Quick Hit: Valkyrie Season 2 Underway

In our series Quick Hit, axtremes drops his opinion with lightning speed while his hat overlords aren’t looking.

The ASUS Valkyrie CS:GO League is back. Again presented by Mettlestate, the only all-female CS:GO league on the continent is now on its second season. What’s got to make the Mettlestate crew feel particularly proud is the growth of the league from the inaugural season in terms of team count. They’ve gone from nine entrants to a commendable 13 teams in the second edition. That’s some pretty positive growth. A year ago there were only three female teams that I can recall being active in the scene.

Forging ahead

The one thing I would like to see in Season Two is a progression in terms of the overall level of play compared to the first season. As Shaun “Profeci” Murrell was saying while we were in the green room between games on the Evetech Champion League Broadcast, the female teams have no shortage of skilled AWPers. Which is a great position to be in. Where they appear to visibly lag behind regular CS:GO teams is in the rifles department. The other four players that are not the sniper, tend to seem a bit less impactful. That’s a generalization of course, because there are some great riflers in the league. I do think it’s a very valid observation though.

Economic management also seems a little off at times, with teams way to eager to force buy on pistols and SMGs. That could partially be influencing the general lack of strong rifles as the sniper is the one player saving more regularly and therefore has their prefered weapon more of the time. If one of the goals for Valkyrie is development, more teams is a good step in the right direction. However, a higher caliber of Counter-Strike coming out of the players has got to be just as important. The addition of experienced coaches to many of the teams would certainly help in this regard as well. I hope to see more of the teams taking on a coach or analyst.

So Stronk

I’d also like to see a higher level of competitiveness across the log from more of the teams than in Season One. It can’t just be a Bravado and LeetPro show in Season Two with a bit of WRG Amaryllis thrown in on occasion. There’s been some roster shuffles and changes amongst many of the teams you’d recognize from last season. I get the impression Bravado Finesse may not have it quite as easy as last time around, particularly with having to find a replacement for Carmen “Cjay” McLeod.

With several more weeks of action coming up, make sure you show up to support your favourite teams every Wednesday at 7pm over on Twitch.