Grading the off-season roster moves

The 2015-2016 off-season once again featured plenty of player moves, with 10 or so existing teams making player or personnel changes and with a couple of new teams being formed in anticipation of the most competitive year in professional Counter-Strike yet.

This article will point out all the big moves made in the off-season and grade each of those moves (A, naturally, being the best).

fRoD returns in complexity

fRoD had not been a mainstay in competitive Counter-Strike since he was removed from EG in late 1.6. He attended an ESEA Finals event in late 2013 with cuLtivation, but his CS:GO resume so far is lackluster at best.

I expect fRoD to become a net-positive player in coL - a better fate than many who have been gone for a while - but only if he gets put in a role to succeed.

He has always been the star of his teams, the player an entire game plan is built around - and rightly so. But coL will not be successful in 2016 if they rely on fRoD, so he must learn how to embrace his new role.

Grade: C

TSM builds around semphis, FNS

The new North American TSM roster has not looked good in their few online games and is yet to attend an offline tournament.

Semphis seemingly destroyed what was left of his career with the controversial Adderall statement as he has been unable to join a meaningful roster since being let go of by Cloud9 just under a year ago.

FNS is a rare in-game leader from that side of the pond, but he always lacked the kind of fire power CLG needed to compete against top teams.

This team badly lacks identity - the old compLexity of Semphis’s at least was built on youngsters. This team feels like a placeholder until the next silly season, merely put together for a spot in E-LEAGUE.

Grade: D

mousesports replaces gob b with Spiidi

While on paper this move may seem odd because gob b added a lot tactically - despite not being a good player individually in CS:GO - and Spiidi has never been very impressive.

Yet mousesports’s first offline tournament showed promise as they upset Virtus.pro in a best-of-one before falling to dignitas.

The jury is still out on this one, as we’ll need to see more, but odds are this move may actually wind up working out for the German organisation.

Grade: B

FlipSid3 replaces DavCost with Shara

FlipSid3 are a team who tend to make the majors, but also are not exactly a contender there - a good showing by them is playing a few close maps before going out in the group stage.

DavCost wound up joining YP - the team backed by a famous adult entertainment website - but B1ad3, the team’s captain, found a solid replacement in his former Counter-Strike 1.6 teammate Shara.

Plus, maybe this move will finally force markeloff to return to AWPing. Otherwise, not much should change.

Grade: C

CLG replaces FNS with FugLy, adds pita as a coach

CLG are stuck in a horrible limbo where they must have felt since the summer’s best-of-one upset over fnatic that they are a good team, only outside of that they have only shown brief signs of promise and mostly been disappointing.

At IEM Gamescom they had some close games, but just that – no wins. Adding FugLy will be a very minor upgrade skill-wise and pita will make the team function better.

But will that be enough? I doubt it. Still, good moves, given what was available.

Grade: B

Dosia, wayLander form Gambit

We have only seen Gambit win the CIS pre-qualifier for MLG Columbus, but on paper this seems like an intriguing team.

wayLander proved to be a promising young player at the ESL One Cologne qualifiers and, if Dosia can regain some of his lost form, they can easily match the majors’ bottomfeeders.

This team will not be competing for titles, but it will be better than people give them credit for. Whatever that means.

Grade: B

SK adds Pimp

Right off of their short history’s best placing that saw them upset now-astralis and play fnatic closely, the Danish-Swedish SK decided to cut cadiaN in favour of Pimp, who had recently been removed from dignitas.

While this move should make SK slightly better, it remains to be seen if Pimp - who has a bad history of social fits - can function well with MODDII, whose history is even worse.

Another potential team to be seen at majors, but only on the first two days.

Grade: C

allu forms ENCE

allu was reportedly close to joining Liquid - and must have received plenty of other offers as well - after parting ways with NiP officially in December.

That he instead decided to join ENCE, a Finnish project, shows that he must have more faith in the Finnish scene than most fans.

