A number of roster changes have taken place in the North American section of the ESL Pro League ahead of Week 3.
The most notable comes at Cloud9, with Skadoodle announcing he is to step away from competitive play. It is unclear at this time if Skadoodle will continue to play online for them until a permanent 5th joins the fray, but Cloud9 do have kioShiMa standing in for the upcoming BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen.
Skadoodle has struggled for a majority of the last couple of years, with his MVP performance during the ELEAGUE Boston Major being the major outlier.
With previous star rifler autimatic shifting over to the primary AWPer (sniper) duties, Skadoodle’s replacement should have a fairly easy time slotting in.
Cloud9 currently sit alongside eUnited on seven wins each in the battle for the final play-off spot, and face what really is a must-win game in terms of their top-six hopes against rock-bottom Team Envy.
However, the odds make Cloud9 only slight favourites at 1.884. Envy can be backed at 1.934.
Envy struggling badly
As for Team Envy, recent reports have surfaced that they will be replacing SEMPHIS on their roster.
Envy have been a complete dud since this inception of the current roster, with their lone win in Pro League coming at the hands of compLexity, 16-14 the score.
Envy do still have some big names with the likes of Nifty and jdm64, but the team as a whole have lacked cohesion and the overall firepower to make any sort of real progress.
Roster changes appeared inevitable but unfortunately for Envy their problems appear to require a bigger fix than just a single new player.
With three matches this week against Cloud9, eUnited and Luminosity, the time is now for Envy if they are to escape relegation. The key match for Envy is their showdown with Luminosity, given they are the team closest in the standings.
Rogue under relegation threat
Rogue recently announced the addition of MSL to their starting roster in what effectively has turned into a swap between them and North. With each ending up with the other squad’s in-game leader, MSL has an opportunity to prove himself in the same way cadiaN did previously with this roster.
There is some decent talent on this squad with the likes of SicK and Rickeh, but the team immediately nose-dived once they added kRYSTAL to the team post-cadiaN.
In comes MSL, a strict and tactical in-game leader with a very specific vision as to how a team should be run.
The major question mark surrounding the addition of MSL surrounds the announcement that he will be also provide the role of primary AWPer. While he did AWP towards the end of his spell with North, even winning an MVP award while doing so, overall he was lacklustre. The issue comes from Rickeh already being on this squad, a player more than capable of picking up the AWP.
This appears to be an odd fit in terms of roles, but MSL’s addition should be a huge one for Rogue, with one shot to show what they already have prepared when they face compLexity.
Rogue are 2.380 outsiders for that one though, with complexity 1.591 favourites.
eUnited in the hunt
Another team fresh from roster changes are eUnited, who brought in FNS on October 23 to replace Ace. This is a move that has caused a role shift within the team, with Relyks switching from in-game leader to primary AWPer, and FNS taking on in-game leader responsibilities.
FNS had limited time to show off his abilities during his incredibly brief stint with Cloud9, and now has another chance to reinvent himself in a new line-up.
FNS have the type of system that takes time to fully integrate into, so their matches this week against Envy and INTZ will be interesting to watch.
Given all the changes and a minimal amount of games this week, it will be difficult to judge the new-look teams until at least Week 4.
That said, the focus will be on Cloud9 as they look to overtake eUnited and climb into the play-off positions with MIBR, Ghost Gaming, Renegades, Team Liquid and NRG Esports all having eased away from the pack.
