Bubzkji picks the weirdest roster moves in CS history
We recently looked at the best roster moves in CS history, so how about we flip the script slightly and look at some of the weirdest roster moves in CS history?
Remember, weird doesn’t mean worst, as some of these teams were actually quite successful, but that doesn’t change that they weren’t weird to look at on paper.
To find our top five, once again we’ve enlisted the services of bubzkji, who has once again provided us with some bangers.
#1 MIBR sign Stewie2k and tarik
Kicking off our list of the weirdest moves in CS history is MIBR’s prolonged double signing of tarik and Stewie2k, a move that created an undeniably strange mix of Brazilian and North American players.
On one hand, we get it, Stewie2k had a lot of history with the MIBR boys and was a very known quantity to them, and tarik was a Major MVP who had plenty of experience - but was it really worth the language change?
At least the original moves for s1mple and flamie didn’t pan out, if they had, we wouldn’t have blamed bubzkji for just putting that move five times over.
#2 FURIA sign junior
Sticking with Brazilian teams undertaking a language change to incorporate a North American player, next up on the list of the weirdest roster moves in CS history is FURIA’s signing of junior.
junior had shone in the tier two NA scene and there were certainly some reasons to understand this move when looking at his performances, but just as with the previous names on this list, swapping language surely can’t ever be worth it.
Still, this one didn’t really pan out all too well, and the weirdness hadn’t washed away at all when junior was benched just five months after joining the team.
Photo: Michal Konkol#3 TYLOO signing peacemaker and bondik
Another weirdest CS roster move of all time, another nationality (or in this case, two) joining a random single-nationality team far removed from their own.
This time we have Ukrainian rifler bondik and Brazilian coach peacemaker joining TYLOO, but let’s focus on bondik as his move is not only one of the weirdest in CS history, but also one of the funniest too.
As the story goes, while bondik was a part of HellRaisers, he was drunk in a bar and was offered something to sign. When he awoke, probably with a gigantic headache, he had signed for Chinese team TYLOO on loan. Incredible.
Photo: Stephanie Lindgren#4 SPLYCE 2016 rebuild
Imagine you have an NA team and the very next thing you do is sign a Dane, and Dutchman, and… a Mongolian?
That’s exactly what SPLYCE did in 2016 with the signings of AcilioN, CRUC1AL, and Machinegun, and that’s exactly why bubzkji included them on his list of the weirdest roster moves in CS history.
The roster didn’t last long, it was only four months before DAVEY and Machinegun departed, but given the current state of teams in CS, we guess that the CS world just wasn’t ready for this team at that point.
Photo: Stephanie Lindgren#5 MAD Lions sign innocent
The final transfer bubzkji mentioned in this list of the weirdest roster moves in CS history was one from his own CS timeline, innocent replacing him on MAD Lions.
Looking back, this was really bizarre considering that innocent is Polish and MAD Lions was a Danish team at the time, but more recent developments in CS has made it slightly less weird.
However, even those recent developments, that being the Polish ENCE team with gla1ve lasted long than innocent on MAD Lions, he didn’t even spend three full months with the team.