# Nouns Counter Strike - Reaching the Next Level

# Nouns Counter Strike - Reaching the Next Level

[![Video Thumbnail](https://i.ibb.co/St3fLHB/rushthumb.png "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1yYB9i7-qo")](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1yYB9i7-qo)

### Intro

**For the first time in seven years**, the Counter-Strike Major Championship is coming to our homefield in North America. After the previous spectacles taking place in Paris, Stockholm, Rio, Shanghai... we've taken a step back to assess and are more than ready to step up to the plate. Needless to say, our community is just as excited as we are.

Nouns CS2 and (more recently) nouns.fe have proudly competed as staples in the NA Counter-Strike scene, seeking to cement our place at the pinnacle of esports while championing the Nounish ethos. As CS2 ushers in a new era, we're doubling down on in-person event attendance and content creation, inflicting proven, powerful sentiment shifts where conversion to super-fans is high.

---

# Why CS? Why esports? TL:DR

There is immense value in having competitive rosters who are great Nounish ambassadors, and especially in Counter-Strike. We are now prepared to shoot for the most respected stages with the biggest prizes, leading to a road of sustainability. With the support of the DAO, we will cement the legacy of Nouns in CS history, as we reach for the pinnacle of esports glory. Some goals we have in mind include:

- **SUSTAINABILITY** through competition + prize incentives + sponsorships
  - the Austin Major: Qualify for the first NA-hosted Major since 2018, securing in-game stickers (**$500K–$1M revenue potential**) and elevating Nouns' global presence. 
  - ESL Impact Circuit: Compete in the expanded women’s CS2 league with $200K+ incentives, aiming for international finals  
- **NOUNS REACH EXPANSION** through charity, content pipelines, hosting events both online and offline, and onboarding passionate fans and builders.
  - immortalize Noggles within CS for all of time, the ultimate brand proliferation, to an average 1 million playerbase at any given second of the day  

Help us tell our story as we push limiting boundaries, activate primed talent with support from the DAO, and continue to foster a vibrant culture that connects the Counter-Strike and web3 communities like never before. ⌐◨-◨

---

# Counter-Strike 2

![CS2 Header](https://i.ibb.co/mDGYCsS/CS-Event-Header.png)

For two years now we've fielded a competitive Counter-Strike roster in the North American scene. We've had many ups and downs, and have constantly been on the brink of breaking out to the highest levels at escape velocity. 

We have reassessed our strategy, made necessary changes, and are implementing a plan to secure ourselves in the upper echelon of the greatest esport on earth and immortalize Nouns in-game. 

![CS Gif](https://i.ibb.co/gyfJpj1/CS-Mens.gif)

Due to the shift in the Major's ranking system, IRL events (which we have proven consistent results in) will be our main focus. This means nounish activations with rabbit-hole opportunities, Major fast-track qualification, content, and grassroots participation in the culture that will help us thrive; and become less dependant on the DAO's treasury in the next chapters of our journey.

![CS2 Player Photos](https://i.ibb.co/TY5HRvY/CS-Guys.png)

Time and time again, the Counter-Strike community has warmly embraced our organization and teams, rallying behind us with immense support as we continue to make our mark. Between prominent NA figure-heads like Launders ([Prop 623](https://nouns.wtf/vote/623), +casted the recent major in Shanghai) and [fl0m](https://www.twitch.tv/fl0m/clip/BitterAmazonianOysterHassaanChop-WAwDI7Za8lXzvdAy), the top NA CS streamer, we know we can do even more to grow this audience, and introduce more people to the Nounish ethos.

---

## Climbing the ranks

- 2025 Competitive Landscape:
  - Record high number of events in Counter-Strike. 
  - Valve (CS Devs) introduced a clear ranking and invite structure, eliminating legacy franchise agreements and unfair advantages. 
  - New rules open the door for fair competition and regional rankings (Americas combined).  
- Our Strategy:
  - Secure a strong position in regional rankings. 
  - Stay competitive, fluid, and relevant in the evolving scene through IRL events.  

![CS Event Cal](https://i.ibb.co/V2XSn3q/cal6.png "Calendar of planned CS2 Events in 2025")

---

## The Austin Major

- **The Pinnacle of Esports**:
  - The bi-annual Counter-Strike Major brings in the top 24 teams around the globe
    - **Averages 5-10% of livestream platform Twitch's entire viewership**, the most recent similar equivalent CS2 event boasting **58+ million hours watched.** 
    - **Rumored to expand to 32 teams.** - Top 8-10 americas teams are expected to go through to the major, **giving us a clear shot at qualifying in 2025.**  
  - **June 2025**: The Major returns to North America, for the first time since Boston 2018.
    - **Boston Major significance:** First NA team victory in the history of CS:GO, featuring our very own current player, [RUSH](https://twitter.com/RUSH).   

