allu speaks on ENCE struggles, dropping aleksib, and more

By Fariha Bhatti

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Dec 15, 2020

Reading time: 3 min

ENCE AWPer Aleksi “allu” Jalli has made some comments on the team’s roster changes that have brought ENCE back to the fore of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community’s discussions. allu touched on the 2019 roster switches made in the team, which incited a response from both his teammates and members of the CSGO community. 

ENCE has been absent from top of the CSGO esports scene due to its poor performances across a variety of tournaments. The AWPer’s interesting statements on the HLTV Podcast brought ENCE back into the spotlight, but not for good reasons.

allu speaks on ENCE roster changes, dropping aleksib

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allu, who’s one of the oldest players on ENCE’s payroll, took responsibility for roster changes in 2019 and said that he can take “some blame” for former in-game leader Aleksi “aleksib” Virolainen’s move from the team. The AWPer further said that he regrets it.

“I was also part of it of course, but it wasn’t only me – I can take the blame, some of it obviously, but that’s it,” allu said. 

He further commented on the team’s situation in the past and said that the roster was divided into two camps and that aleksib was the glue that kept the team together. According to allu, they didn’t take his contributions into account before making roster decisions which led them to drop the “wrong player.”

“We had like two camps in the team or maybe three camps in the team, before we did any change, so it was me and sergej, then it was Xseven and Aerial and aleksib,” allu said. 

ENCE’s stalwart player made several interesting comments that were quickly followed by tweets from Jere “sergej” Salo and Miikka “suNny” Kemppi while the podcast was still live. suNny said that allu is only revealing a half-truth, while sergej hinted at allu’s role in roster changes in the team. The drama was followed by a cryptic “Thankyou” tweet from aleksib. 

ENCE out of top 30 rankings after aleksib’s roster move 

ENCE’s performance in 2019 helped it acquire a spot in the top five of the world rankings for several months. However, the team has been going through its worst slump since it swapped its former in-game leader aleksib to sign suNny. 

aleksib was quickly picked up by OG, pushing his new roster at OG into the top 30 and eventually the top 10 of the world rankings. ENCE, however, dropped out of top 30 entirely following a series of losses against lesser teams while playing under suNny’s leadership. The team has since then started to fall apart as first Jani “Aerial” Jussila dropped out of the active roster due to medical reasons, and sergej left to serve in the Finnish military. 

The big roster move in ENCE took place in 2019. The fact that the same event still hangs around one of the biggest names in CSGO is rather disappointing for ENCE. There’s nothing much that ENCE has achieved in 2020, and recent statements from allu confirm that in-house issues at ENCE almost certainly contributed to the team’s mediocre performances.