In this article we take a look at some of the most important lessons we learned from the past weekend's ESEA Invite Season 16 Global Finals.

iBUYPOWER defended their season 15 championship this past weekend, taking down OverGaming, Virtus.pro, and compLexity twice to net them $20,000 and another ESEA title.

Their fellow countrymen compLexity were the second surprise of the event, with an arguably more impressive resume, having defeated NiP, Na`Vi and Virtus.pro for a second place.

Despite entering the event as clear favorites, NiP bombed out in three matches with losses to coL and Virtus.pro. Na`Vi also struggled due to Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev missing.

Virtus.pro had an impressive win versus NiP, and took down Arseny "ceh9" Trynozhenko's Na`Vi, but ultimately made too many mistakes versus coL and finished third.

Many players blossomed, others had weak showings, certain teams showed promise and others' stock fell. Below are some of the lessons we took away from the ESEA Finals.

What did we learn from ESEA Finals? 

Great example of why online results don't matter

We often either talk about the limited importance of online tournament results, or ignore them completely in write-ups such as this one. These ESEA Finals were a perfect example of why we do it. The runner-ups at the event, compLexity, actually finished the regular season, which lasted roughly two months and spanned sixteen matches - not a small sample size by any means - with an 8-8 record, good for a tied fourth place and the last berth for the Finals.

Meanwhile Manajuma, who finished 12-4 online with a 1-1 record versus iBUYPOWER, the eventual champions, and two straight wins over compLexity, as well as another win in CEVO-P, placed dead last and hardly looked competitive in the process. Netcode's record against the two top dogs was same as Manajuma's, and they won a combined three rounds against Virtus.pro in two maps, while both iBP and coL took them out.

Online play is similar to a group stage at a tournament. It's needed, because it eliminates part of the competition in qualifying stages, and also because it gives more exposure to the sponsors funding all of this. However, we should take all online results with a grain of salt - just like group stage results. They are not the same as real matches at LAN tournaments and especially in the playoffs, and never will be. Case closed, again.

n0thing wouldn't be smiling if coL performed like they have online 

NA has produced some exceptional talent

Spencer "Hiko" Martin already cracked the top ten in our top twenty players of the year for 2013, but with the way things are looking, and especially if iBUYPOWER and compLexity perform well enough to warrant it, we could see a flood of North American players on our rankings later on this year. iBP now have two legitimate star level players, and Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert showcased his old CS 1.6 form.

Braxton "swag" Pierce was great for compLexity at both ESEA Invite Season 15 Global Finals and EMS One Katowice, and he was also the best player at these ESEA Finals. Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham had a great event, finishing with a rating of 1.32 which is equivalent to the world's best career rating of Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund. Though he was very average in iBP's losses in Katowice, this could be the start of his breakout year.

Gilbert has showcased flashes of great play already in CS:GO, but never anything like his performance against Virtus.pro in the consolidation final. Gilbert finished the three map series with a 91-48 K-D difference for +43, a kills per round average of 1.15 - a ridiculous number - and a rating of 1.66. Though not the best CS:GO best-of-three performance of all time, it's way up there. North Americans did great; now they need to do the same in Europe.

Seven map rotation is the way to go

Seeing the seven map rotation in play at ESEA after a long time of tournaments only using the Valve-accepted five provided interesting results. Though both de_train and de_mirage remained almost untouched, the results were much more encouraging for the other five maps, especially the two newcomers de_cache and de_season, which ranked tied for second in popularity behind de_inferno.

It's discouraging to remember de_mirage_go was the game's most popular map before Valve made its own version of it, because if de_mirage was still as popular, we could be looking at a great rotation. Remember, ESEA Finals also did not use either one of the two new map selection processes I suggested in my recent article, so the split could have been even better for the viewers.

* Total maps includes third maps in series that were not actually played

Valve's newest CS:GO update also added de_cache as a competitive map, suggesting we may see it in play at ESL One Cologne. However, it's saddening to see de_season, which was more popular at ESEA than de_cache (when looking at the maps selected, since not all third maps were actually played), ignored and left out in the cold. Instead our seventh map is likely going to be de_overpass or de_cobblestone, if it comes to that.

Either way, ESEA proved that the seven map pool is the way to go if you're interested in pleasing the viewers, and their pool of maps is solid. With how popular de_cache and de_season wound up being there's an argument to be made for both of them staying when/if de_tuscan comes out, and de_train being the one to lose its spot among the competitive map pool. We're slowly moving towards the right direction on this front.

We could see de_overpass played in Cologne 

Even NiP are mere mortals

It finally happened - NiP finished a tournament in CS:GO outside of the final four, the first time in the team's nearly two year history since the game's launch. They've been very close before, this is the first time they actually couldn't close out a match to make it, despite a very strong performance by Alesund, who normally makes their team go. He struggled in the series against compLexity, and his poor de_inferno showing is likely the reason NiP did not win 2-0.

