|
In CS:GO, they basically signed one of their players (aleksib) to a contract extension, knowing he was going to get kicked shortly after the contrast extension. There's no more team chemistry and they're basically one of the most hated teams in CS:GO right now.
For those who don't know, aleksib helped the team achieve some amazing results at the Major (equivalent of Blizzcon) and with the kicking, they are becoming less and less relevant.
Hopefully Serral doesn't get affected by this but it's hard to see how he doesn't. He's part of their team and sponsors are what keeps teams running. With all the negativity in the past few months surrounding ENCE, I imagine Serral is facing some uncertainty about his future there.
|
Yes, with Serral's disappointing and lackluster results these past 2 years, he will have a very hard time finding a new team should ENCE dissolve.
|
On December 20 2019 03:07 geokilla wrote: In CS:GO, they basically signed one of their players (aleksib) to a contract extension, knowing he was going to get kicked shortly after the contrast extension. .
How does that even work? He gets a nice severence check and doesn't have to do anything for it? Sounds nice
|
On December 20 2019 03:12 InfCereal wrote: Yes, with Serral's disappointing and lackluster results these past 2 years, he will have a very hard time finding a new team should ENCE dissolve.
ROOT will probably pick him up.
|
China6327 Posts
I secretly (not secretly) want some Chinese team to pick Serral up and move him to Korea.
|
On December 20 2019 03:46 digmouse wrote: I secretly (not secretly) want some Chinese team to pick Serral up and move him to Korea.
DPG Serral would be OP.
|
|
Unless you're in a team league, SC2 teams don't mean that much. For someone like Serral who clearly makes enough from prize pools, there's no real need to be on a team. If there does happen to be any trouble with ENCE, I wouldn't be surprised if Serral just went teamless. He's already shown that he doesn't really want to travel.
|
Well he still gets salary even if benched (and if he doesn't that's a terrible contract). Talk about players being players all you want but getting paid for less work seems like a decent deal?
Dick move by them anyway if true.
|
ENCE is still clearly the most successful Finnish esports organisation. For Serral there is not really reason to switch to other team unless he really wanted bigger salary. Playing on Finnish team probably makes taxation, contracts and other management easier because team having better the knowledge about Finnish law than any foreign organisation. Also face to face meeting are possible if needed without travelling much and there is not any kind of language or cultural barrier. There is no foreign organisation that could promise anything like team house, coaching or sports psychologist, that could be better than what ENCE may already provide. Some bigger esports teams like TL, EG or Fnatic could probably offer better salary, but many of them do not have existing support structure for SC2 players. Korean and Chinese organisations would probably want Serral to play in GSL and CTC.
Aleksib situation has been fiasco and ENCE's CS:GO side is probably too centralised around old Finnish CS:GO players that have key positions in the organisation and are old friends.
|
Dunno what serral's contract situation looks like but wouldn't be too surprised to see serral to at least look around for offers from international orgs next time he having contract talks. Might be very lucrative offers in the air would make no sense to decline.
What comes to ence yes I understood they have sold pieces to active roster players of the org? Similar to danish astralis #1, where all 5 active players are (equal?) share owners. In general it sounds like a very bad idea start selling ownership to active roster players as then some players hold more power than others. Only if they have the same level of ownership like in astralis could it work.
|
I'm following CSGO scene as well and I find this post borderline ridiculous and biased. ENCE is still the most successful Finnish organization in recent time. They had some good results but couldn't break the glass ceiling. As a result, the made a controversial move by kicking Aleksib (their IGL) while attending to CSGO major. I'm not sure about the contract story but as soon as he got benched, he got a ton of offers including 1 mil of Jason Blake from Complexity but he turned it down. Then, now he becomes IGL for OG CSGO with other good names. Doesn't seem ENCE did anything to prevent him from pursuing other opportunity while being inactive/benched at ENCE.
