Complexity Major Rebuild - Forming the Best Team Money Can Buy

If you follow CSGO betting, or CSGO memes, you no doubt saw this tweet from Complexity’s owner, Jason Lake:

I love our players as individuals but these results won’t be tolerated.

If you’re a Tier 1 player looking for a fresh start at the best facility in the world, HMU. I’ll pay your buyout and give you the world’s highest salaries.

Let’s build a juggernaut.

Spread the word.

— Jason Lake (@JasonBWLake) August 25, 2019

Now, will Complexity actually buy out all the best players in the world and put out a juggernaut that will dominate the CS scene for the next year? Probably not. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a run at some of the tier one free agents when the post Major shuffle begins, which presents an interesting question. What’s the best team that Lake could build this offseason, with the parts available?

We’re going to talk a little bit about team construction, chemistry, team identity, all that good stuff. A thorough understanding of these things will help tremendously in CSGO betting. But first, we have to start with what’s already there.

The Existing Pieces

The current Complexity roster looks like this:

• ShahZaM
• Dephh
• Rickeh
• SicK
• oBo

So, who on that list should we keep? Well, the most obvious answer would be none of them, especially if we have an unlimited budget, and can pay any buyouts. But since we are going to try and use our money responsibly, let’s see if we can’t keep any of these guys and turn them into tier one players.

ShahZaM

I think that ShahZaM is just a little worse than what I’d want from an AWPer in tier one. He’s practically the definition of a replacement level player, with his rating generally hovering somewhere in between 0.90 and 1.10. At the Major, he went over 1.00 three times, and under 1.00 three times, which is about what I’d expect.

If there wasn’t another AWPer available, I could see Complexity keeping him around, at least as a stopgap till a better AWPer hits the market.

Dephh

This is an easy decision. Dephh really isn’t a tier one player. He had that one good run with Complexity in 2018, and he’s been riding that high ever since. If you’re familiar with CSGO betting, you’ll know how often he disappoints. He’s dead weight, and I don’t feel bad about dropping him at all. At this point his best case is probably playing for a tier two or three team, mentoring younger players.

Rickeh

Oddly enough, Rickeh was one of the only members of Complexity to go positive at the Main Qualifier in Berlin, albeit barely. He’s another guy I could see keeping if there were no better options available. He’s been in big spots on big teams, with Complexity and Renegades, and I could see him being a calming veteran presence.

SicK

While I don’t hate SicK as a player, he plays in a position that will be easy to upgrade. There needs to be some real turnover, and honestly we may have kept too many players already. So yes, SicK is gone.

oBo

You just can’t punt on a 16 year old with this kind of talent. oBo has the potential to be Complexity’s ZywOo, sergej, twistzzz, Brollan, etc. This kid is chock full of talent, and with the right IGL and squad around him, he could end up being very good.

So, we are definitely keeping oBo. Maybe ShahZam, maybe Rickeh.

The Problems

So, what’s wrong with Complexity exactly? How should we fix this? Well, the most obvious answer is get them a real IGL. I didn’t even know who was IGLing for Complexity until I looked it up just now. Apparently Dephh is the IGL?

The other problem, no star player. Now, most teams don’t have a real star, as there’s only a handful in the world. But luckily for us, we have an unlimited amount of money, which means we can pick up someone who is in the top 5 potentially.

Finally, they don’t have an entry fragger. Their best entry fragger at the StarLadder Major was ShahZaM, and he was the only player to go positive in his opening kill attempts. A bona fide entry fragger would help transform this team in a big way.

These are all components that should be evaluated when CSGO betting. How good is a team’s IGL, can the entry, all these questions will help you make more informed bets when CSGO betting, which means you’ll make more money.

Solving the Problems

Now that we know what’s wrong, we can diagnose the issues and solve them. First up is the IGL position.

IGL

The answer to this first question is pretty obvious, there’s only one IGL on the market who has the resume to take this team to the top five, and that’s Aleksib. If we ignore the language barriers, which are becoming less and less of a problem for teams with resources like Complexity’s, this fit makes sense so far.

Aleksib will be able to help oBo mature as a player, the same way he did with sergej. He can help temper his aggression, and in theory turn him into a more complete player.

Those are the only two players we have so far, but that’s certainly not a bad start. Next up, star player.

Star Player

There’s a pretty obvious answer to this question too, if you follow CSGO betting. Coldzera, the Brazilian star, is the first star player to hit the market in a while. The two time Major champion will turn pretty much any team into a Championship contender, especially when paired with Aleksib.

Even better, their styles seem to complement each other. Both players seem to prefer a slow, methodical approach to the game, and they should mesh well.

The real question here is, how much do you want Coldzera to AWP? While I personally hate relegating star players like Coldzera to the AWP, it might make sense for our hypothetical Complexity lineup to forgo the traditional main AWP, and run a predominantly five rifle setup. If not, they’ll likely need to find an AWPer on the market, assuming they drop ShahZam.

AWPer

Assuming Complexity do replace ShahZam, and assuming they do want to pick up a full time AWPer, what are their options?

They may consider CRUC1AL, formerly of Splyce and Epsilon. HEN1 is another interesting choice. In fact, I could see the latter being a real option assuming Complexity get Coldzera. The two have played together before, and Coldzera has traditionally played well with explosive AWPers like him.

Luckily for Complexity, it isn’t hard to find AWPers in CSGO. If they do decide to replace ShahZaM, there will be options available for them.

Entry

Here’s a crazy idea for you. What about Friberg? He clearly couldn’t handle the tier one pressure at the tail end of his career with NiP, but he seems to have bounced back on Heroic. Fnatic might take a chance on him, but I don’t think he has a shot at rejoining the Ninjas.

A team with Aleksib, Coldzera, and oBo might be his best option at this point, and it’s really not bad at all. That’s a team that could do serious damage.

The Team

So, let’s take a look at what we ended up with:

• oBo
• Aleksib
• Coldzera
• HEN1
• Friberg

You know, I kind of like it. It’s got firepower, a young star, a real IGL, a bona fide superstar. There are definitely worse options. Now, as far as CSGO betting is concerned, I’m still not sure they’d be the favorites at a tournament with a significant amount of the top 10 in attendance. The upside here is pretty impressive though. Assuming Aleksib can rein in HEN1, oBo can continue to improve as a player, and Friberg plays at the level he was on with Heroic, this team could do serious damage in tier one.