Creme de la expired milk

Throughout the history of Counter-Strike, there have been some absolutely baffling, terrible and hilarious roster moves.

Or transfers, as we would say in real English.

Take, for example, when Liquid signed… actually, you can pick your own punchline there. shox might be the funniest. Literally nobody thought shox would ever be good on Liquid, except Liquid. shox probably didn’t even believe it.

When MOUZ cut STYKO for Snax, that was met with derision from everywhere. At least they won an event in New York, though. nexa for jks was roundly hated, and ENCE cutting Aleksib turned out to be a poor decision in the end.

Aleksib one aside, though, none of them could be even remotely categorised as ‘cruel’. And even the Aleksib one wasn’t really cruel.

fnatic, this week, decided it was the right time to bench CYPHER; a decision seemingly made in spite of him being a massive part of their run to win Fragadelphia, the deciding event when it comes to qualification to the Major.

Which is just… cartoonishly evil.

fnatic, Fragadelphia and the Major

For the uninitiated, fnatic qualified for the Major the other week by winning Fragadelphia. They beat 9INE in the final, who would have qualified if the result had been reversed. CYPHER was terrific in the grand final, dropping 91 kills over five maps, more than anyone else in the server, and largely had a good event.

He wasn’t brilliant in the rest of the event, even if he stepped up massively in the final, but he’s not really meant to be.

jackasmo stood in for KRIMZ at this event, and, much like CYPHER, wasn’t brilliant. He was solid, reliable and all the other synonyms you use for a player who isn’t all that good. Let’s not beat around the bush here.

What I’m getting at is that jackasmo isn’t miles better than him based on this event, and if anything, CYPHER stepped up in clutch time.

KRIMZ is coming back, but jackasmo seems to be keeping CYPHER’s place. It should be mentioned that for now that is only for CS Asia Championships, but the Englishman’s reaction suggests it might not just be for that event.

This might mean that fnatic will be playing at the Major with a roster they never used in the qualification period. This piece won’t go into why that’s stupid, but it is stupid.

Why is everyone so mad?

Counter-Strike fans are weird. Not you, of course, you’re completely normal.

They get angry at the smallest things (see the kyousuke not being happy with finishing second ‘drama’ this week), care massively about really uninteresting things like tournament formats and HUDs, and seem to enjoy transfers more than actual games of Counter-Strike sometimes.

You would be forgiven, then, for dismissing the outcry as another nonsensical cry-off from Counter-Strike’s most mediocre minds - but this time, everyone is right.

I’m not just saying it because CYPHER would be only the second player from my country at the next Major, though that is probably why I cared at first. I’m saying it because this is just cruel.

To remove somebody who just carried you to the biggest event of the year would only really make sense if the player was a complete tosser, which by all accounts, CYPHER isn’t. There has been no rumours of poor behaviour, unrest within the team or personality clashes - that doesn’t mean there weren’t any, but they seemed in good spirits at Frag and he seemed completely blindsided.

It’s unlikely to be because of roles, either, as jackasmo plays much closer to how KRIMZ does than how CYPHER does. It’s quite simply probably just because jackasmo is mates with jambo and FEAR, and KRIMZ is unbenchable for sponsor reasons.

Why fnatic need CYPHER

CYPHER was a necessary part of this team because he’s the only person who will actually die for the cause. What he lacks in consistent output he makes up for in sheer force of will, fearlessness and dedication to the cause. He’s taking a lot of opening duels, getting traded a lot and is barely ever last alive. His job, quite simply, is to open up space and die well. If he gets some kills? Even better.

He can win games on his own, but even if he’s going horribly negative, as long as blameF is trading him, everything is good.

There will be games where he goes nuclear and in those he will essentially win the game regardless of anyone else, because he’ll give fnatic consistent 5v4s, and even they won’t mess them up enough to lose the game. Probably.

He isn’t consistent, but importantly, he shouldn’t be. Anyone who is ‘consistent’ in terms of output (rating and kills) is either not doing their job properly or dupreeh in his prime. Also, it should be mentioned, that being ‘consistent’ is never going to be good enough for a team like fnatic to actually do anything - they ain’t going to make playoffs at the Major without some insane overperformance, and CYPHER was a genuine, if fleeting, win condition.

blameF is, I say through gritted teeth, a good player. Maybe even very good. What he needs, though, is soldiers around him. He needs people who will do what he wants, who will play for him, and who will not have an ego. blameF teams live and die by blameF, for better or worse.

Yes, he’s changed his style a bit. He’s still a high-resource player.

CYPHER was perfect for that because he’s a soldier. b0RUP, except, like, with ability. He’s not blameF and he’s not ever going to be, but a team of blameF’s won’t do anything.

Basically, everyone is mad because CYPHER is a good and important player who helped fnatic achieve the goal they set out to with a great showing in the biggest qualification match, and is being dropped for jackasmo who stood in for someone else in someone else’s roles. All because KRIMZ has f*cking tenure or something.

Source: ESL / Igor Bezborodov

Let’s play Devil’s advocate

Look, if you stop reading this piece there, you’ll think this move was completely undefendable. It kind of is, but not entirely; there are some reasons why CYPHER might have been benched.

