After karrigan’s move to Falcons, the discussion around his historical status flared up again with new force. Thorin publicly came to the Dane’s defense and laid out the main argument against the haters: namely, that karrigan supposedly always just “got ready-made stars.” In the analyst’s view, the opposite was often true — many players became truly great specifically within karrigan’s systems.
Thorin is pushing a simple idea: karrigan does not ride on other people’s greatness
The central line of this position comes down to a very specific idea: people look at the names in karrigan’s rosters in hindsight and mistakenly imagine that all of those players were already fully formed superstars before joining him. But if you look at the context of the moment rather than their reputation several years later, the picture looks different. That is exactly what Thorin is trying to emphasize in his discussion of karrigan’s transfer to Falcons.
This idea also fits well into the broader narrative surrounding the Dane himself. In HLTV’s recent piece about his move to Falcons, karrigan is described as a captain whose strength lies in leadership, mid-rounding, and the ability to raise rosters back to the highest level again, even after difficult stretches.
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The argument about Major finals is one of the strongest
Thorin also attacks another popular attempt to diminish karrigan: the idea that his successes are simply the result of fortunate circumstances. The logic here is simple: if a captain repeatedly takes different rosters to the late stages of the biggest tournaments, then it becomes hard to explain that away as luck alone.
This is also supported by the Dane’s own recent career trajectory. Under karrigan’s leadership, FaZe won the Antwerp Major 2022 and Intel Grand Slam Season 4, and also reached the finals of Majors in Copenhagen, Shanghai, and Budapest. That consistency of deep runs is exactly the main trump card in the debate about his historical weight as an IGL.
The MOUZ story is one of the main cases in Thorin’s favor
Thorin places special emphasis on the old MOUZ rosters. In his view, that is where it is especially clear that karrigan was not working with a “ready-made hall of fame,” but with players who still had to grow into top-tier stars.
In that context, woxic and frozen are often mentioned. The point of the argument is not that they were weak, but that at the moment they joined karrigan, they did not yet have the status with which they are associated today. frozen in particular was a very young talent who at the time was not yet seen as a future stable superstar of the international scene. And it is exactly these cases that Thorin uses as proof: karrigan often did not just lead famous names, but helped them move to another level.
The most convenient example is FaZe 2022
The clearest counterargument to everyone who talks about “just a star-studded roster” is, of course, FaZe 2022. Because in hindsight that roster looks almost like an obvious superteam, but if you look at the players’ status before the breakthrough, the situation was far less straightforward.
This can be verified even at the level of individual recognition from the previous year: in HLTV’s Top 20 Players of 2021 ranking, Twistzz was No. 17, ropz was No. 18, and broky was No. 20. So yes, these were very strong players, but not “three of the best in the world” who automatically form a dominant team of an era. And it was from exactly that set that karrigan built a team which in 2022 won IEM Katowice, ESL Pro League Season 15, PGL Major Antwerp, and IEM Cologne.
Why more and more people are placing karrigan above gla1ve
Another important point in this conversation is the generational shift in the debate over the greatest IGL in history. For a long time, gla1ve was named almost automatically, and there were serious reasons for that: the Astralis era, domination, Majors, and a revolution in team-based CS.
But the position of Thorin and part of the scene is now different: they believe gla1ve is the peak of the past decade, whereas karrigan retains historical weight also because of his prolonged relevance. Not because of one great era, but because of his constant ability to appear at the top across different eras, with different cores, and different kinds of rosters. That is exactly where the basis of the argument for “the GOAT among captains” lies.
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The move to Falcons makes this discussion even louder
After the official move to Falcons, this topic will only grow louder. The Dane was signed as the new leader of the project, and now another expensive and ambitious roster will once again be built around him. That is exactly why the debate over whether he is the greatest IGL in history no longer feels purely retrospective — it directly affects how his role in modern top-level CS is evaluated right now.
Thorin’s position is quite harsh, but understandable: karrigan is underestimated precisely when people look at his rosters without historical context. People see big names and think he simply got ready-made monsters. But if you look at who those players were at the moment they joined him, the argument changes: very often karrigan was not benefiting from someone else’s greatness, but helping create it.
And that is exactly why the conversation about him as the GOAT among IGLs is not going anywhere. Because the argument is no longer only about trophies, but also about who truly knows how to build teams rather than simply live inside ready-made superteams.