Changing players in active roster is a very common move in CSGO scene. Happen literally everyday someone gets kicked/replaced. Frankly, ENCE in my opinion is a decent CSGO team but their peak was during the time of some slumps from big teams like Astralis, Fnatic, FaZe and even MIBR. I find their success is opportunistic at best. People love to hype up a team prematurely and then they failed to deliver in consistent matter. Then, probably got destroyed by roster changes due to the pressure of delivering good results. That is how it goes in CSGO scene. Nothing surprising here.
|
Bisutopia19208 Posts
OP, you have been around long enough to know the kespa organization and how the team's within it functioned. Stuff like this happened too. Good players under contract get benched and the team has their reasons for their actions that do not always need to be justified to the public. Furthermore, kespa players who left to play on foreign teams were still under kespa contracts should they return and want a new Korean team. My point is, let's not rush to black mark ence due to circumstances we will never fully understand.
|
On December 20 2019 03:46 digmouse wrote: I secretly (not secretly) want some Chinese team to pick Serral up and move him to Korea. I hope so as well but it can be hard for a man to leave his homeland when he's got his own golf land there.
|
I love to see Serral abandons ENCE and join JinAir Greenwings or other chinese proleague team. But, it wont happen I guess.
|
It's arguably wrong but depending on how they negotiated the contract with him It's not super terrible? I mean if they told him he was going to play then immediately benched him then I guess that's unethical but It's not like anyone forced him to sign the contract.
I mean this is literally what happens to professional wrestling all the time. Guy signs deal company won't let him go despite not using him he requests release company says yeah no.
don't know the details of this situation but compared to a lot of scummy stuff I've seen in esports this seems very minor.
|
Ence have had solid history with sc2 players as they have had Jagelius, Elfi, Welmu and Serral under their belt. I`ve been talking every single of them and no one has said bad word from Ence.
CS division I dont know, it looks strange, but on SC2 side: no need to pity Serral, he is in good hands!
|
Yeah,Serral should quit ENCE and come to save KZ gaming
|
|
|
Nah, just don't have all the facts so no point in jumping on any bandwagons.
|
Remember that serrals old contract ended with ence at the end of 2018, he could gone to any team, he was the world champion. Im assuming he and hes family are happy with ence.
|
a major is not the equivalent of BlizzCon... aren't there multiple majors in a year...?
|
On December 21 2019 00:25 CicadaSC wrote: a major is not the equivalent of BlizzCon... aren't there multiple majors in a year...? There are only two majors annually.
|
On December 20 2019 03:12 InfCereal wrote: Yes, with Serral's disappointing and lackluster results these past 2 years, he will have a very hard time finding a new team should ENCE dissolve.
Ditto
|
This is an old thread, but ENCE is in the spotlight in CS:GO again. I'm honestly surprised Serral is still with ENCE given how they are such an unlikable team.
|
|
All good and well but what exactly happenend?
|
As far as I know, Serral and ENCE get on well and having a finnish team proves to be useful for him.
|
|
I dont follow csgo scene very long but I started around 6 months ago and what I understood is, allu is guy who is partial owner of ENCE kicked Aleksib (who was ingame leader and tactics creator of their team) and signed Sunny who is also partial owner of the team. Ence was top 10 team before this happened and later on they dropped out of top30 list (which is hltv.org weekly list), and after 1 year allu recognized his mistake but said bunch of other stuff which former members found to be half truth. And as I saw, ally is not liked by csgo community very much, especially after this.
So as I see it, ENCE will disband csgo roster and renew it, not shut it because of financial problems or smth. I dont know about LOL but its safe to assume Serral is safe unless they want to completely shutdown team. Csgo players are in talks with other teams as new players are in contact with ence. Just, covid pandemics affects their scene much deeper then sc2.
|
Well Serral has one of the greatest achievement in foreign SC history and it would be easy for him to land on another big team should he become a free agent.
|
The situation is not looking good for ENCE because management being heavily in hands of former Finnish CS:GO players and CS:GO clearly being their biggest thing. Mishandling of the team is probably heavily caused by Allu, the team's captain, being too influential in decision making. They probably need to remove Allu and some others to gain trust in future.
