Roster moves are commonplace in professional Counter-Strike but the context behind those decisions are rarely made public. If that context is revealed, it is often many years later when interest has since faded. In this series, I will use sourced information to shed some light recent roster moves and explain why they happened.

On January 1st, TYLOO replaced longtime players Ke “captainMo” Liu and Hui “DD” Wu with YuLun “Summer” Cai and YuanZhang “Attacker” Sheng. While technically on a three month loan, they have a chance to join the organization long term if they play well. TYLOO are Returning Challengers at the IEM Katowice Major following their twelfth place finish at the FACEIT Major: London. To automatically qualify for the next Major, they will have to finish in the top fourteen.

2018 was a quiet year for TYLOO beginning with lackluster finishes at both StarSeries Season 4 and IEM Katowice shortly after adding Kevin “xccurate” Susanto. In April, they had another poor finish at DreamHack Masters Marseille but rebounded with a semi-final appearance against FaZe Clan at IEM Sydney. Days after the event, captainMo had an accident and injured himself. Their need for a stand-in would end up derailing any progress they had made during the year. Following the return of captainMo, their poor performance continued.

According to a number of sources, TYLOO decided to kick captainMo following their performances at SuperNova Malta 2018 and PLG Grand Slam 2018. It was their intention to make this change alone and proceed with a long boot camp prior to IEM Katowice. Upon learning that captainMo’s days were numbered, DD expressed that he had no interest in remaining with TYLOO after the Major. His English skills are very limited, which had created a divide between the Indonesian players and himself. When TYLOO learned of his intention to leave, they decided to accelerate the process and replace him immediately.

The loan of Summer and Attacker is cost beneficial for TYLOO. According to sources, the two Flash Gaming players will receive only 20% of their sticker revenue. In comparison, Haowen “somebody” Xu will receive 80% of income his sticker generates. During their loan, the two players will accrue a salary of 10,000 Chinese Yuan (~$1,500 USD) per month. This salary is less than half of what the current TYLOO players currently make as members of the active lineup.