With the new Counter-Strike season already delivering major roster changes, surprise results, and plenty of questions, we sat down with Scrawny to get his perspective on the teams and storylines shaping the competitive scene.
From MOUZ and 100 Thieves to FaZe, Liquid, G2, and the growing strength of Latin American Counter-Strike, Scrawny breaks down which moves could pay off, which rosters still have work to do, and what fans should be watching as the season develops.
We’re coming off a fresh transfer window. Which signing do you think will make the most sense by the end of the year?
It’s actually a great question, just because there were some teams that didn’t really go for it. For this off-season, as far as roster moves that make sense, I actually think that MOUZ got away with a solid change-up. The question will still remain about in-game leadership and xertioN, but I also have always believed in the support he gets from sycrone and Xyp9x. And so I think there’s a real world where he develops into a good in-game leader who has already proven that his stats aren’t going to disappear.
Ultimately, the addition of PR is a really cool pickup because it’s always felt like on GamerLegion, PR was better than his teammates and was going to wind up somewhere. But I was surprised with how long he stayed there. Now that he’s on MOUZ, what I like about this move is that I think we get a more natural kind of shifting towards a core that is comfortable in aggressive, explosive moments.
xertioN stylistically has a certain kind of Counter-Strike he likes to play that I think PR will slot into. And it opens doors for Spinx to now not have any overlap with a guy like Jimpphat, where we had two guys kind of in the back of the pack. So with MOUZ, when I see it on paper, I would like to imagine a world where PR and xertioN and torzsi are this hard-hitting upfront core.
It frees up Spinx to maybe return to where I think he plays best, which is in later rounds with more lurky styles. Spinx is somebody statistically who dropped off, I think, the most with xertioN taking over in-game leadership. But with time, I think that he might be able to just kind of grow into it with just this new style that PR brings to the table.
I do think that maybe this isn’t the MOUZ commit to a year from now. I think there are still some potential pieces that could be shuffled. But as far as PR’s inclusion, it’s the one that gets me the most excited. So I’m really happy that MOUZ hit the ground running in Bounty and proved that they’re not going to be one of the teams to fall off at the start of the season.
Aurora have been very persistent about having a Turkish core, and now they have made a couple of changes. Do you think those changes justify losing their national identity?
I think it’s always a very difficult decision for an organization to venture away from being a national team. Just because you inherently get a bunch of support for the reason that you fly a flag, and Turkish Counter-Strike is very passionate about it.
I do think that the one downside we always see with these sorts of teams is that you limit yourself to roster moves within your region, within your language sometimes as well, if you’re very regionally specific. And so with Aurora being this always-Turkish lineup, it really took me as a shock to watch them move away from an all-Turkish team.
I understand the organization’s point of view because it feels like we had kind of hit that limit. We’ve seen so many Turkish roster changes and so many different versions throughout the years that it unfortunately felt like they really tried to find a full five mixed in with the next generation of players that could work. But there has never been an in-game leader capable of replacing MAJ3R. And it felt like we ultimately got one extra season with him as the IGL. Because you could have said at the halfway point of 2025 that it felt like the team already kind of wanted to try and replace him.
So in order for them to finally make that decision after giving him another season of CS in 2026, I think that there was no longer time to wait around for a new IGL, and that’s specifically what forced them to go international. I think it was not about picking up Jimpphat, although that is a great signing since if you’re turning international, you might as well change more than one player. It’d be crazy to see kyxsan and more Turkish guys.
So at least you get that added bonus now of trying to bring in internationally proven talents. But for me, I think it does make sense. Unfortunately, it felt like Turkey had kind of hit its cap.
EliGE was fantastic in Complexity, then he joined FaZe, and he was still decent. But then something happens when he joins Liquid, and his performance clearly drops off heavily. Now with JT back, it has been about five maps, and the difference is clearly visible. What is this between JT and EliGE that makes him so good?
I wish that’s a question that when I see JT and EliGE, I feel like I have to ask them because with the short amount of time he’s had with JT again, it is very clear that EliGE is happiest in his system. We made this joke on broadcast the other day where it feels like JT is the EliGE whisperer. Like he’s just somehow able to get this. But we know the talent is there. Nobody can deny that EliGE and his capability is world-class.
But I think EliGE is the kind of person who really has to perceive himself in a successful system. I want to put this politely. He’s a particular person when it comes to, I think, his work environment, his social environment. I think he needs to be in an environment where he feels like he’s being set up. Even if in the past, I truly believe that siuhy, I really thought siuhy would get there. Obviously, the results say otherwise. How does JT do it? I really don’t know, but I have always been very impressed with JT’s calm demeanor.
JT is the sort of person who I never feel like he wears his stress. In all of those Complexity chokes throughout the years, it’s always felt like it was the players around him that kind of got choked up in the moment. Because on an individual level, there were times where JT would have to go carry mode and take over a map, and I’ve always just felt like JT is somebody who doesn’t get rattled.
