The natural order: GamerLegion lose their entire Paris Major roster

Establishing yourself in tier-one is one of the hardest things to do as a Counter-Strike team. It’s often the case that the big boys will come knocking after a few good results, and holding on to your stars at that point becomes a near impossibility.

It’s something MOUZ have had to deal with countless times in their history and that ENCE are still reeling from now.

Even HEROIC, one of the best teams of the past few years were powerless to prevent Astralis from coming along and tasking their two biggest stars.

Photo: Michal Konkol

Given the frequency with which it happens, many people would consider it to be the natural order of the Counter-Strike transfer market, and now it is GamerLegion who has fallen victim to it.

Well, sort of.

Of course, GamerLegion fell victim to it long ago, not long after their miraculous underdog run to the grand final of the BLAST.tv Paris Major final when they were deprived of the services of their IGL, siuhy, and their star player, iM.

As GamerLegion found out, it’s hard to recover from losing players as integral to your team as those two were. Although they have managed to stick around in tier-one and still hold their own, we’ll never know if they could’ve turned Paris into something we didn’t look at as a Cinderella story.

A year on, GamerLegion now doesn’t have a single player from that Major final on their active roster. With some of those departures being a surprise, let’s take a look at how the natural order came to take effect at GamerLegion.

The first departures

The first two to leave were siuhy and iM, but there was no surprise.

Although iM didn’t win the MVP award at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, his performances for GamerLegion were out of this world. He was running round corners like prime NiKo and consistently winning rounds out of nowhere, and at the time, we were all convinced we were witnessing the birth of a new superstar.

Of course, following his move to NAVI, we’ve now realised that it might take a few more years, but the Romanian has developed into a key part of the Ukrainian organisation’s system.

Given iM’s incredible 1.35 HLTV rating during the Major, it was impossible to see a world where GamerLegion would manage to retain his services following the event. He had long been the team's star, and Paris was the breakout event that showed the entire world that he could also be a star figure in tier one.

The same could be said for siuhy, although this time for his leadership qualities.

Ever since siuhy dominated the WePlay Academy League with MOUZ NXT, fans knew he would be something special, although most people probably expected it to take longer for him to acclimatise in tier-one.

Instead, the Polish IGL made a mark on tier-one instantly as his GamerLegion team knocked G2 out of the IEM Rio Major 2022 RMR. They then performed admirably in Rio before being eliminated with a 2-3 record from the Challengers Stage.

Hardened by those results, Paris saw GamerLegion battle back from a 0-2 record in Challengers Stage and go all the way to the final. This is a feat that any IGL would struggle to accomplish, but to do it with such underdogs is unheard of.

When you consider that GamerLegion eliminated MOUZ in that 0-3 game and that they were struggling under the leadership of dexter, as GamerLegion surged to the final, it felt obvious what would happen after the tournament.

Siuhy had to take the step to MOUZ, and GamerLegion could not prevent it.

The recent sale

Although he was the last to leave the active roster, the third player to be sold was isak.

A passive rifler during his time in GamerLegion, Isak has now been bought by NIP.

It might have been a move that felt a long time coming, considering the Swedish heritage of both the player and the organisation, so we’re a little surprised it took this long to happen

isak might not be a star, at least not in the traditional sense, although he had evolved into one of GamerLegion’s stars in the wake of iM’s departure.

He’s a dependable player who gets his job done. That makes him exactly the type of player that NIP and a whole host of tier-one teams find valuable.

In a world where those kinds of players are few and far between, a move away from GamerLegion was as inevitable for isak as it was siuhy and iM.

It was only a matter of time before someone picked him up, and given the fact that GamerLegion have maintained their place in the Counter-Strike world, there would be no apprehension as to whether or not isak could cut it on a team with a greater reputation.

The underperformers

The final two members of the Paris squad are acoR and Keoz. They’re still a part of the organisation, although they were benched following GamerLegion’s disappointing form during the Copenhagen Major cycle.

acoR was one of the team’s key players in their two Major runs, and he maintained his form for most of 2023. However, he has dipped since the release of CS2. His CS:GO rating in 2023 was 1.07, although that fell to 1.02 as GamerLegion endured a difficult end to their year. It climbed back to 1.05 in 2024.

Considering acoR will retain resale despite his downturn in form, it’s might not come as a surprise that GamerLegion decided to bench him, and they seem to have found a great fit in sl3nd.

Since joining, sl3nd has been in good form for GamerLegion. He recorded a 1.21 HLTV rating at ESL Pro League Season 19, his first LAN event with the team. Factor that into the promising form he showed at Endpoint, and GamerLegion could have one of the next star AWPers on their hands.

As for Keoz, even in GamerLegion’s Paris run, he had a 0.86 HLTV rating during the Major, and his ratings are similarly in the red at other LAN events. Of course, Keoz was never blessed with easy or star roles.

However, like acoR, he can probably provide value to other teams. Keoz speaks a number of languages, and that opens up many possibilities in terms of where his next steps may lead him.

Keoz’s direct replacement, aNdu, has already started brightly with the team. He picked up a 1.09 HLTV rating at ESL Pro League, and is already showing why it was the right decision for GamerLegion to look towards the future for their next steps as a team.

The future

GamerLegion’s decision to look towards the future is bold but smart. In sl3nd, aNdu, and now FL4MUS - their replacement for isak - they have three players who have all starred in tier-two and are comfortable playing those important roles.

Given how they performed at Pro League, it’s also immediately evident that there is a future in this lineup and that all of these players can easily step up to tier-one.