In fact, if fnatic had come out and said ‘lads, we really thought we weren’t going to qualify and we needed a miracle to do so, so we planned to remove CYPHER a few weeks ago for jackasmo ready for the next season’, I would have still found it a bit harsh, but I could have seen the logic.

I’d still give him the event he bleedin’ qualified you for, but whatever.

They didn’t even say that. They couldn’t even be arsed to lie and pretend that’s the truth. They just said they were benching him for now and might bring him back if they get bored. Or something.

I’m not doing a great job of defending this move yet.

jackasmo is a good player, and he’s one who has residual synergy and chemistry with some of the remaining members of fnatic. Passion UA qualified for a Major (cough through the RMR) and were sort of the stand-out underdog there, so it’s no surprise they want to run it back at the Major.

That isn’t nothing: fnatic now have a Ukrainian flag and not for the same reasons as your virtue signalling Aunt on Facebook. They have pre-existing understanding and have proven that they can be good enough to perform against big teams before. Add in blameF and KRIMZ’ experience and leadership and other intangibles, and you have something like a team.

CYPHER hasn’t been putting up crazy numbers after all, and KRIMZ is hard to bench for both sponsor and leadership reasons (and we’re sure the roles he’s doing are super hard and nobody else wants to do them), and you obviously can’t bench any of your good players.

If they really feel jackasmo has to be on this team, then I guess CYPHER might be the one who goes. As much as it sucks, there is a real world where this is an upgrade. I’m not sure if that’s the world we’re living in, though - and you’re changing a lot at a crucial team to find out.

Why you’re blowing your team up for this guy is anyone’s guess. As we mentioned above, jackasmo is an okay player who doesn’t make as many errors as CYPHER, but he also doesn’t make as much happen.

Yeah, fine, if a tier one entry fragger pops up out of nowhere and you can sign him, go ahead. Blowing up your working roster for jackasmo is like changing your white shirt to a blue one in the middle of a first date.

The KRIMZ question

The real question is this: is what KRIMZ does so vital to the team? Okay, yes, he has ‘experience’ (which clearly wasn’t relevant for the last five years) and he has ‘brand value’, but do you know what else has brand value?

Being good.

Nobody actually cared about NIP when GeT_RiGhT was so bad that they couldn’t make events. Astralis aren’t the marketing tour de force they were when they were good. People constantly say that there ‘needs to be a full Swedish team’ because they would have loads of fans.

Nobody, though, is supporting EYEBALLERS.

Would fnatic have made the Major with this line-up? It’s impossible to tell, and early signs at the CS Asia Championships is that they aren’t that much worse, but they definitely wouldn’t have won the last map of Fragadelphia without CYPHER going crazy.

You don’t maintain fans if you’re not going to events, and you don’t gain them if you’re not performing at them. KRIMZ is a legacy player and there’s maybe a handful of Swedes who haven’t watched in 10 years who might see the fnatic badge, see KRIMZ and assume that Jambo is a second-generation Ukrainian immigrant to Sweden and all is well.

But for the majority, KRIMZ’ time has passed.

He’s not the player he once was (which is to say, the fourth best player on the best team in the world, who managed to not screw up what the others were doing too much) and he should be winding down his career. fnatic need a zoomer to go in, TikTok video on the second screen, with fast reactions and Twitter clip-farm aim.

CYPHER isn’t quite that, but he’s much closer than grandad KRIMZ. He goes for opening kills nearly 1.5x as often as KRIMZ, and gets traded far less. The Swede might change roles when jackasmo comes in, in which case, why not just keep CYPHER? jackasmo might change roles to be more like CYPHER, in which case…

I think you’re smart enough to see where I’m going with this.

fnatic have no like-for-like replacement, and they need one to make space for Danish paszaBiceps, so this move is not only pointlessly cruel; it’s also pointless.

Is there a way back for fnatic?

In a Counter-Strike sense? Yeah, of course. They can bring back CYPHER, or even upgrade and get another entry fragger.

But in a public opinion sense, it’s hard to come back from. fnatic have been nobody’s favourite team for a while now - their poor decision making, perceived heel turn from the country that made them famous and generally weak performances have made them lose all the aura and clout their name once had.

That doesn’t mean they can never be favourites again, but when you’re starting to come back into the public eye it’s best not to make a decision that makes people upset. Yes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity; as long as you’re good. If you’re not all that good, people want to see you lose, but not enough to actually watch your games.

Nobody outside of the US wants Wrexham to win a game, but they’re still not actually watching Wrexham games, and I implore you not to bother either.

They were sort of in the middle of public opinion. Not good, not bad. They’ve swung straight into bad territory, and while that seems like it shouldn’t matter, you’re in the business of making a fanbase.

Even in a more literal sense, bringing back CYPHER now would only make him question himself, and no matter what he’d want to leave. As a player thinking of joining fnatic, it surely makes you wonder if it’s all worth it if you’re going to get cut for one of the player’s mates whenever you achieve something.