After two weeks of play and four matches for each team, Halo Championship Series players are going to have another chance to make a roster change. Teams will have until September 19th to finalize a roster for the remaining duration of the season. Let’s take a look at what teams should consider making changes and what their best options are.

Top Dogs

A few teams don’t need to consider making changes at all, even if their record has a few blemishes. Mainly, we’re talking about OpTic Gaming, Team EnVyUs and Splyce.

OpTic is OpTic, they’ve been the most dominant roster in Halo 5 and need no introduction. EnVyUs was the only team to challenge them for a good amount of time and have been able to defeat OpTic on two separate occasions. Splyce is the newcomer to this group. While they placed top 4 at Daytona, the team caught fire at DreamHack Atlanta and beat OpTic with a solid 4-2 in the Grand Finals to become Summer Season champs.

Liquid is a bit of a wildcard and could be on or off this list. After DreamHack, they dropped Aaron “Ace” Elam for a returning Tyler “Spartan” Ganza. This was a lateral team change at best, with the roster unlikely to be much better if at all than they were with Ace. The team’s only loss so far has been to EnVyUs but Liquid has shown on multiple occasions that they can practically bury nV. Since then, the team has racked up some wins, notably with a 3-1 victory over Splyce. That said, it remains to be seen if this roster can succeed.

Evil Geniuses

Current Roster: Michael “Falcated” Garcia, Josbe “Tapping Buttons” Valadez, Justin “Roy” Brown, Jason “Lunchbox” Brown

EG is not at all a bad team. In fact, they’ve shown they can be a contender, with DreamHack Atlanta being evident of that. The team started the Pro League strong, with a 3-0 sweep over Naventic. However, the very next night they were reverse-swept by Luminosity and fell to both OpTic and Splyce convincingly this past week. While losses to Splyce and OpTic have to be expected, the loss to LG should have never happened, it should have been another 3-0.

A roster change will not help this team. Falcated and Tapping Buttons are two of the best individual players around. The Brown twins aren’t slouches either, they’ve proved they can still compete with the best. The current EG roster has run into the same issue as a couple of the previous rosters. They make bad plays at the most crucial of moments. This comes down to lack of practice. The only way to get an idea of what to do when your team is in a bad situation is to be in that bad situation previously and getting out of it through practice. If this team puts their heads down and grinds, we could see a top 4 run come DreamHack Denver.

Ronin Esports and Luminosity gaming

Current Ronin Roster: Cory “Str8 SicK” Sloss, Sabur “Sabinater” Hakimi, Ayden “Suspector” Hill, Visal “eL ToWn”

Mohanan

Current Luminosity Roster: Joe “TriPPPeY” Taylor, Tommy “Saiyan” Wilson, Bradley “APG” Laws, Tim “Rayne” Tinkler

Both of these teams are in a similar spot. Both of their losses have been to top teams. For Ronin, eL ToWn has seriously stepped up to help a squad that no longer has main-slayer Spartan on it. As for LG, Saiyan as per usual has been leading his team. However, with the temporary departure of Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, APG and Rayne need to step up. Both have had some underwhelming performances.

Newcomer Sabinater has been making some great plays for Ronin, but his slaying and play-making ability has been lacking. It would be unfair to say that he isn’t capable, especially as this is his first time on a pro team. He could grow into being one of the best players in the league. If Ronin was to make a change, the most likely player to be on the chopping block would be Str8 Sick. He didn’t have the best event at Atlanta and his Pro League stats, while not terrible, weren’t great either. A pickup like Dan “Danoxide” Terlizzi could help fill in that role. If LG was to make a change, one of their best picks would be Str8 Rippin’s Hamza “Commonly” Abbaali for Rayne. Both are great objective player, but Commonly seems to have an edge over Rayne in slaying, which could be just what the team needs.

Naventic

Current Roster: Ryan “RyaNoob” Geddes, Troy “DasTroyed” Dusman, Cody “ContrA” Szczodrowski and Kyle “Nemassist” Kubina

This team is confusing. During the summer season, they were able to contest top 4 teams while technically being an amateur team. Despite this, since the start of the Pro League, the squad hasn’t been able to win anything. The roster did play Liquid somewhat close, but it seems like something is off for this squad. Despite being a fan-favorite, the only player who has been sticking out a bit has been RyaNoob. That said, it is well known that RyaNoob doesn’t necessarily have the best shot. Instead, his value is in his ability to be an excellent in-game leader and to make objective plays. This is similar to Justin “SK” Mann back in Halo 3, who saw success with Triggers Down. Despite the bad start in Pro League, a team change could be premature for this squad. Even RyaNoob stated on the Team Beyond forums that his attitude was dragging the team down. The good part about this is that an attitude can be changed relatively quickly, meaning this team could become a contender again.

If Naventic was set on making a change involving RyaNoob, their best option would be Ace. He is not only an IGL similar to RyaNoob, but has also shown that he knows how to handle objectives while also being one of the most individually skilled players in Halo 5.

What rosters do you think need some fresh faces? Put your opinion out on Reddit or Twitter and tag Devin to start a discussion!

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Featured Image by Halo Waypoint