It's Counter-Strike awards season, and it's time for us at BLAST to look back at 2023 and celebrate the best of 2023.
Today it is time to give out one of the the penultimate awards: the best Counter-Strike roster move of 2023.
To find our winner for this award, we have enlisted the help of five of our most knowledgeable talent members and the BLAST.tv editorial team will also have a vote as well.
"I will say bringing in siuhy and Jimpphat to MOUZ, I think that's a fair candidate for that one. MOUZ is not a team that's supposed to be a top three team in the world, the budgets they are working with are nowhere near the same as G2, FaZe, Vitality, Astralis, even Heroic, so I think I have to go with them. It was a proactive move, they finished second at IEM Dallas and then straight after they made these changes; it's a proactive move, a ballsy move, but, one that made a lot of sense."
"It's a late entry, but it's going to have to be Twistzz to Liquid I think. For me he's one of the absolute best riflers in the game right now, and the fact they've managed to lock him down with cadiaN as well, I think that team is going to be absolutely devastating going into 2024."
"UK bias says mezii to Vitality, it's not that, but... [laughs] flameZ to Vitality, maybe. Looking right now, I'm so excited to see more of FaZe with frozen now that he's reunited with ropz and karrigan. It's hard to fill Twistzz's position, but if you're going to get anybody, it's going to be frozen."
"What's a really good monster move... I'm trying to make sure I don't pick something that was last year. Roster move kind of also implies to some extent that it's someone who wasn't already on a team, because you do want to say Jimpphat maybe again, but doesn't really make sense, does it? He was already in their academy.
I don't know, there have been so many roster moves, especially now. I don't have a good answer for that one. I feel just a little bit stumped.
Actually, maybe I'll go for SunPayus to ENCE. Yeah, I'll pick SunPayus. He's turned out to be an amazing player. It took me a while, but we'll get SunPayus in there for the fun of it.
I do like ENCE. They make good decisions.
Wait... that was last year, wasn't it? [laughs] Nertz then, he turned them into contenders this year."
"I think it's Jimpphat going to MOUZ, I think that's the most important move they made. Without him and frozen they don't really have a team.
FaZe getting frozen is also pretty key, I didn't even know how they could replace Twistzz so the fact they can just take a MOUZ player whenever they want to is really helpful for them [laughs] they grabbed MOUZ's best player and it's also ropz, karrigan, and frozen being former teammates that makes it really good.
sh1ro's also been announced by Spirit, so that should be crazy good for them too."
"We would have gone for Vitality's moves in 2023 for the best Counter-Strike roster moves of 2023, but they happened at different times. Either way, they were fun, ballsy, proactive moves that secured the longevity of their success.
Seeing as they were made at different times though, we'll go with MOUZ bringing in siuhy and Jimpphat. siuhy is one of the best IGLs in the world and Jimpphat has revealed himself to be one of the most exciting prospects, too."
While there were plenty of roster moves to choose from in the voting for the best Counter-Strike roster move of 2023, we have a clear winner.
Jimpphat and siuhy on MOUZ have turned them into contenders, and, although they lost frozen, the four players left from their 2023 are more than enough for them to stay contenders in 2024.
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