Team fnatic CS:GO has been in a slump for quite a long time. Once upon a time, fnatic was dominating the CS:GO scene, establishing themselves as one of the greatest teams ever.
A rough time for fnatic
However, after their last victory in March 2018 – WESG World Finals, reality hit the Swedish giant hard as they struggled to find back their peak performance. fnatic hasn’t won a single tournament since then, even unable to qualify for both Majors this year – IEM Katowice and Berlin Major 2019.
The Swedish struggled with their subpar performance, going through various roster changes. There was a time when they went deep into top-tier tournaments in StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7 and IEM Sydney as the runner-up. However, that didn’t last long as they crashed out of most tournaments shortly after.
After another disappointing run at the Berlin Major 2019, fnatic decided to go for another drastic roster change. The long-time IGL of fnatic Richard “Xitz” Landström stepped down from the roster together with Simon “twist” Eliasson. fnatic welcomed back 2 former members Robin “flusha” Rönnquist and Maikil Kunda “Golden” Selim.
However, one subtle change that not many people noticed was with their coach. Jimmy “Jumpy” Berndtsson parted ways with fnatic while the Swedish giant brought back their former coach Andreas “Samuelsson” Samuelsson.
Fnatic debuted their roster in the Dreamhack Masters Malmo 2019 right in their homeland – Sweden. With their drastic roster change, not many people put high hopes on the aging Swedish squad where they were so many better contenders for the champion than an old legend.
However, the rest is history, fnatic won the whole event with 2 debuted members and a different coach right before the home crowd. Obviously, flusha and Golden were the missing pieces for fnatic. However, don’t forget the part of Samuelsson in their victory.
How did the coach use to be in the past?
CS:GO has undergone a lot of changes and adjustments since its release. Coach used to be the sixth member in the team as they could talk freely during the match. Due to this, many teams used to take coach as an In-game Leader.
Watching the match from behind, a coach can discuss strategies and monitor the progress of his team in real-time. However, after the rule changes by Valve in August 2016, coaches are no longer allowed to talk during the match. The update sparked great controversy among the CS:GO community.
While some called this a loss and demanded the feature back, Valve still stuck to their reasonings. This seemed to be a part of their effort to deal with crowd-cheating where they can reveal the position of pro players during matches. A coach was not confined to the screen and they could move freely during the match.
It would be highly likely that coaches could gather information from the crowd and use it to the team’s advantages. Therefore, having a source of information from outside of the game is practically cheating. Valve seemed to have done the right things to make CS:GO clean and fair.
Coach nowadays
Obviously, the job of esports coaches is to teach and train their players just like a regular coach in traditional sports. Besides teaching their team new stuff, coaches often bring strategies and analysis on the table. Together with the In-game Leader, a coach makes it possible to build up a 5-man squad into a team.
Besides, coaches are those who give advice to their players: how to deal with pressure in tough situations or how to mentally prepare for important matches. Coaches are those who do most of the work with analyzing the upcoming opponents. From these analyses, a team devises the scheme to counter-strategy other teams.
Moreover, a coach can join with the In-game Leader in drafting vetoes to get the best map pool against each team. They also stay side by side with their players during the match, do the economic calculations and call out tactical pauses. If the match gets rough, a tactical pause is important to discuss the strategy within the team. They see what in-game players can’t see and may come up with the best solutions for the team.
Best coaches in the CS:GO scene
Of course, with that heavy task on their shoulder, coaches are most often experienced players with better capacity to deal with certain situations. They are often the forerunner in their game and have accumulated decent knowledge to teach their fellows. Here we have some of the best coaches in the history of CS:GO
Zonic – coach for Astralis
The legendary Danish CS 1.6 player is well worth the title best coach in the world. With his years-long experience, he now leads one of the most dominant CS:GO rosters in history – Astralis. Zonic, together with gla1ve, has connected all members of Astralis and trained them well into the best team in the world.
The results speak for itself as Astralis now possesses the most CS:GO trophies in the world – 3 consecutive Majors and 4 in total. Astralis is also the first team in the world to introduce the concept of psychologist in esports.
Eric “adreN” Hoag – coach for Team Liquid
Formerly a streamer and professional CS:GO player, adreN joined Team Liquid together with Jacky “Stewie2k” Yip in December 2018. Since then, Team Liquid has improved significantly as a strong contender right under the Astralis era.
Both adreN and Stewie2k were like the missing piece for Team Liquid as they instantly enjoyed success in the iBUYPOWER Masters tournament this January 2019. Though crashing out at IEM Katowice Major 2019, Team Liquid carried on a strong performance since their victory in the IEM Sydney 2019.
Obviously, with his rich experience as an In-game Leader, adreN has brought structure to the firepower-packed squad. Team Liquid played a more structured CS and achieved great results from it.
Janko “YNk” Paunović – coach for FaZe Clan
The Serbian coach joined FaZe clan earlier this year in January. Pretty much like Team Liquid, the star-studded European mix FaZe Clan was lacking structure and tactics. That was what YNk has brought to the team – structure and discipline. FaZe improved significantly after the departure of the ex-IGL Finn “karrigan” Andersen.
However, FaZe has yet to prove themselves like their American version Team Liquid. They still desperately need a real IGL instead of more stars in their roster.
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