The all-black loadout is a build everyone gets around to sooner or later. It doesn't ask for rare patterns, low floats or hours of palette matching — you just need the pieces to agree with each other on shade. It's also harder to pull off than it sounds. There's surprisingly little true black in CS2, and half the finishes filed under "dark" turn out on closer inspection to be grey,

On August 14, 2013, Valve shipped the update that stopped Counter-Strike from being just a shooter. The Arms Deal Update brought in decorated weapons, two cases, eight collections tied to maps, keys, trading, Steam Community Market listings and the inspect view.The community wasn't impressed. Half the forums argued that paint jobs had nothing to do with competitive CS and that Valve was messing about instead of fixing the balance. The

We promised a separate piece on Cryptids, so here it is. But we have to start with the numbers rather than the artwork.It's been almost a month since the second Call to Arms-ory was announced, and the Cryptids tag on the Workshop has pulled in roughly twenty pages of submissions. A good chunk of those are variations on the same three ideas: a silhouette in the woods, a saucer in

For three days in Paris, Counter-Strike looked the way it hasn't looked in twenty years. Sixty-four teams showed up for the Esports World Cup's open LAN qualifier to fight over just four slots into the main bracket, where 28 more were already waiting. Add it up and you get a LAN event with nearly a hundred teams in one place — one shared hall, tables shoulder to shoulder, and s1mple