CSGO star NAF wants major AWP nerf ahead of 2022 season

Bill Cooney

Team Liquid player Keith ‘NAF’ Markovic thinks the AWP needs a major nerf in CSGO that could balance it in time for the 2022 season.

The AWP is the most “go big or go home” weapon a CSGO team can invest in. It deals massive damage but has a glacial firing rate, reload speed, and even slows down the player wielding it.

It’s also one of the most expensive weapons to buy at $4750. However, veteran player NAF doesn’t think that’s quite high enough, and wouldn’t mind seeing the price tag bumped up.

NAF starts at 1:03 for mobile viewers.

In an interview with Pley about what he would change in CSGO, NAF explained why he wouldn’t mind seeing the AWP made more expensive, and therefore even more pivotal for teams.

“As you can see a lot of players at the top, statistically that are the best, a lot of them are AWPers,” he said. “So, in my opinion, I think they should raise the price of the AWP. I was thinking something around 6K or something like that.”

This might not be the end-all, be-all solution to the AWP meta we see at the highest levels of CSGO but NAF thinks it could help shake things up.

“At the end of the day it just seems like the AWPers, if they’re set up correctly and everything, it’s just all them on top,” the Canadian explained. “The only rifler you’d see up there is probably niko, and the rest are just AWPers.”

NAF and Team Liquid were knocked out of the 2021 BLAST World Finals thanks to some great AWP play from s1mple.

Not everyone agrees a change in price is needed, however. The top comment on Reddit chalked up NAF’s idea to Team Liquid struggling in the AWP department for the last few years.

“What years of playing without a competent AWPer does to an mf,” it read, with plenty of users in agreement.

Liquid, however, could be on track to change all that, after signing AWPer Joshua ‘oSee’ Ohm to try and jumpstart the org’s CSGO rebuilding process. If the team can change it’s fortunes with the gun, who knows? NAF could change his opinion on it too.

About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.