He’s somebody who doesn’t get kind of consumed by the moment. And maybe, again, you can say those upsets say otherwise. Maybe you can put that blame on him. I think that’s an argument that you can make, but it’s not one that I see from the outside because I think his demeanor is just a place where EliGE feels most comfortable.
And I believe that JT, somebody who has gotten value out of less talented players, knows the opportunity he has at hand with a guy like EliGE in his arsenal. So I think it’s about setting up EliGE in all the ways he wants to be set up, but then never panicking around him, never stressing him from the outside during a round of Counter-Strike. Because when EliGE is locked in, and I think when EliGE is fully focused and emotionally stable, he is still so incredibly talented. So it just feels like for whatever reason, they have this chemistry that clicks, and I think that JT is the kind of guy who’s ride or die.
If you look how long his relationship with T.c has been professionally throughout all his career, I think that maybe that relationship can now be shifted over to EliGE. I think JT, when he has somebody to latch onto, has proven that he is really able to get the best out of them. So I think only time will tell because this isn’t the first Liquid roster that’s had a great first month. And so that’s why time is always Liquid’s enemy.
Talking about 100 Thieves, you have just defeated the Major champions and then lost to Nuclear TigeRES. How do you distinguish between a team that is genuinely a high-ceiling young roster, or is it just a team that is simply capable of occasional upsets?
I think with 100 Thieves, extremely fresh roster, and we have seen Gizmy on Monte for so long that it’s only fair that him switching into a new team is going to take an onboarding process. I truly believe that that upset versus Falcons was fueled by two things. One, it was the wealth of experience that device and rain bring to the table, even if it was in a realm of Counter-Strike online that they’re less comfortable in.
You go back to that Anubis T side, rain was right back to the best version of rain. Critical entry frags, constant pressure, and mixed into that what is clearly becoming Gizmy’s great skill of having mid-round calls that keep the opponents guessing. You go back to the Major in Monte, there were many games that turned into these grindy potential upsets for Monte, even versus Falcons the first time back there. But I don’t think he had the individual players to push it over the line.
And so you give him a new roster, which is going to hold Gizmy back. He’s always got a game plan. I think he’s a well-prepared coach. He knows when he’s going into a match. He knows how to play up to specific opponents. And in this case, with the upset at Bounty, I do give a tip of the hat to rain and, at times, device as well, because it felt like those guys have been waiting a long time to play versus the world’s best again. Rain has been back there in the lab with 100 Thieves, and now he finally gets a chance to swing at world’s number one. And they stick the landing in that close of a game. That’s got to come from the experience.
But then the brutal nature of online Counter-Strike is that I truly believe Counter-Strike online is a day-to-day basis, and we saw that with Nuclear TigeRES twenty-four hours later beating them. I think it shows promise that you go twenty-four hours later after that, and sure enough, you have 100 Thieves pushing Spirit to the absolute limit. And in that game, I think we got some great showings from the younger pieces of 100 Thieves, which to me proves promise across the board. But in that match, again, just couldn’t do it twice.
I don’t think that 100 Thieves should be upset in any way with their Bounty elimination because they had better showings than Vitality, than FURIA, than Falcons, than G2. All these big organizations that showed great promise last season got outshined by 100 Thieves that says, “Give me the helm for one week.” It’s just brutal seeding really that cost them.
Talking about FaZe, they have brought in JBOEN on loan, and then we have Twistzz. How well do you think they should do result-wise for frozen to justify staying on the team in this particular season?
I would love to see FaZe become a constant top-eight threat. I think frozen is a player who has to be on stages. If he’s not regularly getting into those playoffs, then I think it’s a wasted opportunity.
Unfortunately for frozen, it feels like he always kind of just misses the boat. Stays on MOUZ or joins FaZe after the peak, and still has incredible runs. I would like to see one of two things with FaZe Clan in order to justify keeping frozen. Either regular top-eight playoff appearances and make that a regular trend this season, or at least one very deep run in that classic FaZe fashion.
And I think that’ll be extremely hard without karrigan. A Stage 1 to, or Stage 3 to playoffs in a Major is something that it feels like is only karrigan’s magic ability. No offense to Twistzz. I was very much shocked that frozen was not part of the transferred players in this off-season. And if FaZe don’t make regular playoffs, I think he will be part of the next off-season change.
Coming to BC.Game, I asked bleh and he said that it feels like a very weird motley crew. Do you see them as a genuine title contender?
I don’t see BC.Game as a title contender, no. I see BC.Game as a form of entertainment, and I don’t mean that to be dismissive. I believe TaZ just had an interview and said he wants this roster to become a top-five threat, like a constant top-five team.
Unfortunately, I still can’t see it, and for me, I’m willing to kind of put the blame at times on electroNic. electroNic’s record beyond NAVI has been quite atrocious. And I think that on this team, they’re still lacking a proven in-game leader to be a tournament threat, to be a real threat. Magisk is picking up the responsibility. I’m down to see him play it out for a season, but you can’t, for me, this reminds me of when rain was going to become the 100 Thieves IGL.
