Since their average placing at IEM Katowice at the start of March this year, Virtus.Pro have failed to perform at every event they have attended bar the major in mid-july. Even at the major, Virtus.Pro only managed to defeat Vega Squadron, slumping Cloud9 and fnatic teams in best-of-ones and an underachieving North team in a best-of-three. That is, until they were knocked out in a swift 2-0 fashion by an Immortals team, that we now know had huge internal issues, to achieve a 3/4th place finish. Virtus.Pro fans haven’t had much to cheer about for over six months, but if we study their past fluctuations in performance, there may be some glimmers of hope, despite the team’s recent form.

On the 26th of September, Virtus.Pro officially announced that TaZ would be returning to the in-game leading role. Throughout nearly all of Virtus.Pro’s successful streaks, the team was led by TaZ’s mature and structured leadership style. His style made up for Virtus.Pro’s lack of firepower by utilising the team’s characteristic chemistry, forged over the four year span of this roster and propping it up with a solid structure and strategical base inside the game.

This change also came a week after a public statement from Snax on facebook, sharing his frustrations as an in-game leader within the team, as he tried to implement a looser playstyle. His teammates simply didn’t have the skill or will to follow Snax’s vision for the team and this ultimately perpetuated their poor performances as a team. However, Snax being forced to in-game lead also greatly affected his own individual game. A player once regarded as a contender for best in the world due to his strong mechanical skill and cunning play around smokes, now looked to be holding himself back from making the plays that had once made him arguably the “most difficult player to play against in the world”.

His mind was occupied by the thoughts of an in-game leader and was no longer taking the risks it used to or executing with the same level of mechanical skill, which resulted in one of the biggest drop offs in personal performance we have seen in CS:GO. Even by using a metric as simplistic as HLTV rating, we can see that since March, his individual rating has fallen from a steady 1.20 to around the 0.90 mark which it occupies currently. However, with in-game leading no longer Snax’s priority and clearly frustration building at his own and team’s performances, it would not be an overzealous statement to suggest that Snax may once again find his form in the coming months. He may not be able to return to his once superstar status, but even being able to get back to 80 percent of his previous performance would greatly improve Virtus.Pro’s performance.

That said, another one of Virtus.Pro’s traditional win conditions is beginning to be consistently met again. pashaBiceps has been slowly returning to form. Although, again, he may never be back to his early 2014 self, having a second star who could consistently bring big impact to aid Snax was always a success criteria to Virtus.Pro’s LAN placements during the start of 2017. This was sometimes brought about by byali, however his trademark consistency issues suit him much more to being a team’s hybrid star. A player who is not relied on to win games, but rather pushes the team over the finishing line with big performances in finals and important matches.

This simply leaves the old guard of Virtus.Pro, TaZ and NEO, who have publicly always said that they are no longer star player material, but rather wish to use their experience and wisdom to play more supportive, leadership based roles within the team. With Snax leaving in-game leading to TaZ and pashaBiceps returning to good, consistent form, Virtus.Pro may soon begin to click into their most natural roles once again.

Finally, Virtus.Pro’s form has always ebbed and flowed. Almost like clockwork, their results can be plotted with clear trends showing 6-12 month periods of generally strong performances, followed by 6-12 month periods of generally weak performances. There is rarely any upswing in performance and much rather a sudden spike in performance at one event, that triggers the ensuing series of deep tournament runs. However, one sign of an incoming good run from Virtus.Pro has always been the one-off good event a few months before they get their act together. In the past, this has come in the form of their performance at the first Dreamhack Mälmo and one could argue that Virtus.Pro’s freak good placement at the PGL major earlier this year could be the spark required to set off an ensuing good run of form.

If Virtus.Pro is ever going to be a contender for best in the world again, I think that EPICENTER 2017 or (due to ESFORCE ownership, they are likely to get an invite to all Starseries events) SL i-League invitational Shanghai 2017 will be the event where Virtus.Pro will bounce back to form, if one believes that their previous patterns of performance can be read into.

As a final note, I believe that the most common counter argument to this article may be the social media outbursts of Virtus.Pro and clear frustrations and lack of motivation from some members of the team. The players being vocal about their frustrations and lack of ideas in fixing their current form may suggest that the team are locked in to a “Golden Cage” of high paid contracts. However, during previous slumps of the team, we have seen the same behaviour, the same dejected statements from TaZ about retirement and even footage of heated arguments post pathetic LAN losses. Such behaviour is hardly unheard of and deserves little weight in debate.

Credit to hltv.org and ELEAGUE/Turner Sports for images