The 2016 international CrossFire Stars (CFS) season as well as their respective local scenes have finally come to an end with the conclusion of the CFS Grand Finals last December at China.
 
We have saw the rise of Latin America and Russia as well as the fall of AG, who was considered to be the best CF team in the world in terms of firepower. We saw how VG dominated everyone with their strategies as well as Flipside Tactics’ meteoric rise.
 
Now that we have left behind the next-level strategies and the unreal plays, it is now time to assess what could be done better in the upcoming season.
 
One of the greatest points in which CrossFire has grown this year is the continuation of the Invitational system. For those who are not familiar with it, SmileGate, Tencent and their respective regional partners conduct two major competitions called “Invitationals” that may include four invited teams or several teams from different regions.
 
The Invitationals are generally done before the CFS Grand Final and it allows teams from different regions to primarily experience and see the different CrossFire scenes in the world. More importantly, it allows them to interact with the fans and to promote the game in order to make it grow better.
 
The CFS Invitationals have proved to be fruitful in terms of allowing teams from different regions to have a chance to play against each other, thus allowing themselves to adjust their tactics as well as to get ideas regarding different philosophies of gameplay in CrossFire.
 
With the success of CrossFire Global Invitational in Taicang, China and CFS Invitational Manila, I firmly believe that CF should expand its offering of inter-regional leagues and competitions in order to keep the spirit of competition alive, as well as to allow teams to have more exposure to each other, thus allowing the creation of more plays and encouraging a better understanding of the CF metagame.
 
A deeper mastery of the CF metagame would mean more storylines to follow and more excitement for the spectators as teams would be able to reach parity and be forced to create new strategies in order to address their respective opponents.
 
Overall, with the continuation of the Invitationals, there’s more reason to be excited for this 2017 season!