‘Chiu on This’ is a short and regular opinion blast

With FNS moving to Cloud 9, FNS’ 80th dimensional Chess Game has come to a close and he will forever be enshrined as the greatest mastermind of NA CS:GO. Don’t believe me, think about this. He made a joke that tilted kNg into the shadow realm, from which he has yet to come back from. This broke open the Immortals squad effectively eliminating one of the best squads that plays in the NA regions.

Of course that’s just checkers, what makes FNS a grand Chess Master was he predicted every subsequent move since. Back in the Summer of 2017, he, Stewie2K and Thorin were talking about how to beat Brazilian CS:GO according to Thorin’s twitter. What we didn’t realize at the time was that FNS was already on the move. FNS knew that Boltz was playing incredibly and with the natural dis-synergy of felps in the SK roster, it was a matter of time for SK to pick him up and end any hopes of a second Brazilian squad (as the 100Thieves lineup had kNg and we all know how self-destructive that is). Of course SK would peak, but eventually they’d come down. At the same time he set up the perfect acquisition for Liquid to get steel as steel was also leftover from the Immortals implosion, preparing JDM to potentially play with FNS again.

To understand FNS’ grand view, we have to go back to when ImAPet left CLG. It was inevitable as ImAPet was a great coach and he even tried to get FNS to come along with him. But FNS wasn’t looking for some short term gain, but a longer view that would get him into Cloud 9. Instead what he told ImAPet was how great the Danes are at CS:GO. This planted the seed into ImAPet’s mind that OpTic more Danish players rather than NA players, which eventually led to the current roster. This was a farseeing move as FNS was able to eliminate one of the potential factors that could have interfered with his plans.

At the same time, FNS knew CLG was going to get out of CS:GO eventually and his arguments with the management/coach only helped speed things along. With the team basically dead, he was able to parlay himself to compLexity which got him a visa (rubbing the salt into kNg’s wounds, even the greatest masterminds can enjoy a bit of spite here and there). He then tried to setup his old team to set them on paths that would help him. He got koosta into Torqued so that koosta couldn’t get in his way by helping a non-banned team stop his Major run. He then got Rickeh to go on standby for a potential backup plan if JDM didn’t work out. Alas, not every plan is perfect as daps was able to get Ethan and make NRG a potentially good NA team, but if you’ve ever seen Peekers Advantage, you know daps was tricky.

Now back to the other roster changes, so why did Steel going to Liquid matter beyond freeing up JDM for later? From the outside, it seems completely unrelated, but that’s cause we aren’t thinking on the level of FNS. If we think about SK, they are a team who will make ruthless roster changes if things aren’t working out and FNS was ahead of the game. He saw those victories at the end of 2017 and realized that it wasn’t sustainable so he saw the drop coming. So by moving Steel to Liquid, he is getting the team acclimated to playing with a Brazilian support player. At the same time when SK breakup, the player likely to be kicked was TACO as they needed a restructuring and it didn’t make sense to kick Boltz.

This is where things didn’t go as planned as SK went for the s1mple-flamie move, but at the eleventh hour FNS was bailed out by s1mple deciding to stay (Even the greatest geniuses need some luck). At that point, FNS knew the next pick was Stewie2K. If you think about it Stewie2K has the perfect mindset to play with the Brazilians, he was already in NA, and he knew how they played. This forced Cloud 9 to change and at the same time he knew Skadoodle was falling off, especially after the Major win. So now he has opened up 2 slots in Cloud 9.

But TACO was out there and TACO could have been in the works, but luckily he already made the move for Steel to Liquid. This is where FNS’ true genius shows as while daps was able to one-up him with the ethan acquisition, he was able to use NRG’s rising form to make Liquid question their roster. So when push came to shove, Liquid look to be getting TACO to replace steel. While it isn’t confirmed yet, the suggestion of it is all that is needed as that puts TACO off the table of free agents.

The final bit of the puzzle comes from a seed that FNS planted in tarik in 2015. In fact that may have been FNS’ first move. Perhaps he was the the one to tell Cloud 9 to buyout tarik’s contract from CLG and have Tarik infiltrate from the inside of Cloud 9 to take over the team from the inside out. Whatever the case, Tarik remembers the great times when he played with FNS and so when the team is looking for new players, tarik would naturally think of his pre-existing connect with FNS (it also helps that FNS did great with CLG considering that lineup had some issues). FNS knew this move was coming. Look at his twitter timeline here. Specifically, this one.

I'm suddenly in love with all Imagine Dragons songs … 😅 — Pujan Mehta (@FNS) March 29, 2018

That seems completely innocuous until you look at the lyrics of one of Imagine Dragons’ most popular songs, Radioactive:

I raise my flags, don my clothes

It’s a revolution, I suppose

We’ll paint it red to fit right in

Whoa

I’m breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus

This is it, the apocalypse

He was hinting towards the day when it was all going to come together. He knew the Brazilian/NA CS:GO apocalypse was happening and set himself up for a revolution by taking over Cloud 9. Don’t believe me? Look at this tweet.

I truly believe every team/core has an expiry date. Unfortunately for VP, they are way past that point and need changes to move forward. Tactically, they look weak so maybe an IGL? — Pujan Mehta (@FNS) February 20, 2018

Sure he was talking about Virtus.Pro on the outside, but that logic works perfectly when we talk about the current Cloud 9 roster. Just connect the dots, all of the evidence is out there. We were all fools playing connect four while FNS was playing 80th Dimensional Chess.

In retrospect, I probably should have tried being an anime writer.