Throughout Counter-Strike history there has been many, many transfers that have been both great successes and great failures.
Recently, we took a look at some of those roster moves that could be considered the biggest, but what about the most controversial?
We spoke to Anders at BLAST Premier Fall Final to get his views on what are the most controversial roster moves in CS history.
ENCE cutting Aleksib is a move that never made sense, and recent information suggests people on the team knew that too.
Aleksib's captaincy had taken ENCE from obscurity to a Major final, as well as a tier one trophy at BLAST Pro Series Madrid 2019. The team may have dropped off slightly from that point, but they were still performing well outside of IEM Cologne 2019, and perhaps over-performing given the players on their team.
The move was even more controversial considering there wasn't an IGL in Finland to replace him, and considering how the team dropped off after his departure and everything Aleksib has achieved since, it makes even less sense now.
"Aleksib leaving ENCE, particularly given recent history feels like a big mistake." - Anders
Now, we may have to disagree with Anders slightly on this one, kicking karrigan worked out okay for Astralis.
However, if we look at the FaZe departure in 2018, that one really doesn't make sense.
In the years that followed, karrigan made Envy look half decent (an incredible achievement given that roster), turned MOUZ into trophy winners, and returned to FaZe to go on one of the best runs in CS history.
FaZe may have been fractured after the loss in the ELEAGUE Boston Major final, but kicking karrigan with very little plan for what was to come after was never going to be smart.
"karrigan getting removed from any team ever, it happened a few times over his career, obviously we knew then, and definitely know now, what he can do." - Anders
Moving on we have a move that was unthinkable at the time, and given how it went, now feels somewhat like a fever dream.
device was then, and is now again, synonymous with the Astralis name. He won four Majors as part of the Danish organisation and wrote his name into the history books as one of the greatest players of all time, so seeing him turn out for NIP was a huge shock.
Unfortunately though, despite promising results here and there, this was a move that didn't work out so we'll never know if it was worth the controversy or not.
"device joining NiP, because well.. no further explanation is really needed here." - Anders
If we're talking about controversial roster moves, how could this not get a mention? Arguably the biggest story of 2023, the HEROIC divorce after all of their success is something we are still feeling the impact of a year later.
From the outside it seemed incredibly messy, and it made certain members of the former HEROIC team public enemies number one and two for a while, but it seems everyone involved has put it behind them now that they're together again on Astralis.
It only took unsuccessful years from them all to get there though, so let's see what happens in the future now that they're playing together again.
"The split up of HEROIC with stavn and jabbi just seems like one giant failure across the board." - Anders
Sticking with Denmark for Anders' final pick, we have Kjaerbye to North, a move that came just a year after the former wonderkid had been named Major MVP when Astralis won the ELEAGUE Atlanta Major in 2017.
The height of his career, Astralis struggled with role balance in the year that followed, and neither Kjaerbye or dupreeh managed to play at their peak levels on a consistent basis.
Eventually, Kjaerbye would move to Astralis' biggest rivals at the time, North. A move that ended up benefiting Astralis way more that it did their departing man, Kjaerbye would go on to win another tier one trophy during his time at North, Dreamhack Masters Stockholm 2018, but moving to Denmark's second team was always going to be a controversial decision.
"At the time Kjaerbye joining North was a big topic, so I'll add that in there too." - Anders
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