The team packs more skill than most think - juho, suNny and stondeare especially capable of highlight-reel type actions - and the team will have proper backing as the flagship and, at least for now only, squad of the Finnish organisation.

Their first test will come at Assembly Winter next weekend and the MLG Columbus qualifiers that are set to finish then.

Could pay off in the longer term, but allu definitely left some quick success on the table by not joining one of the pre-existing teams.

Grade: C

sg@res, mOE form Echo Fox

Echo Fox is backed by Rick Fox, a former NBA player of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics.

With E-LEAGUE beginning in 2016, tons of North American organisations are trying to pick up quasi-competitive teams to secure slots in the league.

Well, Echo Fox did just that. Do not expect this team to compete with the likes of Cloud9, Liquid or even CLG, but they will be a popular team nonetheless and their famous ownership will only add to that.

They won’t be making noise at big events, but will make the North American scene more interesting to follow, by giving it some colour.

Grade: C

Cloud9 adds Stewie2k

Perhaps the most controversial move of this off-season. Once sg@res announced he’d leave Cloud9, everyone expected Cloud9 to add a near-superstar level talent and retain his services as a coach.

Only then sg@res said he did not want to coach because it would be as time-consuming as playing and Cloud9 added an up and coming player in Stewie2k.

While he can surely top sg@res in skill, the team’s brief moments of success were built on sg@res’s leadership, which now falls on n0thing, someone who has never previously led a team.

Expect issues with the occasional best-of-one upset, and struggles in holding down the number one position in North America.

Grade: C

astralis adds zonic as a coach

Interestingly enough, zonic’s mTw teams had issues similar to what astralis seems to be going through right now in the sense that at one point they also made deep tournament runs but could never win a title.

He should be able to help the team out mentally and, once he gets more comfortable with the game and astralis’s playing style, he might even be able to help with in-game leadership.

This is a solid move, but the players still need to get over whatever it is that is holding them back - because it is neither skill nor tactical approach. It is in their heads.

Grade: B

EnVyUs adds Maniac as a coach

This move cannot be properly analysed without a better understanding of how EnVyUs works in terms of personalities.

There are obviously some issues in the team and, with Maniac having played with all of these players in the past - and under Happy’s leadership - it is totally conceivable that he might be able to at least help with them, if not solve them.

It also depends on whether he was the glue-type personality in their teams in the past.

I am told Maniac is a smart guy and he seems that way on streams on the analyst desk, so this move makes sense.

Now they simply need to execute - coincidentally the issue the team has always had, given their obvious capabilities.

Grade: B

s1mple joins Liquid, moves to the US to replace FugLy

Props to Liquid for not giving up once allu said no and still going for the big fish.

While adding someone who has never lasted for a long period of time in his previous teams is incredibly risky, s1mple adds so much potential to Liquid that it is easily worth it - especially seeing as the team was not going anywhere without a similar major signing.

It remains to be seen how s1mple will adapt to North America and how effectively adreN and Jame^s can integrate him into the team’s game plan.

But in any case, this move bought Liquid fans worth more than s1mple’s signing bonus and instantly made them one of the most interesting teams to watch in 2016.

We will have no way of knowing how it works until they have had time to gel as a team, but Liquid could not realistically have signed a better player for the coming year.

Grade: A

NiP recruits pyth, adds threat as a coach

I have written about NiP’s issues in the past and adding pyth to replace allu solves approximately zero of them.

In his time overseas, pyth could not become much of a force, almost disappearing in the lacklustre North American competition.

However, roster moves have always motivated f0rest - something that cannot be quantified until we see them in action - and most importantly, NiP also added a coach.

Unfortunately threat will not be able to join the team until he reportedly returns from Japan in late February, but the team should nonetheless be ready by the time the next major rolls around.

The fact NiP signed threat suggests they are at least aware of their issues, but one question remains: will they accept a complete overhaul of NiP’s system, adapting to that of threat’s?

Grade: B

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