Photo: By Adela Sznajder for DreamHack

“I believe ENCE will be among the top teams in the world.” – Allu, from the Inside ENCE documentary

ENCE winning the EU Minor for the IEM Katowice 2019 Major was a dream fulfilled on many fronts. For the Finnish Counter-Strike scene as a whole, it was a return to the most prestigious tournament that Counter-Strike has to offer. For ENCE it was a culmination of years of effort as they had slowly built up the team and put in the necessary infrastructure needed to help the young Finnish players grow. For a majority of the lineup including: Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen, Jere “sergej” Salo, Jani “Aerial” Jussila, and Sami “xseveN” Laasen, this will be their first time to ever attend a major. For Aleksi “allu” Jalli, this was a homecoming. Allu is a veteran CS:GO player, someone who has played at the top levels of Counter-Strike. The last time he was at a major was at PGL Krakow in 2017. Now one and a half years later, he has returned and fulfilled his wish of coming back to the Major with a full Finnish squad.

For Home and Country

For many players, there is a romantic dream that surrounds the idea of an all national squad. There is a certain fervor and pride that comes with representing the home country, akin to representing your country in the World Cup. This idea has its roots back to the beginnings of CS:GO back when WCGs were considered Majors and in those tournaments, only national teams could compete.

On the surface, it can be mistaken for tribalism. While that likely plays a part, the ideas of national teams are more than that. It is a way for a player to give back to their local Counter-Strike community. Not only do they represent their home country on the stage, they also start to build a team, an infrastructure, and a culture within the scene. By creating a national team, they create a tangible legacy, one that allows them to push forward their knowledge and experience to future generations of CS players. The importance of this cannot be understated as that is one of the primary reasons as to why Danish Counter-Strike reigns supreme today.

For smaller CS:GO countries though, this was merely a pipe dream. Players like Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs or Havard “rain” Nygaard may have dreamt of an all-Slovakian or all-Norwegian roster, but the reality is that neither scene has the talent to build a top team at the international stage. In such cases, it makes far more sense for players like these to look outside of their national borders and to try to compete on international squads.

This was what happened to Allu. At the beginning of CS:GO, he oscillated between all Finnish squads and international roster until he landed upon NiP in 2015. During that period, he showed the world that he was a top class AWPer as NiP were a top class team that made multiple top place finishes including the ESL One Katowice 2015 Major. After spending an year in NiP, Allu decided to return home. He was a good enough player that he likely could have joined an international squad or an NA team at the time (he even stood-in for Liquid at the ELeague Road to Vegas), but nothing he came of it as Allu returned to play for ENCE.

The return of Allu to the Finnish scene wasn’t triumphant however. The Finnish Counter-Strike was one of the best in CS 1.6, but the same couldn’t be said for CS:GO. The scene wasn’t the same as players retired, CS had declined in terms of popularity, players had to do mandatory military service, and all of this combined meant there was a smaller scene. In essence, the Finnish CS scene was reset and had to be built from scratch. This was especially detrimental when it came to the in-game leader aspects as the in-game leaders of CS:GO often act as teachers and coaches in the scene as they impart their knowledge and understanding of the game to the next generation of players and that in turn raises the level of an entire scene. A notable example of this was when Jonas “bsl” Alsaker Vikan went to play for mibr back in the early 2000s and his understanding of Counter-Strike helped startup the Brazilian scene back then.

In the case of Finnish CS:GO during 2016, there were no qualified leaders yet. Allu tried to do what he could as a star player and as someone who had played at the top levels of CS:GO, but it wasn’t enough. By August 2016, Allu realized that the timing wasn’t right. At that point he signed onto the FaZe clan.

There and Back Again

FaZe was the mercenary group of the CS:GO world. A team that signed up disparate international star players. While there were good pieces within the team, they needed an in-game leader to bring it all together. That leader came in the form of Finn “Karrigan” Andersen as he led FaZe to the top in 2017. Allu was part of the FaZe Clan that became the second best team in world in the first half of 2017 where they made even more international grand finals. It was also the year where Allu won his first big event at StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3 against Astralis.

The FaZe Clan went into the PGL Krakow as one of the favorites to win the event. However internal issues made the entire team combust at the event as they were eliminated from the group stage. Soon after, FaZe built the all-star team as they replaced Allu with GuardiaN. For both Allu and ENCE, the latter half of 2017 was a time of turmoil. Allu went to play for OpTic in that zombie like EU mix that every desperately tries to forget. As for ENCE, they had tried to rebuild the team around younger players, but the results didn’t justify the investment. On June 20th, ENCE announced that they had departed from the CS:GO squad and it looked like the dream of a Finnish CS:GO squad had died.

However a new wind was set to blow across Finnish soil. Before 2018, the players just weren’t ready yet. They needed more time to develop and mature as individuals. ENCE realized this once 2018 started. The first move that ENCE made was to bring Allu back into the fold. They hired him on March 12th, 2018.

The Return Home and 2018 Run

For Allu, it was to be his second return home and his third try to get an all Finnish team off the ground. Allu had enough of the pressure of playing for a big name. This time he wanted to try to once again build up a strong Finnish team to take on the world. ENCE obliged him as a month later they announced the rest of the Finnish squad. It was a gathering of what looked to be all of the best Finnish talent in the scene outside of Miikka “suNny” Kemppi. In terms of makeup of the team, it had a shockingly good balance. Aleksib was the in-game leader of the team and has a high amount of impact for a player in that role. Aerial was the no-holds barred entry fragger who could break open sites. XseveN was one of those rare high fragging players who was willing to take a step back to fill in the roles and do the dirty work. The team’s primary firepower came from the two stars: Allu and Sergej.

