[abcde777666]

The standards have gone up a lot over time. Your average player now knows who the tops teams are and watches them play. Vastly different from the early 2000s when just knowing to aim at heads set you apart.

Even to be a top 10% player these days you need to either be a veteran or to practice for long hours.

Must be hell for anyone new who wants to try the game!

[vehemenz]

On the other hand, there are a lot more competitive video games than there used to be, so the best competitive gamers are spread all around instead of just in Counter-Strike.

[sage76]

This is true. Even at mid levels of faceit, people throw full executes and run around clicking heads easily.

[whoknowsidont]

Yeah, as someone who grew up in ye old days of even pre-Steam CS, the skill level the "average" player has now is incredible. Hoping into a casual match of Counter-Strike you'd think you accidentally ended up in someone's scrim match.

I don't have the time or passion these days to practice, but even if I did, I'd imagine it'd still be a very difficult environment to just be somewhat decent.