Curse.NA drop Michael3D, ezpk

24-4-2013 04:43

Curse's American team has decided to remove Cody "ezpk" Shirley and Michael "Michael3D" Wilbanks from its roster after a disappointing finish at ESEA Invite Season 13 global finals.

Curse.NA came into the finals hoping to make waves as they were fresh off a promising 7-8th place finish at Copenhagen Games after solid wins over teams such as ALTERNATE and Lemondogs.

The team started off well in Dallas this past weekend as they defeated n!faculty in the opening round and then scored fourteen rounds on NiP on de_nuke_se, but from there on out it was all downhill.

Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham's team lost the second map versus the Ninjas 9-16, and were knocked out in 5-6th place for a mere $1,500 in prize money by Quantic Gaming in a lopsided 0-2 loss.

Skadoodle now in charge of Curse.NA

Michael "Michael3D" Wilbanks had been with the team since they converted over from Call of Duty as hold mouse one, while Cody "ezpk" Shirley joined the team a few months back in January.

According to a statement on ESEA News given by Shirley, the decision to make changes came from upper management to improve the team's fragging ability, and better the leadership.

Wilbanks was Curse's worst player statistically with a 0.48 KPR, -37 K+D difference and a rating of 0.72, followed by Shirley with a resume of 0.60 KPR, -20 and a rating of 0.88.

Curse.NA:

Todd "anger" Williams
Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham
Stan "stan" Sukachov

Latham has been appointed the new team captain and will likely be in charge of adding two new members in time for ESEA's fourteenth season, which will once again feature a global CS:GO division.

good move, with 2 good players this is a top team

2013-04-24 04:46

nice for ska & anger. Quantic maybe: 1)DaZeD 2)Skadoodle 3)hiko 4)anger 5)Semphis/tck *dont think so but sounds good :D

2013-04-24 04:47

3 replies

Why would you chop and change 2 teams to make an arguably weaker team than before though? AZK is a monster lol.

2013-04-24 06:39

1 reply

SKADOODLE > AZK DUDE 4 SURE

2013-04-24 23:08

Not gonna happen if they want to keep a decent American scene. They need to spread out their talents more than this.

2013-04-24 17:24

Yes, finally about time Michael3D got kicked his been holding them back for months

2013-04-24 04:53

If Quantic or Dynamic can directly benefit from this then aight, but otherwise I don't see the remaining of the lineup doing much against euros.

2013-04-24 05:03

horrible move imo, they will need to rebuild their 8month comms and teamwork from the start, someone who is good at fps can usually improve his aim faster than comms.

2013-04-24 05:28

1 reply

2013-04-24 07:41

lol~~ Curse come on ~

2013-04-24 05:31

All I can think of is autimatic, NAF-FLY (will this help or hurt them?), or seangares (activity issues?) that they could add that isn't on Quantic or Dynamic, which could help vs. European teams. Maybe they will bring a former top 1.6\CS:S player back from the dead? (fRoD and Storm have been pugging a lot, but I doubt they would join instead of playing with Warden\Curse doesn't need another awper\they might not be in good form.)

2013-04-24 05:52

3 replies

Frod has 50 hrs of GO on steam. Did he learn this game so quick

2013-04-24 06:09

1 reply

play.esea.net/users/2839?tab=stats&last_.. doesnt look like it, his stats 0.5 fpr -350 xD

2013-04-24 06:41

fREAKAZOiD & autimatic i think would be their best bets if they want to hit a home run. like i said in another post though, i don't know if they think autimatic is experienced enough to be their IGL (he's only 16 but was IGL for his invite team).

2013-04-24 07:21

good for them

2013-04-24 06:17

good move

2013-04-24 06:23

They may pick PauLy/sLip/flowsick.

2013-04-24 06:27

1 reply

1.sLip is not that great at GO, 2.i don't think pauLy even plays GO consistently anymore, 3.i can't see flowsick leaving sobo & kiko for Curse.

2013-04-24 07:14

expected this. wouldn't be surprised if they recruit kiko, or someone from DB9K.

2013-04-24 06:28

1 reply

i doubt kiko would leave his friends for Curse as he's never played with anyone from that team. also, none of the DB9K players are top invite material at the moment in my opinion..

2013-04-24 07:12

Thomz, Ninespot, impulsive, mehler, perez... Sad the best NA players stopped.

