Where to now?
Was it really a shock that Complexity didn’t make it through into the elimination stage of the major? For me not really. This team is the definition of floor spaggetthi, an absolute mess.
Elige has been vocal in his desire to win starting next year, and with Complexity making the major opening, there is an influx on new funds into the organisation. After a disaster at the Major, it is time to make changes.
The Key
Immediately, Grim and Floppy you need to move on from. There is considerable debate about the value these two are providing. I’ve heard people in the scene say that if you take “the flopster” out of anchor roles he will come alive. I’m skeptical.
Elige finished the Major with a 1.25 rating, followed by hallzerk with a 1.16. Grim with 1.12, floppy with 0.95 and JT with a 0.82.
From my eye test, Grim and Floppy are simply not providing the fragging output required of their roles. I’m not comparing Floppy to Jimphaat, but is he better than what we saw of Interz? Rating 2.1 says yes (interz: 0.73) and I would agree, but JUST.
Me When I’m Norwigan
Halzerk gets to stay, for now. He is perfectly fine as an AWPer and has become Col’s second best player. I consider Halzerk on the same tier as Torzi, 910, current Fallen; they are all just servicable. In my way of thinking about the game, the AWPer should only be your best player, or at least equal with your best rifler. The most expensive gun cannot go to one of your worst players: see Flyquest, BIG, Imperial.
Esports Winter and the “Soft Cap”
As this is my first blog post, I want to spend a paragraph outlining how I see team constructions are happening currently. The Esports Winter forever holds on (until theres a viewer led reaction, I might post about this later) and Richard Lewis noticed this first and I agree with him. I’m combining this with a point Duncan “Thorin” Lewis made, possibly at the start of the year. With the dried up money, the teams are under a sort of “soft cap”. Duncan postured that this even goes into the big teams, and was a hearty reason for the G2 kicking JKS, and Vitality’s replacing of Magisk with Mezzii, someone much less known. I agree with these takes. There is not an inifite amount of money these teams are working with. It is absolute bolocks to suggest: Complexity should drop Grim, Halzerk, Floppy and JT and sign Monesy, Niko, Donk and Karrigan. There are monetary and cultural limitations to what you can acheive.
The point
Elige is wasting away. Complexity need changes. I’ve got two options.
1. Stay in NA
North American CS is in an “intersting” state. With Liquid’s current success, they won’t make many changes, so let’s consider Twitzz, NAF and JKS off limits.
Kick:
- Grim
- Floppy
We need a point of attack rifler on a budget, and theres a young one still in the scene that I think is going to be mega: Lake.
In the last LAN best of 3s has played:
- An average 1.14 against Furia
- An average 1.1 against Bestia (A bad mirage [0.86] but an absolute mega dust 2 [1.34])
- 1.1 Against Complexity
This guy is mega talented and only 20 years old. He will be a stud for you for the next 6 years.
That makes:
- JT
- Halzerk
- Elige
- Lake
At the IGL role there is interest. Again as mentioned before with the soft cap, can you get Stanislaw? Stan has been the hallmark of North American CS. His Wildcard team have been putting up really decent performances in the Shanghai Major. If you can get Stan, then you should, otherwise, at this point in the NA Scene, who even is there? Is Nitro even good, or want to come out of the purgatory of NRG (What are they even doing over there)? I’m happy to stay with JT.
Just the Tip
We need to fill our small site anchor role. I believe this role is the second most pivitol role in Counter-Strike. A solid anchor allows the team to function fully in all other areas of the map.
Currently the NA scence is bare in anchor type players. You can go the G2 route and put a another young up-and-comer into this space. However, with a short leash on Elige’s prime, we sort of need a veteran precence, or at least an established player for this role. We don’t have time to develop a young player (besides Lake).
I believe you can get INS out of Flyquest. Even though he doesn’t play anchor roles currently, I find his rifling style relaxed and slow paced. I believe he has a cerebral understanding of the game, and he will sacrifice personally, on CT side, just to play for a team that can compete for big championships.
That makes:
- Elige
- Lake
- INS
- Halzerk
- JT
This cooks. With this, you can battle TL for the best team in NA.
2. Go to Europe
It might be true that INS in the CT anchor roles is a bit of a stretch. But I wanted someone different to who I suggest now. If we move to Europe the anchor role is sitting there for us; Perfecto. This dude is a proven excellent anchor. He has had time away from the game, however, I belive he will come back. There are also questions around his English, however, when anchoring all you need to say is: “All five”.
I think G2 will come sniffing for Perfecto. There are additional questions about the compency of his English. However, this guy is a born and bred relaible anchor. You poach Perfecto from under G2.
For the European team, not only do we kick Grim and Floppy, I’m also kicking JT and Halzerk. To replace them I’m getting Hooxi and r1nkle. Hooxi is a freeagent and I think you can pry r1nkle out of the trap house that is NIP.
That leaves us:
- Elige
- Hooxi
- Perfecto
- r1nkle
With the final rifle position we kind of need an aggressive opener. I believe Elige can play both the aggressive rifler role as well as the balanced. This guy however is best coming 2nd in the bomb site cleaning up. Unfortunately, the overlap of what BlameF likes to do is too close to the position Elige will play on our team. However, we will take his teammate in Matys. This kid is like Lake and is going to be mega. Hooxi can tune this team up to play lovely European Counter-Strike.
This team won’t be topping the European rankings, however a team of:
- Elige
- Hooxi
- Perfecto
- r1nkle
- Matys
Can most certainly compete for playoffs, and maybe even make a deep playoff run in something like a BLAST.
Elige Himself
For Elige himself, I’d be calling up Jason Lake and demanding changes. This is my prime boy, you got me out here with “the flopster”?
I totally see G2 making a run for him. If Niko does leave (I won’t believe it until I see him in a falcons uniform at a lan playoffs), you put malbs in nikos roles, you add elige and kick snax and hunter. You then bring in an IGL anchor, maybe even Gla1ve could play that role?
Complexity needs changes. I just want to see Elige in more Majors.