Just color us shocked at this point; during a time of massive upheaval within professional Counter-Strike as matches played online have skewed power rankings with latency and disconnects occurring in every match, no matter the weight of consequence that may befall the teams meeting head to head.
It was presumed that rosters were safe during this time of upheaval as it was difficult to determine strengths and weaknesses; the pandemic was also supposed to be well gone at this point.
Now, medical professionals are warning that the wintery months ahead of us will continue to see the pandemic reign supreme across the world, and for the interim at least, matches will continue to be played online.
This would be the context of CS:GO as it currently stands within the professional scene, which brings us to today’s surprise announcement: Damian ‘daps’ Steele has announced that he is leaving the Gen. G roster, leaving the team without an IGL. Rumors are circulating that the decision shows some form of instability within the organization itself, as the announcement appears to be led by daps rather than Gen. G.
The IGL has admittedly fallen off in terms of statistics, leading to some comparisons to ‘nitr0’ leaving Liquid for Valorant, yet ‘daps’ has stated that he is more than content to continue within the CS:GO scene as an IGL for another team.
[embed]https://twitter.com/daps/status/1304464380323680256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw[/embed]Specifically, ‘daps’ average damage per round (ADR) and kills per round (KPR) are poor; managing a current average of 66.7 and 0.58 respectively.
Damian shares in his Pastebin, the former TwitLonger before TwitLonger, that the player has been considering it for the past couple of months and the upcoming Major was holding him back from announcing it; with the Major canceled, however, he sees no reason to continue to bide his time.
He further shares that this is a ‘bi product…of issues within the team, including myself’.
While the twenty-seven-year-old player states that his love for CS has not languished, he is open to other titles: ‘if moving on as a player or leaving CS is the route that I have to take then I will cross that bridge when I know more’.
Where this ultimately leaves Gen. G in the interim is a question that we’ll be left to ponder; clearly the team needs to pick up a new IGL, or form someone present already within the roster to take the mantle to expedite the reforming of a core team. Gen. G is currently ranked #16 in the world, and that number is frankly expected to decline while management tries to reform.