DeKay Scope: Envy Debacle Shows the Importance of Org Communication and Structure

Jacob "FugLy" Medina made a public statement last week discussing the month that led to his benching on the Team Envy Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster. His post described a severe disconnect among members of the team and organization. While I believe the truth lies somewhere between FugLy’s side and the one we haven’t yet heard from Noah "Nifty" Francis or the Envy organization, it is clear an enormous amount of mismanagement occurred.

The most prominent problem I observe with teams like Envy, which routinely make roster moves and don’t ever improve, is allowing one or a select few players control the lineup. It hardly ever succeeds. Aside from Finn "karrigan" Andersen, hardly anyone hand-picks players with little or no help and takes them to the top of the world rankings. Even teams like Astralis have a ton of input from the entire operation, including their coach. Should they ever make a roster move, almost everyone will be aware of it from start to finish.

Let me make it clear that I mean no disrespect to Nifty. I admire the way he has stepped up and taken initiative throughout his career; not many players are willing to take on that kind of pressure and responsibility. Instead, I place more of the blame on the organization and how uninvolved and unorganized it appears to be.

Why was Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek cut from the team in August without all members of the team being informed before it happened? The fact that one player can approach the organization and have a player immediately cut is extremely disrespectful to everyone else involved. Allowing that dynamic also means the rest of the team likely lost any trust they might have had in Nifty and Envy. Perhaps this was the doing of former management that is no longer there, but the decisions made afterwards are made in almost exactly the same manner.

Speaking of the management and coaching changes FugLy mentioned, that was also a change that took place without him and possibly others having known about it. Replacing a general manager and coach at the same time is a huge change for a team, but once again at least one player had no idea it was going to happen. This is what leads me to believe the issue stems from the top of the organization entirely, which is weird considering FugLy prefaced his statement by saying his ire was not aimed at Mike “hastr0” Rufail.

The benching of FugLy and Bradley "ANDROID" Fodor was just more of the same as before: no communication among most members of the team prior to the moves happening. How is a team supposed to build trust and develop a level of comfort that will play into success in the server with this going on? Spoiler alert, it won’t happen.

A gigantic change in approach is the only thing that will change the trajectory of Envy CS:GO, and I feel bad for those involved if it doesn’t. In fact, I don’t even need to hear the other side of the story to come to that conclusion because at least half a dozen former Envy players said they experienced something similar. Find proper management and include every member of your team in discussions or this cycle will just repeat itself for eternity. That is, of course, if you actually care about Counter-Strike.