Roster Management - It is much more than roles and stats

I don’t expect many people to read this article. I am not a massive figure in the CS2 scene in general. However, after casting the FlyQuest v DXA Game. I felt like it was appropriate to write about this topic.

There have been ongoing calls for about a year almost to cut aliStair from the FlyQuest roster due to his poor statistics. There are some people who suggest pain_au as the replacement and others who suggest looking within Europe for a replacement.

I think it is a massive risk to replace aliStair given his role in the team isn’t to be the playmaker. The main player makers are the rifling core of dexter, INS and Vexite. aliStair’s main role is to provide coverage while supporting his rifling core to ensure map control and provide favorable duels.

He has been inconsistent with providing coverage for his team. This can be due to a large variety of factors with the main one being pressure. Once he achieve consistency in hitting his shots, the calls will fade away just as fast.

A lot of armchair analysts especially the ones that seem reputable have been suggesting this for some time. All these analysts make the same mistake which is to point to his stats. They compare him to other awpers who perform a much different role within their team. I also feel that some armchair analysts have ulterior motives such as farming engagement.

It is easier to pile on a player than to go against the grain. People prefer dramatized narrative storytelling to the actual truth. If you want an example, check out all the CS2 doomers on X.

Statistics are a terrible indicator of a quality of a player

A lot of people make this key mistake when looking for replacements. It is always chasing after a higher HLTV rating, ADR or anything. Stats are great to measure the quality of a person’s performance but they are not a measure of whether person would be a good fit for the team.

Some of the best players haven’t been able to find a fit for each other despite being good on the stat sheet for various other teams. One example is Aleksib as the ingame leader for G2.

Aleksib was one of the hottest prospects as a fragging ingame leader but it turns out it didn’t work so well with NiKo and hunter-. G2 was one of the known teams during this period where they were less than the sum of its parts.

The one complaint is that Aleksib has a tendency to overload his team from his micro-management style. His system of play requires a high level of micro-management and has only recently been addressed within NaVi,

Another one is Skullz, Skullz played terrible for Liquid but is an incredible player in Furia. Skullz is not a terrible player at all. He was simply a symptom of a greater issue within Liquid despite what all the supposed armchair analysts tell you.

Are roles critical for a team to work?

Roles can be critical but they are not essential as most players have played multiple roles to an elite standard.

The main roles that are unlikely to be interchangable is definitely the awping and rifling roles. They have different habits and patterns which cannot be learnt overnight. It takes a large amount of time to perfect spray patterns, flicks and what not.

The soft roles such as playing as entry and lurk can be learnt easily over time. It is likely that most players have played these sort of roles before. It is not like roles are assigned at birth and can never be changed.

One example is the current G2 roster where they had an immense amount of role clashes. i mean you couldn't miss it where news coverage highlighted it from wall to wall on how basically every role clashed with Snax and Malbs.

Maybe somebody should have suggested that it is possible for players to learn more than just one role. However, that wouldn't make a good narrative now, would it?

What are the key indicators for a good fit in a team?

The main key indicator would lie in a player’s soft skills especially in trust, controlling their emotions, being able to communicate clearly and effectively, teamwork and leadership.

Trust is the key component in most teams as you need to trust in your team, your system and your processes. Nobody likes playing with a person who cares about their HLTV stat page, they want to play with a person that will do anything to make their team win.

Leadership is the next key component of a player whether you can step up when it is needed. However, too many players wanting to be leaders can often spoil the team overall. This is where trust and leadership interlink and where players may need to learn to step back.

Controlling their emotions is a close third given that I’ve heard some riflers/awpers especially in the Europe scene are often avoided because they are massive ragers. I know a lot of highly talented players who are unable to manage their emotions.

This would be a shock to nobody but most of the players are introverted which means they often want to avoid conflict. This may involve avoiding conversations with players who are tilted. There are some players with great leadership skills who can manage this, but most people will move on from said players if they do not make an effort to reign their emotions in.

It is why YNK had suggested that hallzerk needs to reign in his emotions as it could disrupt his teammate’s rhythm.

Teamwork is a critical aspect where all players within the team need to show an active effort in achieving their goal. For example, going through demos, practicing nade setups, duoing with each other and scrimming against other teams.

When all players have the same aim in mind, the team generally performs more than the sum of its parts.

We all know an example of a bad team environment and that is simply Evil Geniuses when Stewie was the in-game leader. Stewie showed an extremely poor attitude by excluding the coach from demo reviews, constantly grinding Valorant over playing CSGO and sabotaging their team’s inner workings. It is essentially showing that you do not give a shit about the team.

In combination with Evil Genius’s poor work environment, Evil Geniuses regressed immensely with Cerq and Brehze were never able to regain their form that they had initially joined EG with and Ethan moved to Valorant instead. This example shows a clear example of when all of these qualities are not addressed.

Why am I discussing about all of these qualities? Well, when you replace a player, you need to make sure that the player that you’re bringing in is not only going to perform but whether they’ll fit within your team ecosystem.

But hype, vibes and aura are just cope?

There are some people who belittle these qualities as hype, aura and vibes in a mocking tone. However, the smart ones who run the successful teams know that these are the key qualities that matter.

Look at the legendary Astralis roster, the team still held onto hope despite being known as choke artists. They utilised every possible option to get their team over the hump such as hiring sports psychiatrists and they were unstoppable once they did it.

Let’s get back to FlyQuest, if INS, Vexite, Liazz and dexter constantly see aliStair practicing each day to be more consistent. They have trust in aliStair to improve to become more better and consistent over time.

This isn't just cope, this is making sure that every part of your team is working on refining or learning new skillsets to make themselves more consistent and offer more to the team

If they see him playing Path of Exile more than practicing his awping, he’ll be seeing his ass being shipped to Wraecrast in no time.