Team SoloMid, as an organization, has a terrible track record in CS:GO. The most current drama between the team owner, Andy “Reginald” Dinh, and Sean “seang@res” Gares, is only the most recent event in an ongoing string of awful decisions. TSM’s venture into CS:GO has been one mishap after another.

Losing the Great Danes

TSM’s foray into the Counter-Strike scene began with acquisition of the Danish lineup from Team Dignitas. This was the same squad that would later become Team Questionmark before announcing their status as the independent, player-owned organization Astralis. The team was easily a top five contender in 2015, vying for the top spot in the world for most of the year. That TSM lineup made multiple semifinals and finals, and won multiple tournaments. Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz submitted himself as a superstar talent and the team was rolling.

Even with all of the success of the Danish lineup, TSM somehow lost the team. Late in the year, Reginald dismissed the team’s manager, Frederik Byskov, who also served as an agent for the players. After Byskov’s dismissal, it was reported that relations between the players and management broke down. These events eventually led to the Danes leaving the organization and becoming Team Questionmark.

NA Lineup is a Nonfactor

After losing the Danes, TSM decided to try their hand at forming an NA roster. In 2016, TSM scraped together what they could out of the NA scene and put together a subpar lineup. Kory “SEMPHIS” Friesen and Pujan “FNS” Mehta were the most notable pickups but they were just castaways from better NA teams. The remaining players were young upstarts who hadn’t done anything noteworthy.

Throughout the entirety of 2016 this lineup has struggled to remain relevant, let alone remain competitive. Aside from about a month long period where they cracked the top fifteen, this NA lineup has accomplished basically nothing. Most people would say that Astralis had a down year in 2016. That being said, a “down year” for Astralis meant staying around the top ten for twelve months, until recently when they jumped up to the number one spot. TSM lost out on a juggernaut in the CS:GO world and traded them for NA scraps.

Losing the Little They Had

While Timothy “autimatic” Ta was on TSM, he was never a star player. He was solid and seemed to be a well-rounded player. In August of 2016, Cloud9 acquired autimatic from TSM and his level of impact sky-rocketed. It seems that pairing him with Jake “Stewie2k” Yip unlocked autimatic in ways that TSM was unable to.

C9 went on to win ESL Pro League Season 4 with autimatic winning the MVP for the tournament. C9 took an average player from TSM and made him a star carry player for their team. Many experts also believe that some of the players currently on TSM, like Hunter “SicK” Mims, have star potential. It remains to be seen whether they will ever be able to show it while on TSM.

Still Screwing Up

The current drama that TSM is stirred up in is just another instance of ineptitude. Regardless of who you agree with or who you stand with in this situation, it is a PR nightmare for TSM. Removing seang@res in the manner that they did is a bad look and the leaked messages make it even worse.

.@TSMReginald has told me that TSM is going to replace me due to my connection to the #playersrights letter.https://t.co/Lee3QzDos7 — Sean Gares (@seangares) December 23, 2016

It seems evident that TSM has not gotten into CS:GO with a desire to compete at a high level. If that was the plan, they would’ve stuck with the Danes. With all of these screw-ups, TSM have made it clear that haplessly attempting to make big bucks while controlling the esports landscape is their real agenda. They are running a business, of course, so money is understandably a priority. However, they really need to get their house in order when it comes to CS:GO.