![Rush Major Winner](https://i.ibb.co/cXbfzCr/Rush.png "RUSH lifting the major trophy for C9 at the Bostom Major in 2018")

- **Significance of Qualification:**
  - Custom In-game team stickers awarded to *all* Major qualifying teams. 
  - Stickers are a coveted tradeable collectible, immortalizing teams in-game. 
  - **Goal:** Get Noggles in-game to represent Nouns forever.  

![Moody Center](https://i.ibb.co/1qN5J44/Moody-Centre.png "The Moody Center, location of the 2025 Austin Major")

As a North American team, we take immense pride in our commitment to nurturing NA talent, even as others opt to import players in an attempt to fast-track their success. Staying true to our roots, we are determined and ready to do whatever it takes to secure our place at the Major in Austin, Texas as a North American team - attracting local and global sponsors with this narrative.

![Splitter](https://i.ibb.co/NYzJFxw/upload-9605bafa106f5fc715565d5d229c2d11.png)

### A ⌐◨-◨ thing... Game Room & Nounish Afterparty

**The What:**

- **An engaging activation at the CS2 Major** in Austin, TX, creating a safe space for attendees to relax, game, and connect. (ft. 42+ gaming setups, CS and more included) 
- **Weekend Gaming event**, hosted at the Alienware Longhorn Esports Arena & Lounge
  - Packing in as much dopamine as we can: giggles, noggles, raffles for merch, gaming, tournaments and trivia!  

![Esports Lounge](https://i.ibb.co/Bgb2qRr/Esports-Lounge.png)

**The Why:**

- Foster and resonate with community, amplify the DAO's presence in an impactful, Nounish environment and collaborate with other orgs networking, 
- **Paper Noggles Distribution:** award attendees Noggles with attached QR code to learn about NounsDAO via video, or content by TheNounSquare/NounsEsports 
- Unadulterated **fun** (... may or may not include mario kart/smash bros afterparties, mini-tourneys,  etc.) 

---

# Women's CS2 (nouns.fe)

![fe Players](https://i.ibb.co/JRkgnWB/team.png)

As a self-managed team, we broke into the ⌐rabbit-hole through a Prop House round hosted by Esports. After discovering what it means to us to be 'Nounish', it felt only right to pursue the vision of building here with you all. 
— In May 2024, we passed [Prop 552](https://www.nouns.camp/proposals/552) !

Exploring the Nouniverse & repping the DAO for the past year+ has been a treat, and we've built a brand for fans to be proud of ✨

![fe Nounsgg Page](https://i.ibb.co/318kQBx/nounsfe-Nounsgg.png)

Coming into 2025, the stage has been set. North America has been dominated by ONE singular team since the dawn of its existence, and we are closing the gap every season - it is time to see the titans fall. 

On top of this, the professional women's Counter-Strike circuit has been announced for [2025](https://pro.eslgaming.com/csgo/impact/2024/12/esl-impact-in-2025/), sporting additional slots for our region in NA, and a huge monetary incentive (up to $100k) for teams to create content, sustainability in mind. 

Earning a spot at the [Impact Finals](https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/ESL/Impact_League) will be one of our main goals for us as the new year unfolds, debuting worldwide as passionate fan-fave challengers for NA, and putting Nouns on the global scale for Women's Esports.

![Impact Ciruit](https://i.ibb.co/SvpymGL/2025-Circuit.png)

Continuing to support us on the path we've paved the past year, means taking a twice-proven conviction bet on great public ambassadors of the DAO. 

Our players consistently go above and beyond just wearing the jersey, and have shown eagerness to seize opportunities to nurture the health of the female scene that we all enjoy. 

![Splitter](https://i.ibb.co/NYzJFxw/upload-9605bafa106f5fc715565d5d229c2d11.png)

In the Hol1day Cup, supported by nouns.gg and our community, we hosted a charity tournament during our busiest season to date, raising $1,112 for onetreeplanted.org and planting 1,112 trees! 

![HOL1DAY Cup Trees](https://i.ibb.co/4WfnyyZ/One-Tree.png)

Along with the men's team, we are dedicated to increasing IRL presence this upcoming year, allowing us to earn valuable rank points, and engage with communities already familiar with crypto adjacent culture. 

With growing results and undeniable charm, nouns.fe isn’t just made of pixels— we're a driving force, spreading silly nounish vibes across gaming and esports, and changing sentiments of web3 and crypto for the better.

![Community Reception](https://i.ibb.co/4ND4tq4/tweets.png)

---

# DAO Governance & Nounish Activity

Since our delegation of Noun 117 and 271, we have voted on a total of **72 proposals with 100% VWR rate!**

![Voting Activity](https://i.ibb.co/z6Cttxv/Voting-Activity.png)

During this time, our players **(nounslunari.eth and jesscas.eth) have both joined Nouncil**, participating in governance there as well. 