For Serral this situation can be problematic, if ENCE starts to lose sponsors etc. However I think that most teams can not provide much for SC players, because they do not have many high level players that can be exclusive practice partners or coaches. Most teams can provide some salary and equipment in addition to cover travels. Specially for Serral there seems to be no need for apartment or special training from sport psychologist etc.that ENCE could possibly provide. Also I don't know for sure but I expect that tournament payments etc. are bit easier to run through Finnish organization that probably knows better how to work with Finnish taxation etc.
IIRC Serral's contract is up at end of year, so there is possibility that he could switch teams to another Finnish team or some big international one.
|
For a second I had a vision of Liquid.Serral. That'd be awesome !
|
Wonder what salary Serral could've gotten if maybe G2 or Faze would sign him. Liquid´serral sounds pretty good aswell
|
On December 20 2019 05:58 pvsnp wrote: Unless you're in a team league, SC2 teams don't mean that much. For someone like Serral who clearly makes enough from prize pools, there's no real need to be on a team. If there does happen to be any trouble with ENCE, I wouldn't be surprised if Serral just went teamless. He's already shown that he doesn't really want to travel. Progaming careers are short lived and domination periods are even shorter lived. I doubt saying teams don't mean much is a reasonable business move for any Sc2 player no matter how much money they made from prize money.
|
Well, I think the current situation suites Serral quite well. He gets to stay and play from home in familiar and peaceful environment. All the communication with team can be done with native language and he has prolly a lot to say about sponsorship, media, presenting etc. Dont know if they pay him any salary, but would one nowadays switch teams easily especially with this pandemic going on ? I think he is happy and doesnt want to change teams, unless he has to, and even then propably to some other Finnish organization. What would even be a good enough salary to change teams or even move/train abroad ? Few thousand euros is prolly not worth it and do any orgs even pay decent salaries in current SC2-world ?
However, personally I would like him to switch it up and get some good team from Europe, or some org/sponsor starting a new one and build the team around Serral. Then when his career starts to close some day he could stay as a couch/team leader or something if he wishes. While Liquid is one of my favourite teams, I would like to get more competitive field there too, so Shopify(?)/Red Bull/Team Rotti and others, recruit him asap ! Would be nice to see him in some kind of team-leagues and revive that scene also. Oh well, one can always dream..
|
On December 20 2019 04:05 ThunderJunk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2019 03:46 digmouse wrote: I secretly (not secretly) want some Chinese team to pick Serral up and move him to Korea. DPG Serral would be OP.
I hoped so. Would love to see how Rogue, Dark and perhaps Serral mingled to keep their team delivering the best performances throughout the season.
|
ENCE just lost Aerial on their CS:GO roster. sergej is gone too. I think it's safe to say ENCE is shutting down. They no longer have a 5 man roster.
|
More I think about this the more likely it seems that Serral will leave or just gets better offer from other teams. They can't really keep their CS:GO team going without taking at least couple of years as being totally hated by the CSGO community and playing only in lower tier tournaments. Without CS:GO team they will only have PUBG team and a NHL player in addition to Serral. Should be easy enough for other Finnish teams or international ones to make better offer and remove the stain that ENCE currently brings.
|
People seem to think that all a good team does is pay a salary. (Good) orgs can also end up handling logistics, travel, interviews, special events, sponsorships, etc. for superstar players - at least, that's the hope when someone signs on to an org.
