What went wrong for Falcons at the RMR?

Falcons caused a stir in the off-season but their new lineup will not be at the Copenhagen Major.

Falcons have been knocked out of the sky. Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen's arrival in October, as much as he and management talked about a long-term process, was the start of an investment that warranted high expectations out of the gates.

The signing of the ENCE core, a top-five team, alongside anchor of the year Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif, was a clear sign of intent that, although the internal goal is to win a Major by 2025, external pressure was on the team immediately.

Their failure at the PGL Copenhagen RMR, then, is nothing short of a disaster. An inquest is sure to be launched internally, but we thought it would be worth taking a look ourselves: How can a team of such lofty ambitions get their wings clipped like this?

The first thing to note is how little time the squad actually had together. But, this is something in the power of the organization, even if teams were reluctant to negotiate before the end of Copenhagen's Major cycle.

zonic was recruited in October. Magisk's future was in the air around the same time, and played his last Vitality game on October 16.

Where the transfer window went wrong was later on; high-ticket items like Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač were targeted without conversion, and ENCE's Pavle "⁠Maden⁠" Bošković and Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García were only signed on December 16.

The delay between this and Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer's earlier arrival had a direct effect on Falcons' seeding for the RMR, where they were ranked No. 16 and had to face tricky opponents FaZe and Eternal Fire.

Read more

NiKo to stay with G2 in shock U-turn

Falcons even began their November bootcamp with Snappi and Magisk alongside Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas, Laurențiu "⁠lauNX⁠" Țârlea, and Miłosz "⁠mhL⁠" Knasiak, such was the uncertainty.

The lineup was completed slap-bang in the middle of the winter break, and Falcons also opted for a PC-free teambuilding bootcamp at the start of January led by Lars Robl. The clear consequence was that they came into the season visibly light on server work.

A surprising, hard-fought, and maybe even pyrrhic top-four finish at IEM Katowice left them arriving at the RMR with almost no time to fix mistakes at all, a shallow map pool, and less energy than they might have otherwise had.

But it was not just a time issue. There was still plenty of runway for Falcons to qualify out of the easier of the two EU RMR groups. AMKAL was not a team Falcons should have lost to.

Failing to secure NiKo, ultimately, left the team irreparably damaged in terms of composition. He would have been the star on both sides, occupying crucial positions like Outside on Nuke, Connector on Mirage, and Toilets on Overpass and letting Maden and Snappi take map control on T while he aggressively prowled around the map solo.

Our timeline's Falcons roster shuffled these star roles between all four of their riflers, players who were all used to anchor roles for much of 2023. On Mirage, only Snappi was not an A anchor last year, while on Nuke only Maden was not used to Ramp. BOROS and Maden both wanted to play map control on T.

BOROS, nominally the closest to NiKo's profile, was allowed to keep anchor roles like Monster on Overpass and Ramp on Nuke rather than step up into full-time star positions. It's clear why; BOROS' CT style is that of a turret, with strong aim but lacking the positional awareness to be an able rotator.

But in the knock-on effect, IGL Snappi now occupies Outside on Nuke (0.80 CT rating in 7 maps), and B Connector on Anubis (0.57, in 4 maps) where, naturally, individual performance has been lacking.

Magisk, signed because he is the best anchor in the world, is their Toilet player on Overpass and Mid player on Ancient. He has been excellent there, because he is excellent everywhere, but these are not positions he would occupy had BOROS been seen as the true star rifler of the squad.

Attention on BOROS has also been fierce for out-of-server reasons, too, with zonic confirming a lack of professionalism and timekeeping early on in the new roster's lifespan — though, to be fair to him, he did improve over time.

Read more

zonic on BOROS: "He needed to become more professional, and he did"

In-game, his decision-making has been lax at times, too. The Nuke match against FaZe in the RMR saw BOROS get picked easily by Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard in Yard on three occasions. Too often, he lazily peeks angles without the intent or mental preparedness to put his amazing aim to good use.

He was also killed by Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants — and Eternal Fire's Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker, in their game — over the Outside smokes a few times, when had he been closer to the smoke wall he would not have even been spotted. These are not mistakes that should need to be corrected twice.

BOROS has also been guilty of overpeeking in man-advantage scenarios, as noted by Lucas "⁠Bubzkji⁠" Andersen, and overstays his welcome at times hoping for an extra kill rather than falling back to a setup.

Improving BOROS is the type of project Snappi has relished during his career, calling him a "diamond in the rough", but this Falcons project is one built to win, not one where Snappi should be working almost entirely with just one player.

His 1.05 rating in the server this year is short of Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz, his rough match in ENCE, and miles off of NiKo's 1.22 for 2024 so far.