Every week for the past year, we post a thread of the current proposals and vote on them as a team, and **make efforts to understand the tech & culture** ^\~ ^

example: *from /nounsfe:
For: 5 | Against: 0 | Abstain: 0*

Dawning the new year & merging of the women's team and co-ed team into one prop, our goal is to use our nouns delegation to spread the word of current proposals to our platforms; hoping to cause that one spark we all had that made us dive into the rabbit hole of ⌐◨-◨

![Gov. Gif](https://i.ibb.co/cCc1H4H/nounsgov.gif)

---

# 2024 Achievements

### Nouns' Achievements

![Mens CS Scroll](https://i.ibb.co/S6tmc80/Mens-Scroll2.gif)

- **Team Ranking**
  - Peaked as the #2 Team in the United States  
- **Tournaments**
  - NA Revival Cup 2x Winner 
  - Qualified for both Major RMR's 
  - BOOMTV Code Freedom Champs 
  - Fragicago 2024 Champs  
- **David's Cup**
  - $12,500+ raised for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) 
  - Support from whole CS community coming together  
- **Community/Fan onboarding**
  - Multiple fans and contributors in the CS scene embraced nouns and actively participate in it's ecosystem. To name only a few:
    - [Launders](https://x.com/launders)
      - Prominent Counter Strike Talent with over 420k Followers  
      - Casted the recent major, with a peak of 1.3 million viewers 
      - One of the earliest supporters of Nouns when we joined 
      - Onboarded to submitting [his own prop](https://nouns.wtf/vote/623) 
      - Delegated noun to participate in [voting](https://www.nouns.camp/voters/futurelau.eth)  
    - [Floofys](https://warpcast.com/floofys)
      - Started casting Nouns matches out of his own volition 
      - Now funded by flows to rep nouns 
      - Always wearing noggles and promoting nouns at events he casts and attends  
    - [VividDarkFPS](https://warpcast.com/vividdarkfps)
      - Onboarded through association with nouns.fe members 
      - Funded through nouns.gg round and hosted Holiday Cup promoting Nouns and supporting charitable causes 
      - Actively participates on warpcast, has created her own Noun [traits](https://warpcast.com/vividdarkfps/0xb332c023)    

![Splitter](https://i.ibb.co/NYzJFxw/upload-9605bafa106f5fc715565d5d229c2d11.png)
![Womens CS Scroll](https://i.ibb.co/3mz3s18/Womens-Scroll2.gif)

#### nouns.fe's Achievements

- Qualified to ESL Impact Season 6 undefeated 
- Hosted the [Hol1day cup](https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Hol1day_Cash_Cup)
  - over $1000 raised, -> 1000 trees planted (onetreeplanted.org)  
- Content update
  - 100k+ Views on official nouns.fe channels  
  - 150k+ Views on official ESL Impact channels  
- Reached 2nd in NA (female CS rankings - [https://femalecs.com/](https://femalecs.com/)) 
- [Built out our Warpcast channel](https://warpcast.com/~/channel/nounsfe) 
- Grew community/supporter discord server to over 150 members 

![Splitter](https://i.ibb.co/NYzJFxw/upload-9605bafa106f5fc715565d5d229c2d11.png)

### Synergy & Content - Why Two Rosters?

In joining [nouns.fe](http://nouns.fe/) with the Nouns Esports CS2 mens team, we're able to ensure the two rosters operate as a cohesive unit, and are able to provide the most value back to the DAO and the communities that love us. We're committed to making high distro' content together involving both teams. This will take advantage of the platforms we've built with these rosters the past year. 

[![CS2 Thumbnail](https://i.ibb.co/CVzgqFQ/tiltedthumb2.png "https://youtu.be/2lV9g0Y61Yk?si=VBA-kVxaxOZHFiPL")](https://youtu.be/2lV9g0Y61Yk?si=VBA-kVxaxOZHFiPL)

Because CS2's content from competitors + female esport creators is low hanging fruit, this is in the best interest for each roster, all of our passionate fans, as well as current/future sponsorships. 

- **Content Collaboration:**
  - Schedule biweekly meetings for both teams to create and film content together. 
  - Hire a part-time content manager to organize, direct, and potentially edit multi-platform content with viral meme potential, and make the best use of our budget.  
- **Mixed Team Scrims:**
  - Scrims for both teams to bridge the gap and accelerate talent  
- **Community Engagement:**
  - Regularly discuss DAO proposals on cam to share with our audience 
  - Use NounsFE's delegation, Nouncil, and other activations for informed voting and governance participation.  