Allu was Finland’s most decorated CS:GO player as he has played in top teams in different eras of time, NiP in 2015 and FaZe in 2017. If Allu was the past and the present of the Finnish CS:GO scene, then sergej was to be it’s future. At the age of 16, sergej was set to shock the world. As Allu said in the Inside ENCE documentary,

“Sooner or later, hopefully sooner, Jere[sergej] will be one of the best players in the world.”

While the pieces were all there, the experience was not. The team had to slowly grow through 2018 and learn how to become better players. In the case of Sergej, he notes in the Inside ENCE documentary that playing with Allu was beneficial as

“There are a lot of small things I can learn from Allu.”

While this dynamic seems strongest between Allu and sergej as they are both star players, it extends to the rest of the squad. After all, while some of the players may be as old as Allu, in terms of CS:GO experience they are far behind. None of them have been to the finals of premier international tournaments or Majors. Allu has done both and he can help guide these players into learning how to deal with pressure, travel, and what it means to be a competitive player at the top level.

All of this came together at ESL One Cologne in 2018 where the team placed top 8 in one of the biggest events of the year. In the upper bracket, they were knocked out by Astralis (arguably the greatest team of all time). Astralis beat them 16-5, but Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander was impressed by their performance and tweeted:

https://twitter.com/gla1ve_csgo/status/1014099257081696256

ENCE proved gla1ve’s words to be true as they made a run through the loser’s bracket. They beat NiP and Mouz in best-of-three series. They then faced off against Na`Vi to see which of them made it to the main event. It was an incredibly close series where ENCE won the first map on Dust2 16-14, barely lost the second map 14-16 on Mirage, and then were eliminated in the third.

While ENCE didn’t make it to the main stage, they made a statement to the world that they were a real threat. Like many upstart teams though, they had yet to be tested on their consistency. It is one thing to make an upset run and it is another to continually do it as other teams and players start scouting out what a particular team is doing and adjust or adapt to their plays. For ENCE, this is partly what happened at the EU Minor in 2018.

They were one of the favorites to make it out of the event, but fell short as they lost to OpTic and NiP. While the loss was painful, it was a growing process that needed to happen as none of the players outside of Allu had ever played with the pressure of expectations before. The team then finished out the year by collecting top placings throughout the rest of the season at smaller LANs as they got 2nd at DreamHack Montreal, 1st at StarSeries i-League Season 6, and won DreamHack Winter 2018.

At the EU Minor

By the time the EU Minor in 2019 started, they had accrued an additional half year’s worth of experience. This parlayed into many other things including their mental state, confidence, tactics, consistency, and team chemistry. All of this was crucial as the EU Minor in 2019 was even harder than the previous one.

In that tournament, ENCE beat Space Soldiers who had a stand-in, Windigo, Valiance, and North. Windigo was a solid Bulgarian team. Valiance was an international mixed roster filled with skilled players among which, the most notable at this event was Nemanja “huNter” Kovac. Valiance were a dangerous dark horse as they had eliminated mousesports in the tournament through the use of their skill and antistratting. They were even able to take the first game in the series against ENCE. After losing the first game, the team went out to discuss the problems and in a documentary from ENCE, it showed the value Allu’s veteran presence as he told the team,

“When we are the Ts, we have to watch for huNter, since he likes to flank. He was always flanking and we didn’t know what was going on. Aimbotting just like his cousin. [team laughs] Alright. Let’s go win.”

The team then went back into the series and were too solid as they cleaned up the series.

ENCE then faced off against North. It was another hard fought affair as North and ENCE battled it out to the death on Train. In that map, the two teams put everything they had on the table. They both used clever tactics and constantly adapted to each other on the fly. For instance, ENCE were dominated the rounds by winning the duels in B halls, so in response North stacked three player on the B ramp to get an early pick. However once they took out sergej, the info was relayed and ENCE were immediately able to punish with a fast hit of the outer site.

In terms of starpower, it was a war between Valdemar “valde” Bjorn and Sergej. Each time one pulled out a level of incredible skill, it would be answered by the other. Valde pulled out an impossible ace on an eco round in round 24 that nearly let North close the game in regulation on Train. As for Sergej, he answered back with an ace on inferno, which ended any hopes of a North comeback in the series.

With that series secured, ENCE qualified for the Major. For Allu, this was everything he was what he was fighting for his entire CS:GO career. Before he joined NiP, he tried to make a Finnish squad work. After he left NiP, he tried again in 2016. After his time ended in FaZe and OpTic in 2017, he rejoined the Finnish scene to try to make it work a third time. This time it all came together as the Finnish scene started to come together. They had the right organization in ENCE, the right leader in aleksib, and the right players and roles in Aerial, xseveN, sergej, and Allu.

For Allu, this is a victory on both an individual and historical level. While he has been to Majors before, it was because he had joined teams like NiP and FaZe. In ENCE, he helped grow the team from the bottom up. He got to be one of the key members that helped fulfill the dream of rebuilding Finnish Counter-Strike. For ENCE and all the players, this EU Minor victory is validation of all the work and faith they have put into the Finnish scene. For Allu, this is a homecoming. Three times Allu tried to bring the Finnish scene to become a top team in CS:GO and on this third try, he has done it and has finally put Finnish Counter-Strike on the major stage once again.

“I’m always supporting Finnish players, if I just have the chance.” – Allu, from the Road to IEM Katowice 2019: Episode 2

Related Articles: