Olivia R. March 7, 2019
Once a humble meme, the phrase “EZ4ENCE” recently became the title of a hit song in Finland.
“EZ4ENCE” is a Finnish-language song by The Verkkars about Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team ENCE, first released in February. The song recently reached the Top 50 on Finland’s national music chart. It was also number four on the nation’s Spotify chart, and the YouTube video has over 500,000 views. The song’s music video, posted on March 3, racked up over 200,000 views in two days.
The song gained popularity at IEM Katowice, when ENCE used the track as the team's entrance music. With the tune bumping in the background, the Finnish squad walked onto the grand finals stage carrying the Finnish flag. Twitch viewers went wild, rapidly spamming “EZ4ENCE” in the chat.
Even though ENCE lost to Astralis on the Champions Stage, the song won over Counter-Strike fans’ hearts.
“EZ4ENCE” started off as ENCE’s catchphrase, often tossed around on Twitch during matches, as a hashtag on Twitter, and on Reddit. A misspelled version of the phrase, “Easy for ENCE,” the hashtag is a riff off the ever-popular “GGEZ” meme. Short for “good game, easy,” using “GGEZ” in popular games like League of Legends can get players suspended. Things are a little more lax in CS:GO.
The meme lore goes even deeper than that. Some Reddit users believe the phrase “EZ4ENCE” originated on HLTV to make fun of ENCE fans during a time in the organization’s growth that saw them losing to lower tier teams at small tournaments.
Despite a recent rough patch, ENCE's members has proven themselves as a talented squad and consistent favorite in the scene, winning DreamHack Open Winter 2018. The Finnish roster currently includes Aleksi “allu” Jalli, Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen, Jere “sergej” Salo, Jani “Aerial” Jussila, and Sami “xseveN” Laasanen.