Still, Alesund was the only NiP player who seemingly put up a fight against Virtus.pro in the match that actually knocked them out of the tournament. It's not necessarily an alarming sign; NiP looked to be worse off a year ago in the summer, and still has been the world's best for the majority of the time since then. For those curious of NiP's tournament record, VaKarm listed each event NiP has attended in CS:GO.

This coming weekend's IronGaming LAN will be a chance for NiP to regroup and gain back what could be some lost confidence, as they will tackle Natus Vincere, who will now boast Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev on their roster as well. However, a loss here would likely send the Swedes back to the drawing board looking for answers. They are directly invited to Gfinity 3, should they choose to go, and ESL One Cologne, and have plenty of time to prepare for both.

Expect NiP to shrug this loss off and continue business as usual. They lost to a compLexity team playing CS of their lives, and to a very good Virtus.pro team who have been a top three team for most of this year. Though a 5-6th place finish looks bad due to the bracket draw NiP was given, it's very unlikely there were four teams better than them in Dallas.

f0rest's NiP finish outside of top four for the first time 

ESEA offered zero help with the world rankings

We decided to wait until after ESEA Finals, and IronGaming for that matter, before updating the world rankings. It turned out to be a mistake. With the results from the past weekend factored in, it's only gotten harder to properly rank the world's best teams, and I don't expect IronGaming to help us out much with only two top teams, NiP and Natus Vincere, in attendance in Austin this coming weekend.

Once IronGaming is over we're going to take a long objective look at the results of all of the world's best teams over the course of the past few months, and see whether we can draw enough conclusions to update our world rankings. We hope to do one, seeing as it would give everyone more context of where each team stands going into G3 and ESL One Cologne in August, but if it seems like we can't make good arguments for each team's placing, we'll delay it.

For now it seems CS:GO is at a very competitive era. There are basically ten teams who seem capable of beating each other in any given match, and that's great for viewers who seem to get fed up watching the same players always stand on the podium on Sundays. The break from LAN play will also give teams more time to practice and bootcamp, which should make the next two international events in August even more spectacular. Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

These guys are on the rise - that's about all we know 

Gun imbalance makes the money system irrelevant

We talked about this more in the previous article about DreamHack Summer, and Valve finally updated the pistols in this week's update. Still, ESEA Finals have once again truly highlighted how big of an impact poorly balanced weapons can have on the game of Counter-Strike, and there's already concern among the community that the new update didn't exactly restore balance, only made different weapons imbalanced. Luckily it seems TEC-9's issues were simply a typo on the developers' part, but there are still other guns that worry people.

One of the biggest factors in CS has always been the economy, and how you manage it. Making pistols, whether it's the CZ75, a Desert Eagle or TEC-9, overpowered negates the importance of the money system, as all of a sudden even $1,400 is enough to compete for a round win against opponents with armors and rifles. We need to make sure this kind of imbalance doesn't surface again in the future, as it eliminates a strategic aspect of the game.

It's not an easy job trying to keep 31 weapons balanced, but maybe that's part of the problem. I'm not sure it's necessary to have over thirty viable guns in competitive play; I think we could be just fine having, for example, 10 or 15 guns that are in good balance, with the rest of them ignored. It's not how Valve sees it, but it's extremely important this balancing act doesn't affect Gfinity 3, or ESL One Cologne later on in the summer.

Still not quite balanced the way things are 

swag was the MVP of ESEA Invite S16 Global Finals

In compLexity Braxton "swag" Pierce was usually lurking in the shadows of Spencer "Hiko" Martin and Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert, at least until EMS One Katowice, but now he has truly broken out as a star. Pierce had a strong showing at the previous ESEA season's Finals event, he was by far coL's best player in Poland, and now he's the HLTV.org MVP of ESEA Invite Season 16 Global Finals.

Not only was Pierce the best fragger of the event with a 0.89 kills per round, he finished with a ludicrous 1.36 rating - which would rank above Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund's world's best career average - but he also finished without a negative K-D difference in any of the maps, for a total difference of +74 across the nine he played.

Most importantly, Pierce was by far iBUYPOWER's best player in the grand final, which saw them smack compLexity around in a lopsided battle, only losing eleven rounds total. He finished +26 in two maps together with a 1.86 rating, far above everyone else on the server. Factor in that Pierce is still only 17 years old, and now try to imagine how good he could become as the year progresses.

swag, at only 17 years old, was the MVP of ESEA S16 Finals 

Virtus needs pasha to compete for titles

Though Virtus.pro actually defeated both NiP and Natus Vincere, this wasn't a great showing by them. This place finish doesn't sound bad in itself, but considering they lost against both compLexity and iBUYPOWER, while surrendering a map to Na`Vi, who were without one of their star players, doesn't sound promising. Naturally Virtus had troubles of their own - no way Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski's personal struggles helped the team.

However, looking at their results at DreamHack Summer and now ESEA, it seems fair to say that Virtus needs Jarosław "pasha" Jarząbkowski to perform well to truly be a contender for titles. Pogorzelski has played to his usual levels at each of Virtus' last events, and while Paweł "byali" Bieliński was underwhelming in Kiev and Dallas, he had a great showing at DreamHack, but it still wasn't enough.

