There has been much furore over the now-frequent use of AUGs on the server, after the price of the weapon was dropped. We have seen a sharp rise in the number of AUGs being purchased during the Major Qualifier stage, with twice as many as the next favorite weapon, the m4a4 while the silencer was purchased almost the same number of times as the XM1014 shotgun.
CSGO devs have often brought in a shift of a meta through the introduction of changes into weapons or their pricing or even a brand new weapon perhaps. The AUG though, has been present and remained rather untouched through innumerable patches.
What begs the question is that, if the AUG was so overpowered by default, with pricing the only factor stopping the CTs from buying it regularly over the M4s, surely someone from the professional scene would have tried to be the outlier and use it.
Majority of the pros have reasoned that, for the lack of better understanding of just how Overpowered AUG was, it was not worth exploring, considering CTs could not afford to buy the weapon round after round.
With the price decreased, almost everyone has gotten his hands on it, with AUGs ruling the server. But, is it such a bad thing?
For once, AUGs are rewarding CTs for their angles and minimising the Peekers’ Advantage that the AK equips the Ts with on the server. Earlier, even when the CTs had seemingly perfect angles, Ts could still gain a peeking advantage by clearing out other corners and peeking strategically, or sometimes even through the bare firepower of the AK.
This has been rendered difficult with the arrival of AUGs. For all the cries to ban or nerf the AUG, we can still see teams rack up T rounds, with perhaps, the teams being pushed to be more intuitive and innovative in their strategy.
We have seen the likes of Liquid and Renegades show some innovative strat calls at the New Legends Stage and the two teams have been able to one-up their opponents so far, reaching the Champions Stage or the Playoffs.
There are also lineups like mibr, Natus Vincere and Astralis, who have not changed their tactical playbook and still prevailed on the back of team chemistry and raw firepower.
If anything, the AUGs have enabled a fairer mapping of teams and their ability on the T side. Anywho, teams have to adapt to the changing meta of the game and it is just strange to see so much furore and so many calls to nerf the AUG.
At times, there have been calls for some nerfs on potentially Overpowered weapons in the past like Tec9 and Cz. But, both of them were reworked and with time, the AUG is likely to receive some nerfs as well.
While the player pressure seemed to work in terms of fixes for smoke bugs on radars, the players cannot pressurize CSGO devs to change the meta of the game. It will have to be taken in stride and most great teams will, eventually.
What begs the question now is … have players grown too comfortable within the metas and becoming rigid to the slightest of changes to it? The whole situation reeks of the same.
