Potential. It’s a strange, intangible idea. There is no explicit statistic to measure it, only anecdotal evidence, predictive rhetoric, individual’s narrative models, and a fair sprinkling of confirmation bias to boot.

To add on top of these questionable data points is the fact that, for almost every game, no player is ever running at a 100 per cent efficiency, leaving room for the imagination to run wild with the idea of ‘what if’.

This volatile mixture of intertwining factors can be liquidated by the community, then injected into the narrative of any player with the fortunate combination of youth, an underdog team and impressive online numbers, to be awarded the title of ‘rising/potential star’, or ‘the next big thing’.

Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Reddit Email Share

This is by no means a counterproductive endeavour, nor an insidious one.

2016 has seen the metamorphosis of some of the most memorable ‘potential stars’ into bonafide superstars. Coldzera is the obvious pick, but also the largest outlier. The rise of the Danes in Magiskb0y and Kjaerbye better illustrates how potential can actually manifest into superstar LAN talent, that has been proven through the fiery crucible of playing on a big stage.

While these young stars flaunt their promised potential and dominate our screens, they represent the successful, preening tip of the iceberg of potential.

Delving below the waterline of this iceberg – and away from the glistening spire of success – yields a contradictory story to that of what Coldzera, Kjaerbye, and Magiskb0y’s stories might lead you to believe. The piercing chill of failure and missed opportunity defines this submerged tundra of failed leaders, forgotten talent, and the rookies of yesteryear.

They actively play to avoid the frozen touch of obscurity that could destroy their career. Among names that once stirred excitement and hope is the constantly preening, yet forgotten talent of Kenneth “Koosta” Suen.

His skillset represented a puzzle piece that the North American jigsaw had longed for. Young, aggressive, capable of carrying from difficult positions, and most importantly of all, a consistent hybrid. An AWPer trapped in a rifler’s body, Koosta was capable of duelling with North America’s most prominent talent with any weapon, on LAN or online.



With these highly polished, and well-rounded attributes that look jarringly out of place among the many raw aim talents of semi-professional NA play, Koosta started to inflate the prominence of his name through online domination.

Online play is a fickle mistress as any for evaluating a player’s potential, though, and Koosta’s true step into the limelight would be at the 2015 RGN Pro Series. Easily transitioning to LAN, Koosta maintained the carry performances that generated the online hype in the first place. No longer subject to the tag of ‘onliner’, his regular 25+ kills earned him mentions by analysts and fans alike.

To further add lustre to this initial LAN discovery of Koosta was that, on paper, his team was nowhere near his individual level. On the server, it looked like Koosta was fulfilling a role more akin to Prometheus rather than a teammate. This initial impression, however, is immediately washed away when one learns about the actual inner dynamic of this Enemy line-up.

Not the confident vagabond that his highlight reel might suggest, Koosta’s dominance was actually the product of an entire system geared towards catering to his individual skill.

Economy management revolved around putting the AWP in his hands, utility thrown and peaks baited to increase the chance of Koosta success, and most importantly of all, the helping hand of coach Ryu to guide his young star, were all factors that played into Koosta’s domination.

Ryu could be found micro-managing elements of Koosta’s game and creating a bank of information on enemies tailored towards finding tendencies for him to exploit. In this system that centres on Koosta doing well, not surprisingly… Koosta played really well.

The initial hype surrounding Koosta following his RGN Pro Series performance only hit an exponential crescendo after he hard carried his team to win the Americas Minor.

A 60+ kill series in the grand final, with a slew of frag clips to splatter the front page of/r/GlobalOffensive as well, Koosta’s stock value as a potential star hit an all-time high. The highly tuned infrastructure that supported him was easily dismissed in favour of admiring his raw skill and sought-after hybrid prowess.



Shortly after this American Minor performance, it was announced that Koosta would be joining the much revered Team Liquid roster, that while underperforming had the apex of North American talent bolstered with the skill of Ukrainian prodigy s1mple.

Although it was clear from the outset there could be a potential clash between s1mple and Koosta considering they were both hybrids who liked to AWP on T-side, the sheer on-paper talent and ceiling for potential success made these issues fall away.

Furthermore, the man he was replacing – adreN – had been the focus point of community lament for months, with consistent poor performances leading many to believe he was holding the team back. Koosta represented a hot talent that could easily slot into adreN’s role and take Liquid to their theoretical world-beating level.

The roster move from the get-go, however, tripped over itself in an awkward heap with the Major/Minor system preventing Koosta from playing with Team Liquid at the MLG Columbus Qualifier and the event itself.

As such, when Liquid, without Koosta in the active roster and adreN in his spot, went on to make history by being the first North American team to place top four at a Major since 2013, the importance of the young hybrid’s place in the line-up went into question.

To make matters worse, in the event following Liquid’s MLG Columbus success that actually had Koosta in the active team, they catastrophically bombed out in groups, losing to Chinese team Tyloo in overtime. When this abysmal result was combined with their very apparent online struggles in qualifiers and leagues, and team interviews hinted at a corrosive relationship between Koosta and s1mple, it became clear that this in-theory stacked roster did not mesh together at all.

With a groundswell of popularity around his brash persona and mystifying in-game domination, s1mple was the main selling point of Team Liquid success. Therefore, when he took a step down from the active team to pursue offers from other organisations, and then cited Koosta’s arrival as one of the primary reasons for his departure, Koosta became the scapegoat of all of Team Liquid’s problems.

No longer in the finely engineered system of Enemy (now named Selfless), being thrown into the deep end of the veteran roster of Liquid, and also dealing with the pressure of the community and his own teammates, meant the Koosta’s confidence and individual ability plummeted.



Rather than being the sole star as he always had been, his role was now that of playing a position, a task he was clearly not ready for.

No longer posting the same impressive statistics or playing with the same hegemonic confidence that earned him the title of ‘potential star’ in the first place, Koosta’s name among the community was, for the large part, spoken with distain for his negative impact on a fan-driven team, or at the very least forgotten with reason.

As an outsider looking in, he was the reason why the potential number one player in the world left, he was the reason why Liquid lacked firepower, and he was the reason why Liquid failed to make it out of groups at ELEAGUE Season 1 and the ESL Pro League Season 3 finals.

Koosta was now the problem.

It therefore came as no surprise to see him swapped for jdm64 in the lead-up to ESL One Cologne 2016. With CLG, Koosta was no longer under an intensive community spotlight, but he brought with him many of the confidence issues that plagued his individual game on Liquid.

Still without a team that was willing to base their skillset around him, Koosta watched his replacement jdm64 help Liquid once again make history for North America at a Major, placing second overall, and then his teammate tarik leave CLG to help make Optic Gaming the best team in NA.

This is where he currently resides. On a CLG roster as uninspiring as it is comfortable with its own mediocrity. Sharing AWPing duties with former 1.6 legendary sniper Cutler, Koosta has failed to qualify for an international LAN since joining this team. He posts above-average numbers for a team largely predicated on beating semi-professional NA sides and relies on in-game-leader Hazed to direct him around the map at the start of rounds.

He is a far cry from the maelstrom of positivity and hope he had on Enemy, but also distant from the hordes of screaming fan boys asking for his head on Liquid.



This quiet online life of the occasional frag clip and LAN qualification with CLG might only be a brief chapter in the epic history of Koosta, but for the time being he is frozen in this state, his potential as forgotten as his name among the community, the analysts and pundits more concentrated on the next big star rather than a cold hybrid from yesteryear.

His story is one that shows the unforgiving shoulder of the community is not one that can be relied on for constant support, and that potential is not always the best metric for gauging the ‘fit’ of a player on a team.