![Splitter](https://i.ibb.co/NYzJFxw/upload-9605bafa106f5fc715565d5d229c2d11.png)

## Sustainability

We are aware of the current sentiment around the DAO's treasury, and have our sights set on becoming less dependant on it to thrive. As active governance participants in support of the virtuous cycle, this is important to us.

#### The Major:

- Increased visibility and credibility on the global stage. New sponsorship opportunities. 
- In-game sticker sales provide significant revenue, estimated at $500,000 - $1 million+ per team
  - 2nd opportunity at unannounced Major in December  

![Sticker Gif Semi-Optimized](https://i.ibb.co/6YG3dQn/CS-Prop-Sticker.gif "Example of in-game sticker with our logo")

#### ESL Impact Incentives:

The new Impact format for 2025 was recently [announced](https://pro.eslgaming.com/csgo/impact/2024/12/esl-impact-in-2025/) and it puts the nouns.fe team in an advantageous position to capitalize on the opportunity

- 2 Slots allocated to North America for each event (previously 1) 
- Club and Content incentives
  - $100,000 for teams ranked in top 8 at season finals 
  - $125,000 for top 6 teams to make short form content 
  - $125,000 for top 6 teams to make long form content  

It is clear that the Tournament Organizers and big funding care about the value to orgs like Nouns, sponsorships, and about the scene thriving overall. 

For us, these elements foster long-term growth and financial stability, helping us with our goal of reducing reliance on the treasury over time. 

---

# Public Good with Flows

We want to use Flows to better integrate the CS community to Nouns and **empower its many passionate builders**. We've already seen success with the grassroots community in adopting Nouns and being able to easily integrate into our culture with rounds, nouns.gg, and Nouns GG Streamers on Flows. 

We believe we can take this a step further and onboard even more underappreciated and underfunded fan-favorite contributors such as:

- Community Map Creators  
- Grassroots Tournament Organizers 
- Underappreciated Community Contributors 

![Map Gif](https://i.ibb.co/y0zWHQ4/mcgif2.gif "Gif taken from https://x.com/LillyKyu778/status/1769069916727001494")

---

## Charity

### David's Cup

![David&#39;s Cup](https://i.ibb.co/Yh0Y4Km/Davids-Cup.png)

Last year we ran a [CS2 charity event](https://x.com/nounsesports/status/1775622732274716848) to honor the life of one of our former players, David 'Cynic' Polster, who passed away at the start of 2023. Alongside the Counter-Strike community, and [with the help of over 22 notable Counter Strike figures and countributors](https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/David%27s_Cup), we raised $12,770 towards [NAMI](https://www.nami.org/) (National Alliance on Mental Illness.)

We're planning to run that event again in 2025 and looking to raise even more money for suicide prevention and awareness in honor of David. 

---

# Budget - 12 Months

![Budget](https://i.ibb.co/Zhy3V0H/budget6.png)

**Management/Support Staff** - $90,000

- Manager 
- Content Manager/Creative Director 
- Editor 
- Graphic Design 

**Mens Salaries** - $300,000

- 1 Coach, 5 Players 

**Womens Salaries** - $195,000

- 1 Coach, 5 Players 

**Bootcamps, Lan Travel, Software, Misc** - $75,000

- Bootcamps Pre-Major events
  - Traveling to Europe or housing teams together for a week to a month to maximize practice quality  
- $5,000 budgeted per event traveling too
  - Tier 1 events are covered by the Tournament Organizer  
- Analytics Software, industry standard 

**Events & Activations** - $15,000

- David's Cup  
- Austin Major activation 

**Flows** - $10,000

**Total** - $685,000

basic operational budget of 1**2025**1 (happy new years!) upfront, the rest streamed over the next 10 months

---

![Noggles](https://i.ibb.co/gDskTGj/image.png)

### Core Team

- [machimus.eth](https://warpcast.com/nounsmach) - **Noun 1356**, Management/Staff, Member of SharkDAO, Nouncil 
- [nounslunari.eth](https://warpcast.com/lunari) - **Collective Noun holder**, nouns.fe player, tree planter, Nouncillor 
- [jesscas.eth](https://warpcast.com/jesscas) - **nouns.fe** lead and player, typing in all caps somewhere, Nouncillor 
- [gatsby](https://x.com/gubsby) - artist/designer 
- [Peterpandam](https://warpcast.com/peterpandam) & [Sasquatch](https://warpcast.com/sasquatch): uncompensated advisors 

![Splitter](https://i.ibb.co/NYzJFxw/upload-9605bafa106f5fc715565d5d229c2d11.png)

**Multi-Sig:** robotfishgirl, sasquatch, mach, jesscas, lunari

Outcome: DEFEATED