Jarząbkowski actually did play very well in Kiev, but to be fair Virtus lost to two very strong teams, NiP and Titan, so it wasn't exactly a poor performance on their part, simply very tough opposition. On the other hand, they went out against teams they were favored against at both DreamHack and ESEA, and at those events the player who had been in the top five so far in 2014 was fairly underwhelming.

Virtus will now get to go on the break in-game leader Filip "Neo" Kubski has been longing for, and come back ready to prepare to defend their championship at the next major, ESL One Cologne, with full batteries. I expect the Poles to return to championship form and to be a serious contender in Cologne, but as it so often does, it seems that the competition is only getting tougher. Virtus must become more consistent individually to keep up.

pasha is Virtus.pro's most important player 

compLexity face tough decisions

The long standing number one team on the continent came into ESEA Finals as huge underdogs, lazy and unprepared, according to in-game leader Kory "Semphis" Friesen. They exceeded all expectations, besting NiP, Natus Vincere (though every win against them at ESEA has an asterisk next to it due to star player Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev missing) and Virtus.pro in best-of-three series. What do they do now?

It was a given prior to the tournament that this compLexity roster could not last. They haven't been able to put in any practice as a team, they barely made the Finals, finishing the regular season with a poor 8-8 record, have constantly lost to iBUYPOWER since they poached Pierce from them, and even finishing outside of the top two in CEVO-P. Add in the fact Todd "anger" Williams was clearly recruited in a hurry with no real consideration, and there's been problems since the get go of this roster.

Fast forward three days and compLexity have had the best tournament run of their career, though one could argue finishing 3-4th at DreamHack Winter, with wins over VeryGames and Astana Dragons, was more impressive. It's the first time they've bested NiP in a best-of-three series, no mean feat for a team who have so often fallen short in the past. It's questionable whether they can realistically carry this success going forward though, or if ESEA might have been a one-off event for them.

Friesen's calling style likely isn't sustainable. It's similar to that of fnatic's Markus "pronax" Wallsten's, only more random, and we've all seen how their results have been since that miraculous DreamHack run, after teams adjusted to it. coL also got ridiculous performances out of Martin and Gilbert; ones you simply can't expect to get every single tournament. What do you make of Sean "sgares" Gares then? He's a solid AWPer and has proven to be a good in-game leader, but what does he do in the team if Friesen calls? Gares isn't a top level rifler, and he needs more structure to be an effective AWPer.

Every team makes its own luck. When you take risks like Gilbert walking into the counter-terrorist spawn versus NiP, sometimes it will pay off. Still, Alesund no-showed at the perfect time to stop a 2-0 beating, and the North Americans caught a lot of breaks. Had they lost against NiP 0-2, their story in Dallas could, and likely would have been a lot different. Now they face some tough decisions.

Do they try to continue with this roster? They will need to keep three players from their EMS One roster together to retain their invitation for ESL One Cologne in August, but they could change up to two players; one of the four, as well as Williams. Michael "shroud" Grzesiek's average performance at ESEA didn't help them with their choice. They have the North American ESWC qualifier in three weeks, setting a tough deadline for changes. Only time will tell what happens.

Who will remain in compLexity jerseys? 

iBUYPOWER could be a real threat in Cologne

iBUYPOWER came into ESEA Finals as the defending champions, and as a team who has wreaked havoc on the North American scene since picking up Pierce and Joshua "steel" Nissan, winning CEVO Professional as well as SoCAL Revival #2 over the underwhelming compLexity side. We knew they could perform in Dallas from the previous season's finals, and the favorable bracket draw they received didn't hurt them either.

It's a shame iBP didn't play NiP, and Na`Vi didn't have their full roster present, because we would have gotten a lot better idea of how good Sam "DaZeD" Marine's team truly is. We know they can compete with the best, at least in Dallas, but it's still too early to say whether or not their contender status will have the word fringe attached to it. Beating coL was a given for this roster, and they had no trouble disposing of their rivals twice.

The Virtus.pro win was impressive, and the fact they played a close series and didn't falter at the end shows promise. iBUYPOWER are huge favorites to win the North American ESL One Cologne qualifier, and they'll have plenty of time to prepare for the event as well. Hopefully that includes a bootcamp in Europe. It's just too bad they chose not to go to IronGaming, where they could have challenge NiP and Na`Vi once more. They are currently looking to see if attending Gfinity is a feasible option for the team, and a lengthy bootcamp prior to the major would be a nice boost.

For now give a round of applause for Marine and his team, who become the only other team aside from NiP to have won two ESEA Global Finals events. I will try to write about the North Americans in the coming weeks, as well as try to analyze what may have led to their shortcomings in the past when traveling to Europe. This team is real, and they could very well make the latter stages of playoffs in Germany come August.

iBUYPOWER's performance promises more to come 

There are of course just some of the things we learned from a weekend full of action in Dallas. Some of it won't last, and some of it will be forgotten soon, but the future looks bright.

Follow HLTV.org's @lurppis_ on Twitter.

(责任编辑：case drop)