Still, it would be unfair to lay this defeat entirely at BOROS' door. Falcons know he is not NiKo; Maden's 1.05 CT rating in star roles is more of an underperformance, numbers wise, than BOROS' 1.06 in mostly anchor ones.

The core of ENCE, with Magisk and zonic added, should have qualified for the Major whoever their fifth was. More is going on.

One area of concern is SunPayus, the sixth best player of 2023. From a 1.16 LAN rating on CS:GO the Spaniard has dropped to 1.09 on the new game.

He has not been bad by any means, but rarely reached the level Falcons require of their AWPer considering the drop-off in rifle firepower compared to when he could play off of NertZ in ENCE.

He is still a dynamic sniper on defense, and retained his super-impressive figure of 0.15 opening kills per CT round, but on the T side AWPs are more scarce and his rifling aim has sometimes let him down. He has also dropped to 12.9% opening kill attempts on attack, versus 17.0% on CS:GO.

Nowhere was his loss of confidence more obvious than on Mirage in the decider versus AMKAL, where SunPayus lost two crucial 1vs1 clutches in which he had advantageous AK-47 duels but failed to land a headshot. Round 12 also showed a shaky sign where usually he is so strong, after he rotated towards A when it was clear AMKAL were going back to B.

Like BOROS, however, zooming into SunPayus should not make us lose focus. Failing to convert man advantages was a team-wide issue. They led AMKAL 7-3 on that Mirage decider before losing a 4vs2 in round 11, and four consecutive man advantages from round 12 to 16. All of a sudden, it was 8-8 — and every 1vs1 was going the Russians' way.

As the game got frantic, Falcons looked more and more flustered. One of our journalists overheard them having to check who knew what smokes for a crucial T round, and the response they got was not a reassuring one.

In overtime, Snappi and SunPayus had a 2vs1 clutch in their hands with the bomb on Default, but Snappi inexplicably ran out of Ramp with his knife out and SunPayus whiffed the heads-up fight onto Igor "⁠Forester⁠" Bezotecheskiy.

The reliance on spawn calls is shown somewhat in their trading profile, where all five players are close to average and roles are not too defined. Magisk is the one in the traditional bomb-site entry corner, when on paper you might expect him to be the fourth player thereafter the IGL and two traditional entries.

Macro-wise, Snappi has a reputation for fast-paced calling but his ENCE stint proved he slowed it down when he had individuals he trusted in defaults. This Falcons team, by contrast, has been spawn call after spawn call. Whether that is from pressure, a lack of trust, or a lack of practice is hard to tell, but should ring alarm bells either way.

A silver lining is that the Major cycle will also damage other teams, too; and it would be surprising if Falcons did not partake in the ensuing rostermania.

Recruitment will be tough again, and questions over Falcons' links to the Saudi state will rightly hold some players back from signing with the team. Even if it is not on ethical grounds, the hate the team is receiving — just listen to the boos they received in Katowice — is not a prospect a well-liked player would relish. But money, and the ability to link up with Snappi, zonic, and Magisk, may well do just enough talking.

That core leadership group of Snappi and Magisk should be untouchable. Removing Maden would be harsh, even if the ENCE core is no longer required; he has great chemistry with Snappi in T side map control, and is a great fourth piece to have in a team. SunPayus is a good enough AWPer to bounce back to top form once the team environment is more settled.

But a star rifler has to come in. If Falcons want to win a Major by the end of 2025, more firepower is required. Four anchors does not cut it.

The biggest shame of the Falcons move is that NertZ could not follow the ENCE members, ostensibly for political reasons. Adding Magisk to that four-man core would have given them a team ready to compete immediately.

It is not impossible that BOROS, as the premier Middle Eastern talent, stays, and that Snappi can craft a diamond out of him — but that is not a short-term process. Finding a ready-made star rifler used to rotating positions on CT and lurking on T would solve their role conflicts at the same time as upgrading firepower, and surely is the easier option.

Falcons were a mess in Bucharest. But it was in an unforgiving format, with an unfairly low seed, and little to no practice time between it and Katowice to fix mistakes. It can be written off, should they want to.

It is clear that they need more time in the server, time that would be better spent with a defined star rifler, whether that is BOROS or a new player.

The organization have promised the best possible conditions for their players, with all of the best nutrition, psychology, and 0.1% edges you could dream of. Those minute details won't pay off immediately.

Watching the Major from home will be a bitter pill to swallow, but Falcons still have more than a good hand to play with ahead of their lofty 2025 goal. Early turbulence is to be expected, but an experienced skipper like zonic should be able to navigate it. Falcons remain a team to watch for this year — and beyond.