Extra Salt first came together in December 2020, being formed by the former South African/North American CS:GO Cloud9 lineup that had been cast aside in favor of HenryG’s doomed-to-fail ‘Colossus’ project.
The org quickly became one of the most universally liked teams in CS:GO, garnering a reputation for being the plucky underdogs against some of NA’s biggest names.
So, with the NA RMR event looming on the horizon, can Extra Salt really start changing the landscape of the region’s competitive scene?
Setting the bar
Cloud9’s decision to scrap their Extra Salt core was controversial with the community for several reasons, however, the biggest was undoubtedly how unfair it had felt on the players. At the time of their termination, the group had qualified for and played at the last LAN event at IEM Katowice, and had been a regular fixture in the HLTV top twenty.
Whilst Extra Salt lost the star quality of NA prodigy Ricky “floppy” Kemery when they formed, the acquisitions of Justin “FaNg” Coakley from Rugratz and Edgar “MarKE” Maldonado from Chaos has helped make this current lineup look like one of the most exciting lineups in North America.
However, the story of Extra Salt has so far been one of the inconsistencies on the domestic front and being something of a whipping boy when they have managed to travel to compete in Europe.
Since breaking into the top twenty for the first time as the Extra Salt org in March 2021, the team have never dropped lower than 27th, but have only ever climbed as high as 15th, which they only held for a week.
The team have won a couple of regional DreamHack and Cash Cup events, but the glass ceiling effect separating Extra Salt from the top competitors in both NA and the rest of the world is increasingly feeling palpable with the team.
What are the major problems at Extra Salt?
As with every side competing in the NA region, the pandemic and online era has hit Extra Salt harder than most. Traveling to Europe is still both impractical with continued restrictions, and problematic in terms of adapting to the more stacked meta compared to the lack of competition to play against in North America.
It also costs a considerable amount of money hauling a team across continents, especially for a start-up org where resources aren’t nearly as infinite like Extra Salt.
All of the issues that arise with NA teams trying to carve their way through the online era of CS:GO are hardly new, which makes it all the more frustrating for those with a real interest in seeing these teams and the region represented well on the big stage.
For Extra Salt, every time they have managed to get over to Europe to compete at some of the bigger tournaments, they have looked short of the preparation and experience needed to compete against the world’s best, creating this cycle of the team being eliminated early at these events, denying them the prize earnings and experience to compete with the sides immediately above them in the world rankings.
How good can Extra Salt get?
A healthy North American scene can only be a good thing for the overall health and reach of CS:GO as an Esport, and Extra Salt remain one of the best examples of an ambitious org being locked on the fringes currently.
Sadly, until offline play once again becomes the norm for all teams and regions, it’s hard to imagine Extra Salt ever standing much of a chance of breaking that top ten barrier and begin mounting decent challenges at the best events.
With that being said, with only Team Liquid ranked higher than in the regional rankings at the time of writing, Extra Salt are undoubtedly in a great position to build a platform as the team to beat in North America, keeping them firmly in the spotlight as CS:GO continues to navigate towards normality again.
There’s still plenty of unknowns in the air for NA CS and Extra Salt, but Johnny “JT” Theodosiou and co. could well prove to be the team to watch over the coming months.
