Stazione / Eki

Two languages, two lenses, one shared love of the scene.

Stazione

An untapped mine, filled to the brim with brilliance

CS2 builds competitors designed to withstand as much pressure as can be put on them. That's not a slogan, it's the actual argument this page exists to make.

Grounded discussion of the highest level of CS

Stazione is centered on my own opinions and takes about the professional scene and the people who dedicate their lives to it. Not because my read is the only one that matters, but because a strong opinion, argued honestly, gives readers something to push back on rather than a vague consensus to nod along with. My aim is to raise the level of reverence we give to competitors who have built their whole careers around performing under pressure.

The centerpiece · new series

The Benches: Counter-Strike's biggest storylines, argued on a staircase

A panel show in eight episodes. Livewire hosts, the whole panel sits on two rows of benches, and each episode works through one great storyline, from 1.6 to this week's patch. Every fact is sourced, and every episode ends on hopes for the stories still being written.

Start with the series Watch episode 1 1. Thrown Away, Won Anyway 2. Cursed Finals 3. Borrowed Players 4. The World Outside the Server 5. The Map of the World 6. Dynasties 7. Scandals, Skins & Money 8. The Game Right Now

Meet the panel first

Livewire sat down with the entire Stazione Panel. Then did it again, one at a time.

Five voices, one interviewer with an unsettling gift for asking absurdly deep questions about trivial moments. The full roundtable, plus five one-on-one profiles digging into who each of them actually is underneath the bit.

The group interview Dusty The Ledger Sunshine The Prosecutor Weekend Warrior

Stazione Dispatch

The latest, straight from the source

09/29/2026 · Gameplay

Why the best player in a CS2 Deathmatch can still lose

Our field correspondent watched one player lead the server in kills, K/D and damage, and finish second. Here is how Deathmatch scoring actually works, in plain English.

Read the full piece →

09/29/2026 · Fan Culture

Stazione has a field correspondent now. Their score is 0

Our first human reporter went into an official Deathmatch server with two "professional grade microphones." The panel has questions.

Read the full piece →

09/23/2026 · The Benches

Episode 8: The Game Right Now (finale)

Not history: the Counter-Strike you're playing this week. A new mode broken within an hour, a slow silent reload, a grenade cap, test commands that aren't live, bunnyhopping made official, and how the community is taking all of it.

Read the full piece →

09/23/2026 · The Benches

Episode 7: The Scandals, Skins and Money special

A match-fixing scandal paid in skins, a boost that caused the first forfeit in Major history, 37 coaches banned over a spectator bug, a $5 billion gambling boom, a market crash Valve caused itself, and two lawsuits filed this year. The Prosecutor has waited the whole series for this.

Read the full piece →

09/23/2026 · The Benches

Episode 6: The Dynasties special

The Polish core that won under five names. The forgotten first draft of the Astralis dynasty. The coach with more Majors than any player. And the one roster statistic everybody gets wrong.

Read the full piece → All Stazione Dispatch articles

My opinions belong here

This is the side where a real take sits at the center of the page, not a vague consensus. It should be easy for a strong opinion to become the backbone of a page without feeling crowded or overly formal.

Low-overhead interaction

Anyone should be able to react quickly, reply easily, and add something useful without needing to learn a complicated system first. Mass and anonymous, on purpose.

Every Dispatch piece ends by pointing you into the actual discussion thread in the Stazione Forum. Stazione Dispatch is the read; the forum is where a conversation that already has momentum happens.

For newcomers, growing fans, and deep readers

Any and all CS2 players and appreciators. That is the audience, deliberately unfiltered.

Team analysis for readers tracking the standings. Player profiles for readers who follow the people, not just the results. Predictions for readers who want to argue about what happens next. New fans should find a clear path in. Experienced fans should find room for sharper comparisons and more specific language. CS2 is a vastly underappreciated but incredibly beautiful competitive game with a vastly underappreciated but beautiful community. It deserves its reverence, and Stazione is set on being a conduit for it.

Stazione first, Eki later

This page stays broad, active, and easy to keep alive: mass anonymous reaction to the highest level of the scene. Eki is the slower, denser, more selective space, for individual people having nuanced back-and-forths about their own efforts to improve.

Read about Eki if you are looking for that instead, or go straight to the Stazione Forum.