2013-04-24 06:36

2 replies

ph33r :P

2013-04-24 13:39

all of these players still play with esea open teams except mehler i believe.

2013-04-24 17:38

swag and sgares to curse. heard it here first.

2013-04-24 07:09

11 replies

why would swag leave dynamic & n0thing? why would Curse pick up another primary awper who is even more inconsistent than skadoodle is & someone who "stepped down" (maybe he got cut but they made it sound like he was leaving on his power, i don't know though) because he didn't have time to play a ton of hours anymore?

2013-04-24 07:18

10 replies

what primary awper are you talking about? Skadoodle would be the awper int hat linup. Sean is playign hybrid now with most of his time rifling. unless in the off season he has decided to go back to awping, in whih case you are in the know more than me on that one, but I havent heard it. swag leaving dynamic to join up with sgares is in the rumor mill. you have to remember that swag and sgares have a history as well.

2013-04-24 07:25

9 replies

seems legit, swag isn't in dynamic core for a while and sgares has no team right now (if I am correct ?).

2013-04-24 07:32

2 replies

sgares is teamless correct. Again.. the swag thing is rumor mill, but sgares and swag joining curse would be a rly nice lineup. Not sure who would stepup to be IGL. Sean maybe?

2013-04-24 07:38

1 reply

Sean was igl in Area51 no?

2013-04-24 14:22

gares has always been an awper going back to even 2004, he's never been a STRONG rifler in 1.6 or GO. Curse would be going full retard if they did that. i highly doubt that swag would leave dynamic for Curse, as dynamic at the moment is better than Curse. frankly, it just would not make any sense at all for gares (other than the fact he'd be in invite again if he wants to be, but would not be awping anymore), swag, or Curse to make this move. if curse made those move, you'd see in 2-3 months "Curse.NA drop sgares" as it makes no sense to pick up sgares when there are crazy RIFLERS like fREAKAZOiD out there. /facepalm

2013-04-24 07:46

5 replies

you should read over the whole conversation. Sean is an excellent hybrid. from what I understand he doesnt care to be primary awp anymore he is just tired of it. As stated - I am full aware he has awped since way back. its not always about which team someone might think is better at the moment. you would be changing the rosters of both teams so why would it matter? Also think about this.. swag has a relationship with sean. Swag is a 16 year old phenom that didnt get to go to copenhagen games and finished 7/8 at esea lan. Curse can give him opportunity. Dynamic has no financial backing. I am a dynamic fanboy so i do not want to see swag leave and I wish they could attend these events, but the fact of the matter is they have no backing. It makes a lot of sense for swag to leave dynamic. It would also make sense for curse to pickup an experienced and outstanding hybrid like sean and a young gun like swag. Did you watch Sean play at all last season with GR? I did. He rifled and played well. I am not saying it is happening I am saying it is something you can't rule out. I have already heard from a couple sources that swag is leaving to team up with sean for s14. That doenst make it true which is why I said it is just rumor mill. .../facepalm

2013-04-24 08:08

4 replies

this would be an exciting lineup for Curse. I have a feeling somebody will be leaving Dynamic in this ordeal.

2013-04-24 08:21

wasn't GR in like open or im? and i think GR got knocked out of playoffs very early as well lol.. great thinking. him rifling against teams like 3lit3 420 dr@g0ns vs teams like Quantic & NiP is a whole different story. i think you should stick to doing play-by-play for your stream & getting 6 RWS in pugs xD..

2013-04-24 08:40

2 replies

You know your running out of arguments when you refer to rws. For the record.. my rws sucks because my aim sucks not because I am an idiot. Thanks though. It looks like my prediction wasn't so far fetched. I got the two guys joining curse wrong, but dynamic is done for by the looks of it which mean swag will most likely be joining sgares somewhere. Oh and curse picked up another awp. sgares, frod, swag, n0thing, ??... maybe.

2013-04-25 17:23

1 reply

BIG difference between adding AZK over gares. AZK's awp, rifles & overall ability >>>>>>>>>> gares. adreN > swag easily as well. i'm a 1.6 player too and i'm saying this. Curse can be sick internationally with this lineup if they stick together. i would not say the same if they added gares & swag. i don't know why i even bother "arguing" with people who can't even kill pubbers.... sighhhhhh

2013-04-25 21:24

this was definitely needed. they were only gonna go so far with the two deadweights that were michael3D & ezpk. if i were Curse, i would pick up fREAKAZOiD & maybe autimatic if they feel like he is experienced enough to be IGL.

