This is an opinion piece that reflects the views of the author and not The Game Haus as a whole.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that a lot of crazy roster moves have been going on following the Valve sponsored ‘Major’; this sort of thing happens after basically every major. One big move that really shocked me was the removal of Aleksi ‘allu’ Jalli from FaZe Clan. His replacement, Ladislav ‘Guardian’ Kovács, plays an almost entirely different style, not to mention is much less effective without an AWP in his hands. When you take into account the aggressive buying style of FaZe, this move to me seems like a complete loss for FaZe; my colleague Joe Sitavanc seems to think this is more of a sidegrade than a downgrade. Either way, this isn’t an article about FaZe, this is about allu and where his esports career will lead him post-FaZe.
What teams would want allu?
It’s hard to know exactly what teams would per-say want him; however, we do know that PENTA just lost their star Finnish player Miikka ‘suNny’ Kemppi, and could use a new star Finnish player. I would assume he would have a spot on any North American roster, besides perhaps Cloud9 as they seem content with their current roster, and also have made it clear they don’t want players from outside North America. He’d be the perfect kind of player for an international team like mousesports; although they seem happy with the roster they have put together. An interesting team for him to end up on would be Renegades, though that’s highly unlikely. Another potential roster he could find his way on is Dignitas in place of Ricardo ‘fox’ Pacheco. If they really aspire to be a serious contender, fox has got to go in my opinion.
What’s his best move?
PENTA wouldn’t be an awful place to put him, but someone of his skill level would be as good as wasted on the roster, as we saw with suNny. There just isn’t enough incentive for him to work with PENTA. Renegades would be interesting, but we have seen how the organization has failed in the past, and not to mention this team will not be a contender anytime soon, even with allu. Dignitas is realistic, could legitimately happen, and would make the team much scarier and potentially even a contender should you replace Jesper ‘TENZKI’ Plougmann or Jorgen ‘cromen’ Robertsen, maybe with someone like Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif. Though, RUBINO could be problematic should history repeat itself. NA or Dignitas are allu’s two best options, but personally, I think NA is better for him.
It makes sense for someone like allu, as NA has lacked a great AWP player since Óscar ‘mixwell’ Cañellas was doing it full time, and allu has been on English speaking teams for basically three years now. If you negate that period where he decided a Finnish super team was a good idea, he’s been on English speaking teams since 2014. He also has a quieter voice and leaves room for the huge NA egos to thrive. Personally, I think the perfect fit for him would be to plug him right into Josh ‘jdm64’ Marzano’s spot in Team Liquid. This move makes sense because of Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz’ style on the terrorist side. It is more effective without an AWP. Allu has the flexibility that jdm just doesn’t; not to mention, allu is better with the AWP than jdm in my opinion. This move would make Liquid an instant title contender.
Post-FaZe Life
It’s likely allu will not find a better situation than what he found in FaZe, and I’m not just talking financially. The team was one of the favorites to win any tournament they entered and were really looking up. Maybe we’ll look back at this move and say it was the best thing for both FaZe and allu’s career in the long run. Maybe Guardian will completely work out and allu will find success with Liquid, or some other team. For right now we don’t know what the future holds, but we do know this was ‘just a phase’ for allu and he’s going to have to move forward.
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