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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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FURIA’s Christmas just got a little more daunting
As if losing FalleN at the end of the year isn’t enough, what if FURIA have to lose molodoy, too?
Well, it probably means Brazilian CS dies (again), but don’t worry, because Swedish CS is back on the menu. FaZe aren’t, though; they still have a very clear problem with their team.
It feels like it’s my birthday.
I understand most of you really don’t care about XSE Pro League, beyond reading about all the juicy drama. In fact, most of us contributing to this newsletter haven’t seen a single map from the event.
I’ve only seen about thirteen maps, and all of them have had one thing in common. A Swedish team were playing.
Despite EYEBALLERS’s bitter end, falling to FaZe by the narrowest of margins, they can take a lot of positives with them after this event. They were the only team that dared to play Cache in a BO3, JW and KRIMZ showed that they still have the sauce, and maxster is a revelation.
All in all, this event has a pretty fun field. It’s relatively evenly matched, and the near-misses for the Major get to challenge those who actually made it. I’m sure some teams went into this event wanting revenge - and one of them got it.
For the first time since BLAST Copenhagen 2019, a fully Swedish team will play in front of a playoff crowd at a tier one event. Better yet, it’s the first time I’m excited about that since… I honestly can’t remember.
I’ve seen Alliance at every stage of its history. From taking cross-country road trips to tiny gymnasium LANs with poiii, to winning the Svenska Cupen trophy in front of the biggest crowd in Sweden. From narrowly missing out on qualifying for their first-ever Major with MaiL09 to taking a back-to-back win in June’s ROG Journey tournament despite the high pressure of debuting with bobeksde.
I’ve stood behind them listening to their team talks; I’ve interviewed every single player; I’ve talked the ear off all their staff during their games - not to mention having pints at the afterparties. Trust me when I tell you - this team is f-cking special.
Having already taken down teams like 9z and B8, as well as tearing NIP a new one in the name of this great northern nation, nothing is saying these guys can’t take home the trophy in their first-ever tier one event.
The blue and yellow will reign supreme in Guangzhou next weekend, and we will be watching every single step of the way.
Heja Sverige.
XSE Pro League might be a giant heaping pile of sh-t, but watching FaZe has gone from morbid curiosity to joy throughout the event.
Well, almost.
There’s plenty of promise with this roster. Twistzz is clearly a better IGL than he was on Liquid, and frozen is also still frozen. JBOEN is an absolute revelation, and Neityu serves as a very solid fourth piece.
The only problem there, of course, is that CS requires a five-man team.
Unfortunately, jcobbb still just doesn’t cut it. In his nine maps played, he has a 0.89 rating, and although four of those maps have seen him return a slightly positive KD, it’s the maps in which he sucks that are far more concerning.
It’s been long enough now that we know that jcobbb certainly isn’t a tier one player, and given that he doesn’t impress against this level of opposition, he might not even be a tier two player, either.
FaZe NEED to move on from him; otherwise, their return to the top will always be prevented by their Polish anchor.
Fortunately, though, thanks to playing with Neityu prior to the Major, FaZe can remove jcobbb on Monday without taking a significant hit to their VRS points.
Given that players like FL4MUS and lauNX are currently available, we’re praying they’ll do just that, as those two players could fire them firmly back into the top ten and have us dreaming about FaZe bullsh-t all over again.
The group stage of the XSE Pro League is over, and two of the tournaments most likely contenders for the trophy are set to face each other in the quarter-finals.
PARIVISION are the bookies favourite with odds of 1.63, though since their two recent roster moves, the Russian majority squad have only faced a team of BIG’s (2.18) quality once before in their game against MIBR.
If you feel like backing BlameF and his boys, sign-up to Razed and play now.
Note: Odds at time of writing.
Watching Liquid interrupt Astralis’ era in 2019 was a genuinely exhilarating thing to witness. Unfortunately, a few thing have happened since then and Liquid have arguably never been further away from winning something. Don’t worry though, James has got you covered on the details.
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F-cking finally.
That’s how we feel about this week’s news about Aurora’s new roster. MAJ3R and soulfly were next to exit the lineup after Fabre, and their replacements are imminent. Joining ash’s new international roster is Jimpphat, and kyxsan’s transfer is expected to be announced very shortly.
It’s a roster we quite dig, honestly. Granted, XANTARES and woxic are moving further and further away from their prime, but for now they are perfectly serviceable pieces on an elite side. Perhaps they can even be improved further under new leadership - maybe then Wicadia won’t need to carry the entire team on his back every event…
Jimpphat wasn’t entirely on fire on MOUZ, but… soulfly’s never really been on fire. After four years in that team, we think the Finnish 19-year-old (yes, that young) can really use the change of scenery.
While kyxsan was recently rejected by Falcons, we feel he proved his worth in his time on the roster. Making several grand finals, even the odd trophy, and beating top opposition many times of asking is a good resume; it’s just that when compared to karrigan, his resume wins every time.
Perhaps that is the only thing we can dock the team for. As big an investment and change as this is for Aurora, there’s nothing about this roster that tells us it’ll be a true top contender. They might pick up a few trophies at smaller events, where Vitality and Falcons aren’t in attendance, but as Aleksib said, do those even count?
The real benefit of this move is the future potential. If this team stays within touching distance of the top five, we think it’s only a matter of time before Aurora can secure proper elite players, and then we’re potentially looking at a very dangerous team come next year.
In any case, it’s a good thing the earlier mid-season rumours about Aurora going international were only partly true. Could you imagine if molodoy decided to leave FURIA?
What a disaster that would have been!
If FalleN retiring at the end of the year doesn’t break FURIA’s spirits, Spirit just might.
That is, if this rumour from Pedro Brauner on the Win Condition podcast is to be believed, anyway.
The rumour, which suggests Spirit could replace sh1ro with molodoy when FalleN calls it a day, has come from nowhere, even if it is slightly reinforced by what deko said at the start of the year.
And although we can’t help but be slightly excited by the prospect of it, we do feel a need to question whether or not it would actually work out.
Thanks to the luxury of donk, as well as tN1R, who also thrives when allowed to play to his strengths, Spirit are by nature an aggressive team. On the surface, that suggests molodoy, an aggressive AWPer, may thrive in this system, but that’s not how these kinds of things work out.
Counter-Strike teams just don’t work if everyone likes to play at the same tempo. It makes them one note, and it’s the reason why there are passive stars like ropz, and “glue” players like mezii.
For Spirit, sh1ro is the passive star. Now, we’d argue that he is often too passive and doesn’t have the impact he could on games, but his passivity is necessary within their system and provides them with a stable base to rely on in clutches.
Adding molodoy will simply upset that balance, and we know some of you will be thinking that molodoy could just adapt his game, but why would you take away what makes him molodoy?
The fact is, if you want a little more out of your AWPer, while still retaining the solid base sh1ro provides, it will be far easier to get that from sh1ro, and not really worth even risking with molodoy given the potential for how badly it could go.
But, given that this is now the second rumour to come out about molodoy potentially leaving FURIA, it’s starting to feel to us like his name might be being circled for moves at the end of the year.
We can’t blame him, really. FURIA will lose a lot when FalleN retires, and their necessity to keep a Brazilian core does raise concerns about what team they may end up with. Major final aside, it’s already clear this team had their time in the sun at the end of last year, so who can really blame him for looking to win elsewhere?
It’ll be a shame; FURIA joining the elite has been good fun, but it’s also the natural course of things, so let’s just hope they go the way of G2 and successfully rebuild, rather than NIP and fnatic, who are still the punchline to an endless amount of jokes.
