Welcome to Jerry’s ascension.
The mark of a good leader is overperformance. It’s putting together a team of people from different backgrounds and helping them all pull together for one common goal, to make a team out of individuals.
The mark of a great leader is to do it consistently, with loads of different people, with different personalities and skill sets. That’s when it stops being interesting and starts being ridiculously impressive. Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t a legend because he oversaw one good team, it’s because he did it consistently with different players.
This will be Jerry’s third Major with FORZE, but he will have played with 10 different players. Only zorte and shalfey will have played with him at a Major twice, with both KENSI and Norwi leaving since Antwerp.
The first time
Back in 2019, before the advent of the RMR system and before COVID ravaged a flourishing LAN circuit, FORZE came through the CIS Minor. Though many liked to disparage the CIS Minor at the time, plenty of the teams who came through it surprised at the main event (DreamEaters, Vega Squadron, AVANGAR, QBF) and a lot of those players have since stayed around the top tier of the game.
Perfecto, Keoz and neaLan, for example, were on Syman Gaming who FORZE had to beat to qualify. The name Syman Gaming might have seemed to an outsider like a pushover, but in hindsight they had some genuinely good players - not least the future Major winner.
They also muscled past Gambit Youngsters, albeit pre-meteoric rise, and chopper’s Team Spirit. Not the best teams in the world, but certainly not bad ones, either.
FORZE (then forZe) were going to Berlin, and after some mixed results in the BO1s and a tight loss to G2 (including a 53 round map), FORZE had to just beat DreamEaters to qualify.
Alas, what is a story without failure?
DreamEaters had been the surprise of the event, and with Krad (now, strangely enough, playing for FORZE) and Forester popping off, FORZE missed out. Jerry himself struggled individually, and FORZE would feel disappointment for the first time.
The second time
Despite a loss to kick off qualification to Antwerp, Jerry’s newest roster clicked in the RMR to lock in FORZE’s spot. Few knew of shalfey, zorte, KENSI and Norwi before Jerry got his claws into them, but plenty knew all about them after these games.
When shalfey topped the charts against GamerLegion, OG and SAW in back-to-back-to-back series, it was clear Jerry had unearthed yet another gem. What was most surprising about it was that shalfey had shown little to the untrained eye that would suggest he had this within him.
But Jerry’s talent identification is far, far better than mine, or yours, or just about anyone’s.
shalfey ended the RMR in the top 10 rated players as FORZE pushed through to the main event, but struggled to convert that form into the main event and ended up dropping off. FORZE looked solid to go 2-0, but close losses to Vitality and Outsiders left them in a 2-2 game against Imperial.
A very, very winnable one, it would seem.
Perceptions can be deceiving, and there are no easy games at Majors. FORZE capitulated; one can argue that this was their true level and Imperial were just clearly better, that FORZE were simply BO1 specialists who had gotten found out, but given they’d taken maps off of Vitality and BNE it seems unfair.
Imperial ripped them to shreds.
FORZE picked up ten rounds in two maps, and though you can point to individual players not showing up it’s hard not to blame Jerry at least somewhat. A great leader, after all, will always take the fall for his players.
16-5 16-5 is never just one thing going wrong, it’s multiple. Jerry couldn’t find the fixes, his preparation wasn’t right and individuals struggled as well.
Third time’s the charm?
What makes this qualification so impressive is that Jerry has once again made a solid team out of players nobody else had considered, and even the pieces that he kept have changed.
This wasn’t a case of shalfey going crazy again. This was a team performance. As the meta has changed to a more holistic style, where everyone has to be able to contribute and the IGL throwing their life away for information has largely subsided, Jerry has changed with the times.
Four years after his first entrance to the Major, Jerry is still fighting, still improving, still adapting. Many IGLs have come and gone as the wind has changed, but Jerry has allowed himself to stay humble and continue learning.
It was fitting, therefore, that it was the leader who took over the fateful game against Aurora.
Aurora are a dangerous team who’d picked up KENSI and Norwi from FORZE not too long ago, and Jerry was forced to dig deep into his memory palace and pluck two new rough diamonds to shine and bring along.
r3salt and Krad were the… result, as it were. Krad is a reliable role player, while r3salt is more explosive and inconsistent. Neither are superstars, but they’re solid cogs in Jerry’s machine.
With qualification on the line, Jerry took the game by the scruff of its neck and carried his team from the front. That’s not necessarily a great sign - it’s probably not a repeatable performance against top tier teams - but it’s a mark of resilience and strength.
How do they win?
Instead, if FORZE are to be successful, they probably need to turn to zorte.
The AWPer came into FORZE as an unknown quantity, but by now is a solid if largely unspectacular AWPer in a region where every sniper is ridiculously good. At the RMR, though, we saw what he can be, a slow, constrictive, destructive force - and if FORZE are to win, it’s going to be through that.
Nearly every great team, at least right now, has a great AWPer. FORZE have one who can be great, and that’s the next step.
shalfey can be a very dangerous player at this level, as we’ve seen, though he is inconsistent, and r3salt and Krad are solid players with few flaws. That’s what FORZE have; talent, potential and solidity.
It’s the leader that makes it all tick. Jerry brings the best out of all of them, like he has with many a player in the past. Now with zorte as the star, he’ll need to rejig his system to move around the AWP more than ever before. If there’s anyone who knows how to do that with those players, though, it’s him.
The Challengers Stage will be difficult. There’s a bunch of great teams, and just as many upset teams. FORZE will need to navigate it with poise, and take some big scalps. Most upset teams do that through straight firepower, but FORZE have a different plan.
They’re going to play great Counter-Strike, and actually outthink you and outplay you.
Welcome to Jerry’s world.