2013-04-24 07:09

1 reply

>implying

2013-04-24 15:21

Bout time michael3D got kicked.

2013-04-24 07:17

Pretty surprised they did this... Upper management made the decision? Didn't anger say in an interview that Curse itself doesn't care about their placings? Also a little confused about the composition of the origional team, weren't they once a COD team or was that only part of them?

2013-04-24 07:19

4 replies

Only guys left from the original Hold Mouse One (Michael3D, juv3nile,emong,skadoodle,anger_,tm-) team are Michael3D,Skadoodle and anger_ who all have CoD backgrounds they dropped the others and picked up stan and ezpk.

2013-04-24 11:34

3 replies

I thought skadoodle was from AVA..

2013-04-24 12:46

Anger wasn't on their original roster. He also doesn't have a CoD background, he played source for a very long time. Maybe he played CoD before that, I'm not sure.

2013-04-24 17:01

original hm1 was comprised of: Michael3D,juv3nile,emong,skadoodle,tm skadoodle came from ava and went to cod:bo

2013-04-24 21:40

Michael3D is honestly a pretty smart individual, but he just can't perform with fragging abilities :\ ezpk though, eh. Not invite material for sure.

2013-04-24 07:36

Nice. Every other team should do this! After every tournament, if they are placed below 4th rank, kick the worst 2 players from the team.

2013-04-24 07:39

6 replies

i'm not advocating constant roster changes, but there comes a point when a team can only go so far with the players they have. michael3d & ezpk were clearly holding them back.

2013-04-24 07:52

I think every roster in the world including NiP has potential player's they could replace for someone who in theory would be better but I don't think it's the right choice when you are ruining chemistry and teamwork that you have developed at multiple lans together. It's a shame they used EZPK as a scapegoat when they recruited him as a fragger and forced him into calling strats and then cut him for something he was never intended to do. By Quantic Semphis

2013-04-24 08:03

2 replies

Exactly! But who's gonna tell them? :(

2013-04-24 14:14

EZPK mentions in the ESEA forums that he told them he was only coming on for a limited time and he is now moving to Vegas to play poker...so that part makes sense

2013-04-24 15:23

This is the worst possible thing for the teams to develop a good teamplay and good strats...

2013-04-24 17:27

1 reply

*Sarcasm*

2013-04-25 19:37

Its was time for changing ..

2013-04-24 08:00

but why ezpk?

2013-04-24 08:09

expected, i think lurpis or someone else predicted on a video interview that US teams will change rosters after ESEA

2013-04-24 08:11

Question is what happens to Dynamic if or when swag leaves?

2013-04-24 08:31

Michael3D is still on their roster on ESEA though..Ezpk seems to have been replaced by some kid called Smokie

2013-04-24 09:44

3 replies

That's their manager. He's been on the roster all season, he is not the replacement

2013-04-24 10:10

2 replies

Alright, ty

2013-04-24 10:12

Maybe it's time to move up and make some big boy plays!

2013-04-24 19:51

i kinda liked ezpk. if iam not mistaken he was calling strast and made some sick shots here and there. michael3D thats another story...a hope curse will find some good players GL to them.

2013-04-24 10:30

stupid decision they had 14 rounds of NiP with that roster

2013-04-24 10:58

Spoiler: they are picking up AZK and AdreN

2013-04-24 11:02

17 replies

why would they pick up another awper? That does not seem logical at all.

2013-04-24 11:36

16 replies

U.S teams frequently have 2 AWPers on the team. Take Dynamic, AZK and Adren. Quantic has Frozt and DaZeD.

2013-04-24 11:52

12 replies

Thats not on purpose lol, DaZeD is stratcalling for Quantic so he wont pick up the AWP for sure. Back in Dynamic.css you had Adren, AZK & Legend. That was just because Adren was one of the sickest riflers in CSS as in GO. Not really a reason why they have 2 AWPers on their teams its just that they all can play very well with the awp.