Especially for someone who's been established with a team for a long time, there can be a major quality of life impact that makes them want to stay with the same org if this stuff is handled to their liking. Yeah, Serral could find a new team willing to pay him to add their tag to his handle - but there's probably a lot more to consider there related to quality of representation/local ties/all sorts of other stuff that matters to him as well.
|
That's a great point--but I as a fan (not as someone interested in Serral's mental health) would enjoy seeing him joining a higher profile team. I guess we'll just have to see what happens.
|
On December 17 2020 21:09 Legan wrote: The situation is not looking good for ENCE because management being heavily in hands of former Finnish CS:GO players and CS:GO clearly being their biggest thing. Mishandling of the team is probably heavily caused by Allu, the team's captain, being too influential in decision making. They probably need to remove Allu and some others to gain trust in future.
For Serral this situation can be problematic, if ENCE starts to lose sponsors etc. However I think that most teams can not provide much for SC players, because they do not have many high level players that can be exclusive practice partners or coaches. Most teams can provide some salary and equipment in addition to cover travels. Specially for Serral there seems to be no need for apartment or special training from sport psychologist etc.that ENCE could possibly provide. Also I don't know for sure but I expect that tournament payments etc. are bit easier to run through Finnish organization that probably knows better how to work with Finnish taxation etc.
IIRC Serral's contract is up at end of year, so there is possibility that he could switch teams to another Finnish team or some big international one.
What's up with Finnish taxation? I read somewhere a while back how Finland actually makes all tax records publicly accessible or something. Do they also have a complicated tax formula which accounts for all income worldwide wherever generated and multiple tax breaks (i.e. US)?
|
https://yle.fi/urheilu/3-11702922 Finnish news
> Kaiken kohun keskellä varjoon on jäänyt ENCEn uutinen siitä, että se vetäytyy League of Legends -pelistä. Seuralla oli paikka pohjoismaisen NLC-liigan seuraavalle kaudelle, mutta ENCE haluaa tiedotteensa mukaan keskittää voimavaransa muihin peleihin. Niissä sentään kulkee, sillä Joona "Serral" Sotala on yhä Starcraft 2:n maailman kärkeä ja Aleksi Virolaisen entisen joukkuekaverin Jari "SENTEX" Sammalniemen valmentama PUBG-joukkue matkaa ensi vuonna Etelä-Koreassa pelattavaan miljoonaturnaukseen.
Translated :
> In the midst of the uproar many have missed the news about ENCE pulling out of LoL. According to their press release, ENCE wants to focus their resources on other games. At least the team is doing well in those games. Joona "Serral" Sotala is still one of the best players in Starcraft 2, and the PUBG team captained by SENTEX is going to the million-dollar prize pool finals held in South Korea next year.
----
In other words, chill out, ENCE SC2 is fine.
|
Serral extends his contract with ENCE for 2021:
|
On December 18 2020 02:26 geokilla wrote: ENCE just lost Aerial on their CS:GO roster. sergej is gone too. I think it's safe to say ENCE is shutting down. They no longer have a 5 man roster. That is the stupidest shit i've read in a while
|
This is interesting. Let's hope it's the right move.
|
It's not like Serral would have remained teamless for long, but nice for him to stay with ENCE regardless
|
Makes sense to double down on Serral if CS and LoL is not going well for them.
Good news, congrats Serral and Ence .
|
2021 will be year of Serral and ENCE!
|
On December 20 2019 05:58 pvsnp wrote: Unless you're in a team league, SC2 teams don't mean that much. For someone like Serral who clearly makes enough from prize pools, there's no real need to be on a team. If there does happen to be any trouble with ENCE, I wouldn't be surprised if Serral just went teamless. He's already shown that he doesn't really want to travel.
Teams can provide coaching, practice partners, a salary and exposure, but for someone like Serral, it would really be about management. When to do which qualifier, scheduling, travel arrangements, negotiating contracts, prize money, setting up show matches and everything else which so he can focus better on playing the game.
|
Thats really great. Ence really does have the strongest SC2 roster. Glad to see them continuing to invest in sc2.
|
|
|
|
|