The trend of high-tier CS:GO teams trying out rosters that exceed the regular five members continues. Finnish organization ENCE Esports have decided to give the new approach a try themselves by signing Elias “Jamppi” Oikkonen without kicking any of the current players.
Five-man rosters a thing of the past?
ENCE Esports are joining the 5+ roster train with the signing of Jamppi. The promising 18-year-old is joining the side as a free agent, so this little experiment won’t cost ENCE an additional fee. No one from the previous roster is going to get kicked at this point but Sami “xseveN” Laasanen is going to take a huge hit. The rifler will reportedly move to the bench for each forthcoming tournament with the exception of ESL One: Road to Rio, in which Jamppi is ineligible to participate.
The new ENCE addition gained some clout throughout 2019 and was close to getting picked up by OG for their first CS:GO squad, but then his popularity rose further, just for all the wrong reasons. The Finn got banned from all Valve-sanctioned events because of his association with a VAC banned steam account. The case blew way out of proportions when the player took matters to court, claiming that he was no longer tied to the account at the time of the ban.
The lawsuit is far from its resolution and for now his contributions to ENCE will be limited to non-Valve tournaments. Nevertheless, such a move can only mean that the organization believes in its new player’s chances of winning one over Valve and eventually becoming available for all upcoming endeavors.
This is not the only change ENCE are making. On an internal level, Miikka “suNNy” Kemppi will be taking over in-game leading duties away from Aleksi “allu” Jalli. The team has been in dreadful form during allu’s IGL tenure and a band of fresh ideas could be the remedy ENCE are in dire need of.
A few weeks ago Astralis pulled off a similar move and extended their roster to six men by agreeing on a deal with Patrik “es3tag” Hansen, although he would not join the org until July. Could we be seeing more and more teams go for this type of roster build? It certainly seems like it.