2013-04-24 12:04

11 replies

I think you are getting Adren and Anger mixed up lol. Anger was the sick rifler in Dynamic, Adren was the main AWPer, and AZK was a backup AWPer in Dynamic. I guess AZK just feels more comfortable being the main AWP in CS:GO and likewise Adren is more comfortable with rifles. DaZeD was an AWPer in CS:S and he does pick it up when they dual AWP in Quantic. All I was saying is that American teams do tend to favour the dual AWP setup, and having 2 AWPers on the the team is quite common over there, and has been for years. In CGS a lot of U.S teams used to deploy the dual AWP setup quite often.

2013-04-24 12:24

10 replies

Adren wasnt the main AWPer not in source, Were LeGenD and AZK were handling mostly of the time the awp.

2013-04-24 12:44

9 replies

I am 100% confident Adren was the main AWPer in CS:S lol. At least in the later stages of Dynamic for certain. Really think you are getting confused with Anger. And as far as I was aware, Legend was always a support rifler for the most part. Especially in 2011 and 2012, AZK would sit back and rifle if they were only deploying one AWP, and Adren would always have it.

2013-04-24 14:20

2 replies

You're right. Originally AZK was their main awp when they first came on the scene, but eventually they noticed Adren's terrific awping ability and he became the main awper. For the last few seasons of ESEA/ESWC AZK was a rifler and secondary awper.

2013-04-24 17:05

1 reply

Yeah that's exactly what I thought.

2013-04-24 17:18

as much as I hate confirming Alth, you are unfortunately wrong, adreN and AZK were awping in css for dynamic.

2013-04-24 14:27

1 reply

You love it really.

2013-04-24 17:16

you're wrong , legend was a rifler..

2013-04-24 14:54

youtube.com/watch?v=TWEAyZa1szU Just one of the many incredible actions adren has achieved for Dynamic with the AWP.

2013-04-24 17:25

2 replies

Ah ok i really thought Legend was there main AWPer with AZK all along, well guess i was wrong then... Im pretty sure that Legends played the AWP often? But that wasn't the point it was about the 2 AWPer's and yeah in Source they did sometime a 2 AWP setup but im pretty sure Adren played rifle alot aswell.

2013-04-24 18:46

1 reply

As far as I am aware Legend pretty much always rifled the majority of the time. And yeah Adren did rifle sometimes if they decided to go 5 rifles or didn't have enough money to afford the AWP, but 90% of the time if they had an AWP it went on Adrens back, not AZK's.

2013-04-24 19:29

2 awpers baha

2013-04-24 11:54

dont ask me this is an inside info :)

2013-04-24 14:01

i told you they are picking up those 2 :D

2013-04-25 12:15

NA noobs--

2013-04-24 12:11

12 replies

hahaha

2013-04-24 12:25

1 reply

:D:D i was sure someone will mad

2013-04-24 14:49

Wait coming from a German lmao ur cs teams our shitty. NA is way better then the Germans only VP and nip deserve respect in the EU don't get it twisted quantic is top3/4 and dynamic is a better team then them that hardly practices... U guys r low.

2013-04-24 14:13

9 replies

LOL'DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD NA is freaking shit to add but i was refering to Curse specially. The only good thing you have as far as i renember from you is swag and ofc n0thing. You are nothing...what are you talking about EUROPE? I lol'd. Stop making me laugh and go with your CANADA...where is your canadian steel? Oh wait at dignitas, not even top40...so bad.

2013-04-24 14:49

4 replies

16 - 14 vs nip no Germans is doing that I guess curse is so bad. And there isn't much cdn players we tend to play with the Americans

2013-04-24 14:57

1 reply

Ya...it uses to pass when NA teams are antistrating and looking every single demo of NiP everytime despite NiP wouldn't do about those shitties. Apart from that you are not a "challengue" for NiP (european teams are, specially VP)so they are cba of playing at 100%.

2013-04-24 14:59

You do realize that the only German team at the event lost to an American team 2-0....right? LOLLLLLLLLLLLL

2013-04-25 01:45

1 reply

Do i fucking care about german teams? probably if the mindset and attitude changed there would be good german teams around there. Anyways im talking about EU.

2013-04-25 08:41

Although I agree with you that synnnn is a huge idiot you're understating how many teams in EU deserve respect (and this coming from someone who has lived in NA most of his life)

2013-04-24 15:25

3 replies

Thank you :D

2013-04-25 08:41

2 replies

<3 luv u bbz

2013-04-25 08:45

1 reply

Ty ;p

2013-04-25 08:51

EZPK? Really? I understand about michael3D as he was low, but ezpk was a good fragging strat caller and he wasnt even meant to be one. That is lame and unfair for the kid. Anyways, I think the best fitted players are adren(igl/second awper) and someone with raw aim like nothing,swag,freakazoid etc

2013-04-24 13:14

4 replies

He mentions in ESEA forums that he came on for a limited time as he is moving to Vegas to play professional poker.

