautiful! Look at them! Still, that didn't change the fact that save rounds on Mirage T side were impossible. What could you realistically do on this map with nothing but a Glock?
One window now, back window. Nice. One's pushing through B, one's pushing through B. I think it's cat out here.
Nope, one pushing through B. At the trade. One under I think.
No, no, no, he's B. There was one mid, uh, 14. Just kill. WarOwl, go kill. I think that's kill.
Watch this nade kids He needed all six, he didn't use the sixth and that's why YEEEEAAAAAAA No armor eco round, let's do it man. I'm on board. That had nothing to do with the nades as well.
Economy became even more important when you could buy so much utility. If the CTs weren't able to build up a bank, they couldn't infinitely hold off the choke points. And if a team bought too many nades, they'd screw over their own economy.
Mirage was way more balanced, but still stupid. Both teams gave up even trying to execute a B-take. But what about a map with an open skybox, where both teams could throw utility nearly anywhere on the map from anywhere on the map?
Do we have time to play a game three? Let's check the video time. In seven, four, and... Yeah, it needs to be ten minutes or they don't give me money. What is this strat crypto?
What am I looking at right now? I was watching that What is this strat crypto? It didn't work!
I'm gonna chill here and get on the smoke There's smokes everywhere, you're gonna crash my server What? What? It worked. I am sure that's not it. Wait, what?
What? At this point, we kind of all gave up on the million-aid thing. It was kind of a waste of time. of money to buy five frag grenades for 1500 and do 20 damage with them. Managing the economy was more important, but it did mean if a team got ahead, they got really far ahead.
And to be honest, we stopped focusing on the nades and just started playing Counter-Strike. Notice here I have five flashes and two molotovs. They're executing an A-take. The right thing to do is to be a good boy and molotov the entrance and flash them before peeking or flash for my teammates to peek, but instead I just got bored and shot them all because it's more fun.
Nine seconds, stay alive. OOOOOOOH Keep the nade limits, Valve. Don't be like PUBG or Pavlov. Nades in Counter-Strike give the game a unique flavor of strategy and skill.
They are carefully practiced and precisely implemented. I played with a bunch of buggers. Imagine what this would look like at the pro level, or heck, even just a team that prepared for this kind of meta. It'd be a complete disaster.
Predicting enemy utility, keeping track of what they've thrown, where they've thrown it, waiting out smokes and molotovs, saving enough for the afterplant, All of that goes out the window. Four nades, one of each type, two flashes, 20 years. Counter-Strike is a delicate balance.
It's a game that succeeds because of the formula. I think that's why there's always such a massive pushback on any new changes, even good changes, because the game works, and people don't want it to be thrown off balance. Ah, I almost forgot!
Happy New Year! Welcome! to the roaring 20s, you're gonna love the self-driving cars, Cure for Cancer, and Half-Life 3. My New Year's resolution is to actually finish Solo Queue to Global. Thank you all so much for watching.
I am the War Owl, and I still have no closer. Soon all will be revealed. Yeah!
The day of reckoning is upon us. Reckoning? I've eaten 40 pizzas in 30 days.