Update (Feb 22nd):
Three months after announcing that they will be cutting the analyst role in the team, G2 has done exactly that leading Kevin "Sua" Stahnke to leave the squad. This ends a two-year stay on the team in which time he was crowned the SI19, EUL, and GSA champion and finished second at the Raleigh Major, August Regional Major, and Season 11 of Europe's Pro League.
G2 is left now with just Shas and ProtaX as staff working as the team's coach and manager. Their next game will be when the newly revamped EUL kicks off on March 18th.
This announcement comes on day one of the end-of-year transfer period kicking off what should be a very busy few weeks.
Original article (Nov 9th):
G2 Esports analyst Kevin "Sua" Stahnke has announced on Twitter that the organisation has decided to make his position redundant effective February 2021. As such, the German will now be looking for a new team, in Rainbow Six or other games, to coach or create content for.
According to talismanic player Niklas "Pengu" Mouritzen, with the lack of offline Major events and financial impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sua's impact and utility has been somewhat limited and unnecessary. As such, with budget cuts being a driving factor, G2 Esports has decided to cut down on expenses by eliminating its Rainbow Six analyst position.
Sua has been part of the Rainbow Six: Siege community since 2016, the year when he joined PENTA Sports Academy where he made his first steps as a player.
However, he properly entered the public conscious in 2018, when ENCE after the conclusion of the Six Major Paris. Back then, the Finnish roster had been about to kick off Season 8 of the Challenger League after being relegated from the Pro League the season before.
Working alongside now-G2 player Aleksi "UUNO" Työppönen, Sua’s mission was to get ENCE back to the top division of the game. The roster was able to finish in second place, just behind Team Empire. However, ENCE’s second place was enough to give them the chance to qualify to the Pro League through the relegation match, which they won against Team Vitality.
ENCE struggled at DreamHack Winter 2018, after which Sua stepped down from his position a week into Season 9 of the Pro League. A month later, he signed with G2 Esports -- just two weeks prior to the Six Invitational 2019 -- and helped the team to a searing title defense despite serious performance concerns prior to the tournament.
G2 Esports head coach Shas at the Six Invitational 2020.
Working alongside head coach Thomas "Shas[O]Udas" Lee, Sua and the rest G2 struggled to achieve the heights that it had in the past few Pro League seasons and missed a Pro League Finals for the first time since before Season 4. Nevertheless, despite that Season 9 miss, the team made it to the Grand Final of the Six Major Raleigh in yet another strong offline performance.
However, the team's online performances did not improve and it missed out on the Season 10 Pro League Finals as well. Amidst a heavy rebuild that saw title-winning G2 virtually disappear, multiple failures to qualify for the Six Invitational 2020 meant that the team had to be invited to the event instead. Despite naysayers and a stand-in, G2 made it to the quarter-finals of the event.
Season 11 saw some resurgence for the team as Jake "Virtue" Grannan joined, but cancellation of the Pro League Finals due to COVID-19 meant that their first top-two finish in a year was rather subdued.
Transitioning to the new competitive format, G2 finished third in Stage 1 of the European League (EUL). Once more on the rise, the Six Major August 2020 saw the team finish in second and the fact that their eventual reverse-sweep by BDS Esport felt like a disappointment indicated that the team felt it had unrealised potential.
Winning the national German league with relative ease, the team suddenly struggled in Stage 2 of the EUL and only managed a seventh place finish. Missing out on the November Major and presumably struggling in terms of finances due to COVID-19, the G2 Esports organisation has announced that the analyst position will be made redundant.
Sua will now be looking for a new team -- in or outside of Rainbow Six -- or may become a content creator, as per his tweet. G2 Esports, meanwhile, will be reverting to its single-coach formula that netted the team (across its various rosters) great success.