Three reasons why teams should be afraid of Falcons
When Falcons persuaded zonic to leave behind the world’s number one team Vitality to head up their new project, you knew they meant business.
What followed was one of the most exciting transfer sagas in the history of Counter-Strike, and now they have a team ready to cause some serious damage to the best teams in the world.
Those teams, some of whom would have had to convince their stars not to leave for Falcons, now have genuine and justified reasons to be scared of this new force, but what exactly are those reasons?
#1 The zonic factor
This is a pretty well-known factor by now, but let's just say it one more time for the people in the back: zonic is the greatest coach in the history of Counter-Strike.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenSure, he may not be your favourite. We're sure plenty of people will love Zews or B1ad3 just as much, but Zonic's achievements speak for themselves.
A five-time Major winner as a coach, zonic was integral to the Astralis team that crafted a new, utility-based meta and took the world by storm in 2018 as they began a run that would see them dominate for two whole years, winning three consecutive Majors and the inaugural Intel Grand Slam in that time.
Later, he would oversee Vitality's transition from a French team to an international team, carefully considering roster moves that always elevated the team to new heights and would result in ZywOo's first Major crown.
Now he is tasked with delivering the same success to Falcons, which, given the strength of the Vitality team he built, could be his toughest task yet. However, with a team that includes talents like Snappi, SunPayus, and Magisk, we think he'll manage just fine.
#2 A born winner
Although almost everyone on Falcons has experience winning tier one competition, no one has experience quite like Magisk's.
He has been here for four out of five of zonic's Major wins - Magisk has spent the last six years winning trophy after trophy, and as a result, there are very few players with a winning mentality quite like his.
However, mentality will only get you so far - so what do the numbers say?
To find out, let's compare Magisk's 2023 to the player he will effectively be replacing from Snappi's old ENCE system - dycha.
Photo: Stephanie Lindgrendycha had a respectable 2023, recording a 1.05 HLTV rating on LAN across the year, although this is nothing compared to Magisk. The Dane registered 1.12, and that's not the only stat that places him higher than dycha.
In fact, the online stat where dycha recorded a better number than Magisk was assists per round - 0.16 to 0.14. In every other notable metric - Impact, KAST, Opening kills - Magisk came out on top.
It seems that Magisk is an upgrade on dycha, and he could have been the factor that would've seen ENCE convert more grand finals than just the one at IEM Dallas.
He can definitely have that level of impact with Falcons.
Photo: Stephanie Lindgren#3 An unpredictable force
The BLAST.tv Paris Major was a hell of a lot of fun, and one of the biggest reasons for that was the revelation that was BOROS and Monte.
Finishing the event with a 1.15 HLTV rating, he was Monte's best player as they made a surprise push to the quarter-finals.
BOROS had already made his presence known at the RMR for the Major, he was incredible as Monte upset Cloud9 16-9 on Mirage.
In that game, he picked up an opening kill, but as sdy put it in an interview with HLTV after the game, no one felt the wrath of BOROS quite like nafany.
"We have BOROS. I can say he headshots pretty well if he's in a good mood. Before the game we told him 'nafany plays con, you have two legs, go win.' He just ran in almost every round to kill him. That's it, that was the game plan basically." - sdy told HLTV.
It's this type of unpredictability that makes BOROS special. He can appear anywhere on a map, at any time, and no matter who occupies that area of the map, he can rip their heads off.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenHaving a player like that is a dream for an IGL like Snappi, and he'll already be licking his lips at all the ways he'll be able to use his new star.
If the duo can figure out an understanding that best utilises BOROS' destructive skillset, there isn't a team in Counter-Strike that won't constantly be terrified of the moment the Jordanian comes flying around the corner.