ENCE’s allu ends a pro CSGO game by cratering on the map

Moviestar Riders upset ENCE in the Champion Cup Finals yesterday off the back of a ridiculous mistake from Aleksi “allu” Jalli.

On Moviestar Riders’ match point, veteran player allu made a rookie mistake while rotating off Overpass’ A bombsite towards B. allu took the shortcut from dumpster to stairs, falling just a little too far and cratering from the fall damage. His death gave Moviestar Riders the game.

Granted, it would have been very difficult for allu to win the one versus two situation he was in with only one HP. Then again, he did have a Krieg when he died, which only requires a single headshot to kill a player. There was at least a possibility of winning that round.

allu and ENCE laughed it off and moved on, but the funny mistake highlights an issue that ENCE has had since Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen was benched and sent to OG.

ENCE struggles continue without Aleksib

Since removing Aleksib from the team, ENCE has fallen from number three in the world to number 12, indicating that either the team is struggling to adjust to Aleksib’s departure or there’s a deeper problem within the Finnish squad. Make no mistake, Aleksib wasn’t a tactical mastermind. But the in-game leader clearly knew how to use his players effectively.

ENCE’s rapid dropoff in performance after Aleksib’s departure is concerning to say the least. They’re a far way off from their IEM Katowice 2019 form that took them all the way to the finals of a CSGO major.

It seems like ENCE has made a classic error. Adding more firepower in exchange for lesser tactical prowess rarely works. Bringing in someone like Miikka “suNny” Kemppi only works if a team’s IGL known how to work him into the system.

The one current exception is Team Liquid. When the organization let Epitacio “TACO” de Melo leave for Jake “Stewie2K” Yip, they also added a coach in Eric “adreN” Hoag that knew the team and knew how to use each player properly.

Losing to Moviestar Riders is one of those results that fans see from teams that rely on individual plays too often. At the CSGO Asia Championships, ENCE took a series from MiBR and mousesports, but they don’t look like they could have pulled that off today. Although ENCE won their followup game against TYLOO, the 2-0 doesn’t tell the whole story.

A close first map on Inferno ended 16-13, with ENCE struggling against another team that is far below them in talent. While they took Mirage 16-10, ENCE’s CT side was troubling. Trouble on the T-side means trouble with strategy, while bad CT sides mean poor communication.

allu’s crater wasn’t the first and won’t be the last of its kind. In fact, there are some fantastic videos out there showing all the ways that pros have made silly mistakes, like when Keith “NAF” Markovic fell off Vertigo during Team Liquid’s match against Astralis at the StarLadder Berlin Major.

These are almost always funny. But laughs and smiles are for when someone craters and their team is up 10-0. Not on match point against a Moviestar Riders team that ENCE had no business losing to.