Recently, overseas discussions about whether Central Asian CS can rise in the future have drawn the attention of many CS players. Over the past few years, Asian CS has been carried almost entirely by The MongolZ and TYLOO, with FlyQuest and Lynn Vision barely maintaining an international presence, while other teams have essentially been "a flash in the pan." Talent development in both Australia and China has made little progress. Although Mongolia continues to produce talent, limited coaching resources mean its effective strength is only enough to concentrate on a single team.
But recently, one trend has become increasingly clear—Central Asian players are rising rapidly.
Uzbekistan has the largest player base, with a well-developed local ecosystem and a continuously growing FACEIT population; although the CS ecosystems in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan are less mature, there are some 16-17-year-old young players pushing into CIS and even European academy systems, such as 17-year-old Hitori in the G2 Academy and aZe, who was just signed by the BIG Academy.
The value of Central Asian players goes beyond what the stats can show. With Asian region status and proficiency in Russian or English, they bring tremendous roster flexibility to teams worldwide:
1. Can help NA or Australian teams maintain their regional status.
2. Central Asian clubs can also easily strengthen from the CIS talent pool.
DEPO is the best example — they recently brought in Russian player Krad, along with sniper wetfy, and after gelling their ranking has climbed rapidly, currently 6th in the Asian VRS with their sights set firmly on Asia's 5th Major spot. If they can replace Buster, who occupies a European slot on the team but has been underperforming, with a reliable free agent, a TOP60 spot is well within reach.
Do you think CS in Central Asia can rise in the future?