2013-04-24 15:26

3 replies

Who? Ezpk?

2013-04-24 15:31

2 replies

Yes sir

2013-04-24 15:32

Although I think the correlation does not imply causation

2013-04-24 15:36

Shame, Always was hoping to see the call of duty guys stick together. Have to wonder if Michael will keep playing, hopefully.

2013-04-24 13:19

Good luck, might be for the better.

2013-04-24 13:20

they did pretty well against NiP so weird decision about kicking ezpk

2013-04-24 13:30

A bit of a shame, but hopefully something good can come out of this. Don't understand the reasoning behind though when it comes to the ESEA global finals in particular. A 2-0 win against n!faculty, expected I guess, but still. And then 0-2 losses to the winners and the runner-ups. NiP and Quantic are quite strong teams atm., so it seems fair enough losing to both, even with 14 rounds against NiP, but I guess Curse expected to do better against Quantic. Personally guessed the NiP > QG > VG placing (although VG and QG could arguably go both ways as well). Anyway, a bit sad that the whole ESEA finals ended with more or less all the US teams on the same side of the lower-bracket. Had really hoped to see more good US vs. EU match-ups, though VG-QG, ESC-QG x2 and VG-Dynamic where good stuff, would just have been great seeing more of Curse and especially Dynamic vs. the EU teams. Best of luck to Curse for the future though :)

2013-04-24 13:32

about time

2013-04-24 13:42

Expected

2013-04-24 14:01

he was really embarassing us for awhile there, go back to cod kid

2013-04-24 14:09

1 reply

We really need players to join the community not to leavdm.

2013-04-24 14:35

what's evolution doing these days? he was pretty amazing in 1.6 if i recall correctly? does he even play go?

2013-04-24 14:10

shoxie and Guardian to Curse.NA, duuuuuhhh =P Micheal3D nice guy, come back to Bf3/Bf4 :)

2013-04-24 14:33

Would be interesting to see this: Dynamic: warden, azk, n0thing, dboorn, swag Curse: anger, skadoodle, stan, adren, volcano

2013-04-24 15:08

5 replies

They won't be picking up adren or volcano fact

2013-04-24 16:10

2 replies

I heard you are moving to the US to make a team with skadoodle

2013-04-24 16:41

1 reply

Hahah we spoke about but more as a joke :)

2013-04-24 18:00

1st: Wardenn??? LOL 2nd: adren wont leave azk would be interesting to see this: Dynamic: azk, adren, n0thing, anger, volcano curse: skadoodle, stan, fr3ak, automatic, roca quantic: dazed, semphis, hiko, swag, seangares

2013-04-24 18:12

1 reply

curse: skadoodle, stan, fr3ak, automatic, roca are you high?

2013-04-24 18:59

I never liked cure as an organization, keep switching players.. u will never be on top..

2013-04-24 16:10

they are bad so it isn't some bad decision.

2013-04-24 16:10

I think moe/freakazoid combo would be nice addition for curse. Moe can call/secondary awp and freakazoid is one of the most amazing riflers i have ever seen, but shoot i think its just a dream moe has some rage issues.

2013-04-24 17:47

2 replies

Moe's been playing with Frod/Warden/Storm/Naf in scrims, don't know if that lineup is actually one that will stick for next season. He also said on stream that Dynamic might break up after the ESEA lan beacuse they've lost their sponsors, again that's just a rumour.

2013-04-24 17:58

Yeah if you want to derail the team then sure.

2013-04-24 19:12

If frozt didn't performed so well in Esea LAN, I would think that Skadoodle would be in Quantic by now

2013-04-24 17:53

+mOE/clowN +fREAKAZOiD

2013-04-24 18:08

+ridic

2013-04-24 18:22

After reading some of the posts... I guess automatic\freakazoid (if he meshes into that lineup chemisty wise?) might be their best bet. Picking up anyone from Denial E-Sports would surely be a downgrade (it didn't help Dynamics situation).

2013-04-24 19:11