Starladder forced to change Berlin Major observers following community backlash

The StarLadder CSGO Berlin Major has been handicapped by less than stellar in-game observing, and the results up to this point have been noticeable. But Connor ‘Sliggy’ Blomfield, an experienced CSGO observer, is on site to set things right.

Observing is a pivotal part of the CSGO broadcast, especially at a major. Observers in any esports or responsible for manning the virtual cameras and catching all of the action.

And through most of the Challengers stage, and day one of the Legends stage, it wasn’t up to the community’s standards.

• Read more: How to watch StarLadder CSGO Major New Legends Stage 

Pivotal moments like a bomb drop or a late round clutch were missed, gunfights became dizzying because of spastic camera switches, and unnecessary split screens were more distracting than informative.

Fans were not happy, especially since the major already got off to a bad start when the first matches of the Challengers stage were massively delayed. 

In this clip, only two kills or player deaths are shown, and one of them (the AWP shot from dev1ce) was in the smaller split screen. 

They missed the kill by magisk because they cut back to the dead player that dev1ce had already killed. The impressive jumping MP9 kill is also missed.

During this round on Mirage, the player with the bomb is flanked in T spawn, and it is isn’t cut to at all despite nothing going on elsewhere in the map, and the casters calling attention to it.

Jarek “DeKay” Lewis took to Twitter and even offered to pay for an observer to be flown in.

• Read more: s1mple slams Berlin Major Observers

David ‘prius’ Kuntz thanked fans for giving love and support to him and the other well-regarded observers who weren’t brought to StarLadder.

But prayers have finally been answered, in the form of Connor “Sliggy” Blomfield, a freelance UK observer who’s been observing as far back at 2014 Gfinity events.

Sliggy was an observer for the past two majors, IEM Katowice and FACEIT London, and has also observed for multiple ECS and BLAST events.

Sliggy announced he would be observing halfway through day two of the Legends stage, making it seem like StarLadder called in an audible to save their broadcast. The CS:GO community exploded with joy on Twitter as the Legends stage continued.