It’s a player who’s never done the role, that’s picking it up for an organization that wants to be a constant threat at events, and maybe we watch how this one plays out. I think it’s cool that you at least have two duos on this team. It’s like Senzu and mzinho as a package, s1mple and electroNic as a package.
But I would rather see the in-game leadership shift to a real proven IGL on this BC.Game team and let Magisk become your anchor. So if you were to replace electroNic with a dedicated IGL that has proven they can get to tournament runs in the past, then I look at this BC.Game roster and I go, “Okay, now we’re talking.”
I think they are still one roster move away to make sense role-wise. Until that happens, it’s just five players who are all fun to watch, but I can’t see the cohesion from the outside. Especially with, unfortunately, a coach like TaZ, who I don’t think also has a big record of having the most prepped game-plan kind of ideology. So I think that’s where BC.Game still lack, unfortunately.
Coming to the final team that has made a big change, it’s G2, who replaced SunPayus with r1nkle. Were you surprised by the change? Do you think this change was needed?
I was very surprised with the r1nkle inclusion. He had just sort of fallen off my radar. So I’m not entirely shocked that G2 made a change. I am taken aback a bit by the fact that it was SunPayus. Because he wasn’t getting back to the greatest version of himself that we had seen, but I really thought that G2 were heading in the right direction.
And I thought that, I know it’s a classic, with a little more time, maybe they’d be able to get that value out of him once more. But the thing is, I don’t doubt sAw. He’s somebody who, if he was included in that decision-making, I would sort of like to know why and how it fell on r1nkle.
But I do see this roster move as one of those changes with, obviously, the conversation right now at organizations maybe lacking funding to make those big shock roster moves. The big splash of money just kind of isn’t in the space at the moment. And I think that held back multiple teams from maybe making bigger signings.
But G2 and r1nkle to me is a prime inclusion of that. But if sAw saw something in r1nkle that I had forgotten about because we weren’t seeing him as often anymore, then I still want to put faith in this G2. But I would say to your question, this one absolutely shocked me. I really didn’t see that one coming. And sometimes shocking roster moves are for good reasons. This one just kind of left me confused.
Talking about all these teams, we have MOUZ, 100 Thieves, FaZe and BC.Game. Which of these teams do you think will make the biggest comeback after the first six months of the season?
I’m going to go out on a limb, and I’m going to say that if you consider the starting point, the maybe most improved and most relevant team that we will discuss after six months from now, I’ll actually go out and take a risk and say 100 Thieves.
Gizmy for me was this breakout story of the Cologne Major. He got a lot of value out of players that I wasn’t super sold on. And to see him now have tools like device and rain at hand, I think it’s really promising that there’s an in-game leader out there who’s been able to outcall karrigan in mid-round moments.
That seems like a very rare set of skills that I hope, with enough time, since this was 100 Thieves with one week, give them a season of Counter-Strike, and I’m very optimistic about their potential attendance and hopefully success at the Singapore Major come December.
And if I had to pick a second team, this is just my heart bleeding out. It’s this JT-EliGE combo. It’s a classic trap for North Americans, but I think it’s time to believe in Team Liquid again.
What is the biggest storyline in professional Counter-Strike right now that you believe fans and analysts are not talking about enough?
Fantastic question. I think one of the storylines that we’re not talking about just yet is the rise of Latin America in Counter-Strike around Brazil. 9z’s success story in Cologne was very much hyped. The preview to it was in Astana, so you could sort of see it coming.
But what they’ve done in terms of creating more space for Americas teams in this new Major cycle is something that I think we’re going to see the effects of heading into the Buenos Aires Major a year from now.
The idea that for the first time Latin America got onto a Major playoff stage in Cologne, the trickle-down effect that will have for these countries when the Major and the entire tournament shifts into that region, I think could be an explosion in Latin American Counter-Strike. And I don’t think we’re really thinking about it just yet because we still have Singapore in front of us, and we have amazing stories right now with the Falcons, Vitality, Spirit, FURIA competition.
There are really good teams fighting for number one this season, and that’s kind of put blinders on us to, I think, what could be an explosion in a region to a level that we don’t expect yet. Just because I anticipate the crowd, the culture in Argentina to be phenomenal. And after Singapore, I think we’re going to all start talking about it in anticipation. But I can’t help but think about it right now because what 9z achieved in Cologne, man, that’s going to inspire the future generations of Latin America.
9z is to Latin America now what FalleN was back with the KaBuM, Luminosity, SK timing, I think. We went down this road with The MongolZ in Asian Counter-Strike a year ago. Seeing them break out and have their run to the very top of the world, and I think 9z’s potential right now, timed to perfection with the Major going to their country, man, it could really be something special.
