The French Shuffle
Since January 2013, Titan has been home to three players who are not in the current roster: NBK, SmithZz and ScreaM. The French shuffle was the large roster move which saw the trio sign into Epsilon or LDLC. Although Titan didn't end up with as weak of a line-up as Epsilon, they still lost out hugely, falling from the heights they reached before as the very best French team. Though the shuffle happened a long time ag,o it's still significant as it marked the split in the French team and formed the roster which continued to play until late 2014.
KQLY style
The third quarter of 2014 saw team Titan play with the current line-up without RPK but instead KQLY, an extremely skilled secondary AWPer. As he was caught for cheating by Valve Anti Cheat in late November 2014, however, it clouded a lot of Titan's past achievements, with the CS:GO community questioning some of their past results. In fact, Titan with KQLY have had some significant results, most notably DreamHack Stockholm where Titan played completely on another level compared to any other team. Destroying their LDLC French counterparts in the grand finals 2-0, KQLY was a large part of Titan's success in Stockholm, arguably his greatest achievement.
Unfortunately KQLY isn't best known for his team dominating in Stockholm; he is best known as the player who was VAC banned just days before DreamHack Winter. He has never admitted to using cheats to gain an advantage in an official game, but that is widely debated by the Counter-Strike community. His achievements within Titan will likely always be over-shadowed by the cheating conviction he earned. We could go on all day about the effects of hacking and the result that has on the single events, organisations and the entire scene however I think those points have been debated enough.
KennyS - The best player in the world
Voted by the community as "Player of the year" in the GosuGamers awards, KennyS is regarded as the best, most effective player in current CS:GO. Kenny has the game based around him and is given similar responsibilities to JW in early Fnatic. His job is very set. On the CT side Kenny will push up into slightly dangerous positions and take a shot without the risks JW would usually take. There are exceptions to the rule, however, and Kenny is famous for taking very quick flick shots and completely tearing up an entire team in a blink. His hit rate is generally quite high, although his skill set is most developed for the terrorist side. He is used by Titan to pick open a site, he's extremely mobile and can clear angles with Apex taking lightning fast shots. He is a decent clutch player as a recent clutch against NIP to win a map of inferno clearly shows.
Kenny is vital to Titan's success and definitely the most important player on the team. Ex6TenZ bases the entire game around him and Titan will normally stay around Kenny to ensure his safety when entering a site so he can pick up the entry frag to start the round. However, KennyS' solo performance is sometimes not enough. Even in games where he can rank up 40+ kills, Titan might still lose the match as the support from his team-mates isn't always there.
Apex - The second man
Apex is also very important to Titan's success and he has been known to score very highly, though not on the same level as Kenny. He is a high level rifle player - if Apex has a huge game, him and KennyS will likely carry their team over the finish line dominating their enemies. DreamHack Stockholm was the LAN event which showed had both Kenny and Apex dominating, especially in the final against LDLC (now EnVyUs).
Ex6TenZ - A true tactical genius
Unlike other current in-game leaders, Ex6TenZ uses a very tight style, he is known as an extremely hard worker. Famous for his unique tactics, Ex6TenZ makes up for what he lacks in skill with tactics. His team is known for creating initiative strats, those that famously catch off guard teams who have more skilled players to win crutial rounds. His Terrorist side tactics are mostly the reason he is such a great in-game leader and he can commonly upset a much more skilled team. Just these last weeks, Titan have scored victories against Fnatic, EnVyUs and NIP in consecutive matches.
RPK - The return of a Counter-Strike Legend
RPK retired in early 2013 and returned in early 2015. Two years of being completely dormant meant that RPK was a suprising candidate to step into KQLY's shoes in January. The majority of the CS:GO community thought that ScreaM would be Titan's 5th player as Epsilon was in tatters after bad results and their own cheating scandal. RPK has shown some good performances most notably in the last few days, mainly on CT side holding the small bombsite such as B on inferno and B on Cache. If RPK continues to improve at the same rate as he has over the past three months he will be a very powerful player throughout 2015 and maybe have a similar run of dominance to previous in his career. RPK, KennyS and Apex could put together a huge cumulative killing power which could prove to be unstopable if RPK can return to his previous form.
Major issues
Titan have never been able to perform at a major event, arguably having the worst luck of any team. EMS One Katowice saw them elmiminated from the group stages, upset by Hellraisers. They didn't make it to the playoffs in Cologne either, knocked out by Cloud9 and Dignitas in a fairly easy group and they were also banned from competing at DreamHack Winter: 2014 due to KQLY's situation. The last three majors have been disasters for Titan, and I'm sure they hope that ESL One Katowice will not repeat the mistakes made in 2014.
Titan are not an elite team
Despite the eulogy given above and some of their recent results, Titan is not an elite level team. The reason for this is that they themselves are upset frequently. Just this month they have been beaten by TSM, Gamers2, CLG, Property and NIP. What is the reason for this?
Titan don't have the individual skill right now that other top tier teams have. Let me elaborate on this point by comparing them to EnVyUs, their French ex-teammates. Titan have Apex playing the quick entry fragging role, while EnVyUs have Kioshima. Kioshima is overall a much more consistant, better and faster player and he can hit a headshot incredibly quickly. While it is true that Apex has some crazy games, Kioshima can perform most of the time which is what seperates them.
Happy is the in-game leader on EnVyUs and in the last few months he has been one of their key fraggers, top scoring the majority of the time in big matches. On the other hand Titan have Ex6TenZ who is a great tactical mind but does not have the same killing power as Happy. RPK and NBK play similar roles holding the small bombsite, but while RPK is very fresh in spite of his past experience it makes him inheritly weaker than NBK who can be a barrier to the small site, wasting time to allow rotations and getting crutial kills.
Titan also have to work with Maniac who is currently playing on a lower level than any other member of his team he has games where he makes a good impact on the game, but since January this year, he was more often than not in the diametrical opposite. In fact, the only player in Titan who matches up higher than any member of EnVyUs is KennyS, having a much stronger AWP than SmithZz, and is the one player in Titan who can consistantly out perform any member of any team.
Other teams such as Fnatic and EnVyUs do not have to rely on tactics and clever stratagy to beat teams like Property but Titan sometimes needs exactly that as they can't execute a straight up dominance. These lower level teams seem to be more ready for the tactical challenges that Titan throw at them compared to the big teams. The sheer collective killing power of Titan isn't currently high enough to become a truly elite level team and dominate CS:GO. If the performances Titan commonly show against the big teams were consistant they would be the best team in the world, but they're struggling against rosters who aren't even in the top 16.
Conclusion - A rocky road ahead
Titan is in a difficult position right now. Being solely supported and carried by KennyS means they're entirely dependant on one player's current form. If KennyS slumped, Titan would be in a complete shambles, their level would drop to the point where they aren't a top eight team anymore. If KennyS were to get taken by another French team such as EnVyUs that would leave Titan in an even bigger hole. If RPK can not improve further Titan will stay at the same level as they are now, constantly contending and threatening to make big results but never properly delivering.
The opinions presented in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of GosuGamers.net.
Ex6Tenz image by esuba.eu, Apex image eslgaming.com, Team Titan image by ESL, Arena image by Hristainsson and ESL, KQLY image by Hristainsson and ESL, Banner image by millenium.org
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