The Extreme Masters tournament in Los Angeles is just around the corner. You can’t help but wonder what the future will bring every time there is a big Counter-Strike 1.6 tournament. The North American 1.6 scene is stagnant at best. There is still CAL and CEVO, but one can’t help but notice that the competitive spirit and the will to really achieve are lacking if compared to previous years.

For two teams though, it’s just getting stronger and stronger. Turmoil and eMg are the two North American teams that have a sure spot at the Extreme Masters in LA. Before the Championship Gaming Series, no one would ever consider these teams as World Class teams. However, they chose to continue playing and are now household names when talking about top North American clans. Could this be the spark that the dwindling community needs? Or is this just another futile attempt and only relenting the inevitable?

When it comes to international tournaments, or at least tournaments that have a variety of international teams, Turmoil is no stranger. Having different lineups that have attended WEG and CPL tournaments, and even having their current lineup attend ESWC, they’re playing the game they enjoy more and are having quite a run at success.

“We definitely feel a lot more confident playing against euro teams after ESWC,” said Dan Mehler. “Aim and strategy wise, I see us at about the same level as any other team. If our teamwork and chemistry is 100% then our chances increase incredibly.” We have seen that anything can happen when it comes to CS, especially against some of the top teams in the world. In Mehler's mind, a top 3 shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if everything clicks like it should. Turmoil will also have their full lineup this tournament, which was a problem at WCG USA when Perez couldn’t make it. kEEn had to fill in the day of at the last minute.

Emazing Gaming, coming off an amazing WCG performance, is going into Los Angeles with WCG still fresh in the backs of their minds. “This tournament is like a 2nd chance for the teams who didn't do as well as they wanted to at WCG,” comments Naz ‘Steno’ Vynnytsky of eMg. “I feel pretty confident, we know what we can do and we'll see how it goes.”

Things may be a bit easier for eMg as opposed to Turmoil, who have gone longer without playing on the international stage. However, eMg will need to be fresh as the Euros have surely noticed them, and they won’t have a “surprise” tactic working in their favor. Even while using Hostile, a last minute ringer, they placed 4th. Now, even though they still need to use Hostile in place of Lim (Suffered another collapsed lung. Get better Matt!) they had more time to orient him into the team. Which could mean that eMg places even better than they did at WCG.

Don’t count out the other teams though. Most of the teams at this event had a very sub-par WCG tournament and they will be looking to rebound and rebound big. Teams like Fnatic, Mibr and PGS to name a few, favorites to win WCG, have surely worked out what went wrong. This is going to be their chance to prove that what happened in Seattle was just a fluke.

The question is how many people will be watching? Sure, the Europeans have their following, but in North America the bigger question will be, does it matter? Many in the community would be quick to point a finger at CS: Source and the CGS as to the reason for CS 1.6's decline, but a lack of interest in 1.6 in general had begun to creep over the NA community.

Steno feels that the 1.6 scene is slowly starting to come back. So will the performance of top teams snap 1.6 out of its lull and silence the cries of 1.6 being dead? MehLer seems to think so. “A lot of people see us, eMg, and check6 fighting for the #1 spot in America, but what we need to do is come together” says a hopeful Dan Mehler. “Once people can realize that Euro teams aren’t invincible, I believe that more teams would have the motivation to put more effort into competing at a higher level and going the extra mile to travel to tournaments.”

Turmoil at 2007 ESWC Grand Final

Even with high hopes, how far can that really take the 1.6 community in NA? If WCG was a preview of things to come, then there is trouble ahead. A dispute-filled WCG did not help the Counter-Strike scene here. Four hour disputes, people telling others to contract cancer and die, and last but not least, a political war between two countries was the order of the day for WCG Seattle. Was it just an extreme case of bad luck? Or was it foreshadowing things to come? When asked how he felt with his first hand experience at the tournament Vynnytsky said, “I think the crouch hop dispute will keep happening if it stays illegal because someone always does it. They might not abuse it, but teams always do it AT LEAST once or twice, even by accident.” The problem is tournaments have their own set of rules. What my be legal at one tournament, may not necessarily mean that it’s legal in the other.

So what can be done to ensure that glitches aren’t exploited on this level? “It is hard to play by different rules in different tournaments. Players tend to pick up habits, like crouch hopping, which in some leagues/tournaments is legal. There needs to be a general rule which all players can agree upon”, stated Mehler. It sounds like a simple solution. A global rule set, just like there were and are for other exploits and glitches (boosting through the roof of hut on nuke, or the sewer ceilings on mill).

Hopefully organizers will have the savvy to get past these technical issues and deliver a good tournament for all. Hopefully for fans of North American Counter Strike, it will be a vehicle in which the U.S.'s top teams can make another mark on the international stage and help revive CS 1.6 in America. In fact, EM LA is looking like it’s going to be a great tournament. With only a handful of teams, all top teams, the competition should be nothing short of spectacular.

So one final question remains: Who are you rooting for, the home team perhaps?