“Sources Say” is a regular column that focuses discussions and behind-the-scenes developments I can confirm or plainly just feel confident are happening, even if they don’t lead to any official moves. “X team are targeting Y player,” or “A player has been practicing with B team,” — that type of stuff.

After talking to a number of individuals attending the ECS Season 6 Finals it is clear that the expectation by most is it will be an extremely close and competitive tournament. I’m obliged to agree, many of the teams attending are fighting to retain or improve upon their top 5 to 10 place ranking. That said, I think it’ll be another dominant event from Astralis with them winning yet another trophy. They arrived in Texas way ahead of everyone else and have had more than enough time to prepare and innovate on their imposing approach.

The month of November has been quiet as expected with many rosters locked until after the ECS and ESL Pro League Finals. Should any high-profile roster moves transpire, they’ll have a small window between the culmination of those aforementioned events and the impending Major roster lock on January 1st, 2019. I don’t really expect much as most teams appear to have committed to playing this Minor/Major process out with their current rosters. Although, if someone like Krimz is willing to team back up with Olofmeister on FaZe Clan, how do you not sign the check instantaneously?

Here are a few nuggets I’ve heard recently…

— compLexity have considered making a change, reaching out to at least one North American team about the availability of their players. It appears nothing is in the works at this point, but it’s something to monitor.

— Snatchie had an option of some kind in his contract that would have allowed him to return to AGO should he have wanted to. It appeared he may exercise that option last month but has since done a 180 and I’d expect him to remain with Virtus.pro indefinitely. Most players don’t do this unless they are convinced there will be significant change in the near future.

— I’ve had numerous people coming to me to ask about fnx and if he’d be replacing one of the North Americans on MiBR. That absolutely isn’t happening from what I’m told and it almost wasn’t even worth confirming. He doesn’t speak English very well and MiBR made it clear this year that they would rather pick up international talent rather than team up with old teammates.

*Title Photo Courtesy of Dreamhack