‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’ released their newest patch on 13/3/19. Many things were changed in this patch and those changes might potentially be shifting the meta game.
So, let’s begin with the changes in CS-GO weapons. One of the changes was the price of AUG, which has been raised by 150$, probably after taking into consideration and hearing out the community’s opinion about it. This means that AUG will cost 3,300$ as it used to do in October 2018. Three shotguns’ prices have been reduced: Nova to 1,050$, Sawed-off tο 1,100$, and Mag7 to 1,300$. This is a huge buff because, as most of you already know, a kill with a shotgun grants you the sweet reward of 900$. So, for example, let’s say you are in an ‘eco round’ and a player has a some money to spare for a shotgun: it is a massive advantage to get a kill with it, since not only you hurt the economy of the enemy team, but you also get back almost the whole amount of money spent to buy the shotgun. Another weapon that was changed a little bit was M4A1-S. The M4A1-S now holds 25 bullets (before had 20 bullets in the clip) and its reserved ammo has been increased to 75 (when it used to be 60).
Another update that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive added on their newest patch is the flashbang update. It might not be a huge deal for those who casually play normal games, however this is important for competitive play. From now on, in the case of a player successfully flashing an enemy who then gets killed, that player will get an assist callout in the death notice. This might sound nice but a lot of pro players think otherwise. Fnatic’s Jesper “JW” Wecksel specifically gave an example of why this new twist will be complicating in competitive play. He said in his Twitter “Let’s say that one goes to Banana, 4 Ts go to Street, CTs push 2 people in Banana, kills that guy and then a third guy gets the flash assist. They (terrorists) know 100% that 3 CTs are B and can quickly do something towards the weak A defense”. His example is for sure worth the notice.
The last, but not least, change that added to the newest update was the economy reset system. The economy reset system has been adjusted and it now has the potential to change the meta game. From now on, the round loss bonuses are based on the count of a team’s round losses. The count increases by one after every loss, and decreases by one after every win (minimum 0). Previously, a win would reset the round loss bonus. Now a win reduces the loss counter by one. This new update means that reset rounds are going to be affected after winning one game then losing one game.
You can check all the updated on the latest patch here : https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2019/03/23488/