The workshop item shouldn't be responsible for that. Removing it won't help. If I understand things properly, cg_gibs is just entirely ignored in the code now. If the client sees that the server has gibs in use and that those gibs are available locally, then it uses them too. The freeze tag snow is gibs and all servers have it so there is no escape. Well maybe if you remove the content of models/gibs/ inside pak00.pk3 and prevent Steam from correcting this difference? I'm not sure it works but it might be worth trying.

I haven't downloaded any workshop item for gibs and cg_gibs does not change a thing in FT or other game modes. It looks to me like the command is no longer functional.

I'd like a good answer to this as well. If we remove the gibs from pak00, it will flag us as having modified files. We might be able to do a workshop item to remove this, but I cannot understand why this would be released without an off switch for those who do not want the effects.

I'm pretty sure the old command to disable was cg_freezetag_iceShell "0", but it looks like that is no longer functional.