Roster Changes

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The only holdover is Keenan 'Rhux' Santos , top laner and mayor of Rhux City. The roster overhaul comes less than two weeks after Christian 'IWDominate' Rivera stepped down from jungle to become the team’s analyst/coach.News of a Team Curse Academy roster change is not necessarily shocking. Dominate was very vocal and upset with their loss in the 2013 MLG Spring Championship, 1-2 to former FXOpen team To Be Determined. He quickly stepped down from the team, and it was not hard to imagine that more changes could be to come. Sources close to the situation also confirmed to us that Team Curse management was displeased with the team’s showing in past LAN tournaments and decided a change was needed.However, with four new players, Curse Academy is a completely re-made team. How will this new roster fare over the rest of the MCS season and beyond?Roster changes are a very hard thing to judge initially, as it’s very hard for an outsider to see how the team functions internally, what conflicts arise, and how new players will mesh with each other. Regardless, my initial reaction is that this is a roster shake-up because Curse felt something had to change, rather than not being able to refuse the talent they are bringing in. Sure, the players they bring in are well known and are no chumps, but do they represent an immediate upgrade to the former roster? Absolutely not.In fact, it’ll be tough to expect the same kind of level of play immediately. Besides the lack of experience playing together, the players lack competitive experience. Fabbbyyy, while both universally loved and despised in Solo Queue, has no significant competitive play experience. Vibes has some experience in the Challenger scene, but not nearly as much as the former MRN support AtomicN. OneBadBrad and Only Jaximus have some, especially in seasons past, but don’t have the same recent experience you would expect from the Curse roster.Curse seems to be willing to go through some growing pains in exchange for what they hope will be a brighter future with the new roster. Look for their play to suffer in the short term while the team builds synergy together, although you know Liquid and Dominate will be doing everything they can to drill them into shape.Vibes, Curse’s new support player, also gave us some insight into the changes. He took some time out of a busy day to answer a few questions for us.Can you tell us anything about why the management felt a roster change was necessary?“Mainly just due to their age. Even they wanted to qualify, they wouldn't be able to. School and other restrictions as well.”How were you, jaximus and fabbbyyy picked up? Were any of you like a "package deal"?“Jaximus has been friends with the management of Curse for awhile and after he became a sub for their main team, they asked him he wanted to play for their second team. It just so happened they needed a bottom lane also. I wouldn't necessarily say we were a package, though. If a team mate of mine got a really good offer to join a really good team, I'd have no hard feelings if they decided to leave.”How do you feel about the new team, and what are your goals for the near future?“This is probably the most stable and dedicated roster I've been on. Just workin' out the kinks at the moment and finding out what works best for us. As for our future, just trying to make it into the LCS qualifiers for next season/split and grow as a team.”Will Riot allow two teams from the same organization in the future?“They won't. But we're using Curse as an organization to be a brother team to the main squad and help both parties succeed as a whole. We'll just play under a new team name for LCS standards, but still do everything we normally would as Curse Academy. Nothing will change whatsoever besides the name to allow for qualification.”So would you then be seeking another sponsor? Or would you still be "under" Curse, just using a different team name?“Correct. Under Curse but as a different name.”We’d like to thank Tyler “Vibes” Selig for the interview, and wish him and the roster of the new Curse Academy good luck going forward!