Chat Analytics of IEM Cologne 2022 Final: Players & Teams Mentions and Top Emotes

Mid-August marked the end of the IEM Cologne 2022, one of the biggest CS:GO tournaments this summer. The grand final featured Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan teams, which now occupy the top two spots in the HLTV.org world ranking. The Esports Charts team found out which team was the most discussed in chats, and which highlights made for the strongest reaction from the audience.

We analyzed four main official Twitch channels of the event: English (ESL_CSGO), Russian (csgo_mc), Portuguese (Gaules), and Ukrainian (csgomc_ua). The first three gathered the largest audience during the tournament. The Ukrainian channel took only the seventh spot in terms of this indicator, but we added it to the study since the Ukrainian team played in the final.

The final between NAVI and FaZe Clan lasted over 7.5 hours, and the most popular broadcast was the English-language one by ESL: it amassed 2.2M Hours Watched and attracted 498K Peak Viewers. Coming second (and being almost two times behind by HW) was the Russian-language broadcast from Maincast. During the grand final, it generated 1.1M Hours Watched and 262.6K Peak Viewers.

The Portuguese-speaking stream of Gaules generated 547K Hours watched and attracted 116.6K Peak Viewers. The figures of the Ukrainian-language broadcast from csgomc_ua were way more modest: 111K Hours Watched and only 24.6K Peak Viewers.

Chat Activity Analysis

Viewership activity on each of the streams turned out to be diverse. The ESL_CSGO channel had the most unique viewers of the final: 711K. Of these, about 68.6K people (or 9.6%) actively communicated in the chat. During the match, they left 256.7K messages in the chat (on average, each chatter wrote 3.7 messages per broadcast).

Coming second in terms of the number of unique viewers was the Maincast channel with Russian-language broadcast, gathering 354K. But only 12.8K people (or 3.6%) actively communicated in the chat, leaving 36.7K messages during the broadcast (an average of 2.9 messages each).

The channel of Gaules had 178.4K unique viewers and 23.9K active chatters (which makes for 13.4%). They left 123.8K messages in the chat (an average of 5.2 messages each). The Ukrainian-language stream attracted 34.3K unique viewers during the final series. Of these, only 2.9K people (8.45%) were actively chatting. They left just over 17K messages (an average of 5.7 messages per person).

Based on the data obtained, we can conclude that the community was most active on the streams of ESL and Gaules. On the contrary, the chatters on the Russian-language Maincast broadcast did not communicate much. This is especially evident in the comparison with the Portuguese broadcast, where, with fewer viewers, there were 3.4 times more messages in the chat.

Comparison of teams

We also found out which team the viewers discussed the most. NAVI was slightly ahead of FaZe Clan in by number of messages: Ukrainian club was mentioned in 19.5K messages, while FaZe Clan was mentioned in 18.2K messages. The data for our calculations took into account a lot of different spellings of the names of both teams in different languages: NaVi, навi, нави, Natus Vincere, Faze, FazeClan, Фейз and so on.

On average, NAVI was more frequently mentioned on the ESL_CSGO, csgo_mc, and csgomc_ua channels. Moreover, in the case of the last two, the statistics were skewed in favor of the Ukrainian club up to 70%. The ratio of mentions on the English broadcast was more or less equal and balanced, but in the chat of Gaules, FaZe Clan was mentioned more often.

We also found out which players were most often mentioned in the four broadcast chats. As in the case of different variants of team names, we took into account unusual or abbreviated nicknames during our calculations. For example: s1mple, симпл, ропз, perf, electro, рэйн etc.

As expected, s1mple became the most popular player in terms of chat mentions: various versions of his nickname were found in 6.6K messages. The captain of FaZe karrigan came in second (3.4K), and one of the best players of the entire event, Twistzz, came in third (3.3K). Electronic had the least number of mentions — the nickname of the Russian appeared only in 1.3K messages. If we sum up the performance of each player, then the representatives of FaZe are slightly ahead of NAVI: 12.3K messages against 10.4K.

Message analysis

We also learned the most popular messages and emotes based on the aggregate data of all four streams. The leader in this indicator was the message “!dhldrop“, which appeared on the English-language stream more than 21.7K times. It was a promotion from ESL's sponsor, DHL: the hosts released it at a random time while on the air, and all viewers could participate in the drawing of vouchers in the ESL Shop by sending a code message to the chat.

The second most popular word on all broadcasts was "navi" (14.8K messages), and coming third was "faze" (13.8K messages). The top 5 also included the emote words “kekw“ and “gg“, which the viewers used to express their broadcast-influenced emotions as well as to draw the line upon the completion of the maps and the entire finals respectively. All messages from this top were mostly left on the English stream ESL_CSGO.

Message analysis

Talking about the top 5 emotes, KEKW was the most popular, being part of 11.7K messages. Pog emote was used more than 9.3K times, and LUL was used more than 7.7K. All three emotes were most often seen on the ESL_CSGO stream. On the Russian-language broadcast of Maincast, viewers mostly spammed the emoticon with the Ukrainian flag (5.3K messages), as well as the NotLikeThis emoticon (3K messages).

NotLikeThis emote was spammed on the CSGO_MC channel when NAVI lost crucial rounds.

Chat speed analysis

Esports Charts analysts measured the chat speed for all four broadcasts and determined the specific moments when the viewers sent messages most actively. The peak figure was recorded on the ESL_CSGO stream during the final round when FaZe Clan was celebrating its victory — at that moment, the viewers sent 1,492 chat messages per minute. The second popular moment of the English-language stream was the 28th round on Nuke, when FaZe Clan managed to turn the tide on the map and equalize the score (1,344 messages per minute). The beautiful performance of broky in the 25th round on Inferno also caused a strong reaction from the audience. At that time the Latvian player assaulted four NAVI players from behind and killed them in a single spray. After that, the chat on the ESL stream exploded (1,292 messages per minute).

On the stream of Gaules, chat also was the most active during the final of the entire series and the victory of FaZe Clan (920 messages per minute). Local viewers also really enjoyed b1t's clutch during the Ancient map finale (757 messages per minute).

On both Maincast streams, the most popular moment among viewers was the reaction to a verse written by a NAVI fan. Commentator Leniniw read it live, causing a strong reaction in the chat: 494 messages per minute on the Russian-language stream and 291 messages on the Ukrainian broadcast.

Overall, all four broadcasts are characterized by the same patterns of viewer behavior in the chat. They send the most messages during key rounds of a match or highlights: for example when Perfecto defused a bomb at the last second in the decisive round on Overpass. The lowest chat activity is recorded during breaks between maps.

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The victory at IEM Cologne 2022 was the fourth major achievement for FaZe Clan in 2022. Previously, the team of karrigan won IEM Katowice 2022, ESL Pro League Season 15, and PGL Major Antwerp 2022. The next tournament where the team will play will be BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2022, which will be held on August 19-28.