Counter Logic Gaming Bids Farewell to Rainbow 6

This announcement comes less than a week after their second player, Gabriel “LaXing” Mirelez, decided to join beastcoast - the same team that, ironically, beat CLG in a relegation match to drop CLG into the Challenger League. Prior to Laxing’s move, Alexander “Skys” Magor also left the org to join Obey Alliance.

CLG explained their decision, saying, “with our position forfeit due to a requirement of maintaining a minimum of three players, we ultimately made the choice to step back from competitive Rainbow Six until the time is right again for us”.

For those at home doing quick maths, Laxing and Skys make up only 40% of the roster, and do not add up to a majority. This suggests that at least one remaining CLG player has found a new home, though no official announcement as to who, or which team has been released yet. These roster changes are hardly a surprise, however, since CLG “believed that [their] players were all still extremely talented despite the results of the season and should have the option of competing in the Pro League should they find the opportunity”.

CLG acquired the Elevate roster in February of this year, ahead of the 2018 Six Invitational Major. The team earned a spot in the tournament by placing second against PENTA Sports in the Season 5 (Year 2 Season 2) LAN Finals, since PENTA already qualified through other means, instead of earning the spot outright.

From Counter Logic Gaming’s perspective, the organization entered competitive Siege “with a lot of excitement and an experienced roster,” so they’ll of course be disappointed with how things panned out. CLG is a top 30 esports organization, with earnings of over $2.8 million across 364 tournaments in various competitive games. It raises the question: should other successful esport orgs that have not yet made the leap into competitive Rainbow Six Siege hesitate based on CLG’s unfortunate experience?

All signs indicate that the CLG team had its own unique problems, while Season 7 contained anomalous conditions that we are not likely to see again. Geo’s statement on Twitlonger after parting ways with the squad suggests that perhaps something had been festering within this particular roster for some time. Evidently, it reached a point where a once successful formula was no longer effective. Specifically, in Season 7, we saw CLG lose repeatedly to teams that showed a stronger mastery of the new meta, including Lion. We also saw outward disdain from the roster, rather than adaptability, towards the direction Ubisoft chose to take the game with Operation Chimera.

However, the problems with this team extend beyond adapting to the most recent season’s new content. They did not manage to advance past the group stage at the Six Invitational, losing both of their matches. At a time when many teams were investing in coaching staff to help players become more strategic, CLG did not, until perhaps too late, announcing a hire of ExecCS as their coach in May -- over two months after the 2018 Six Invitational.

The format did not help the team either, with the bracket system meaning that their two losses landed them right in relegations. There, as mentioned, they faced a spirited beastcoast who eventually sunk them and effectively ended CLG’s involvement in Rainbow Six for the time being.

It is unfortunate to see such a sizeable and reputed organisation exit the scene, but the effort that they had put in to find a team probably indicates a desire to stay in this scene for the long-run. For now, three notable teams are looking for an organisation -- the ex-1UP roster, the ex-CryptiK roster, and fan favourites IDK. 

It is not unlikely that CLG might be looking to pick one of the three up, with all of them having exhibited themselves well over the past few seasons, and with all three having a good chance to feature at the Paris Major in August. Only time will tell, however, if the organisation wishes to re-enter the scene after their failure with the former Elevate roster.

Written by @Rowteeme