Endpoint has once again proven that they are the powerhouse of the British Counter-Strike scene, adding another ESL Premiership title to their cabinet, this comes after losing their young star William “mezii” Merriman to FNATIC. The endless cycle of Endpoint losing a star, signing a new young player, and keeping up their level of consistency continues in their local campaign however with their relegation from ESEA Premier it will be interesting to see if there are any more changes to come to Endpoint’s roster. At the end of the last player break, I was able to speak to Endpoint’s former coach and current general manager, Ross “RossR” Rooney, in an attempt to understand how they can bring in youth players and have them flourish into stars time and time again but also to hear what his goals and expectations for this team are.
Despite the roster changes that have affected Endpoint over the last year, they have been able to find some consistency. Endpoint has bounced around the HLTV Top 30 whether they had Shahar “flameZ” Shushan, mezii, Robin “robiin” Sjögren, or “Thomas” Utting. Ross began to explain what their mentality is to keep that consistency and how they can defy the odds time and time again.
“Regardless of what changes we’ve made, the team has always kind of gone forward, you know, with marginal gains over that period, regardless of the players that are around them (MiGHTYMAX, Crucial, and Surreal). So as long as we’ve retained those core players who understand the process and have a certain brand of Counter-Strike that is really accepting of anyone new that comes in then it’s not really an issue for us. The issue is replacing the players (that leave) with players of the same caliber. That is always the biggest concern and so far we’ve got it right. Hopefully, we’ve got it right again with BOROS. That’s the most difficult part for sure. There’s no certainty that every time we replace someone, whether it was Thomas or flameZ or mezii. Every time people are writing that it’s essentially a death sentence for Endpoint, but we seem to keep surviving. So that’s a testament to the guys and Max especially. We look at the numbers and we look at all the stats from the player and we figure out where they’re best suited. There are times where they come in and they might not even know that’s the case for them, that this is the best way to optimize for them. But so far you can see the statistics of all the players that have been here and left that they’ve probably had their best period with Endpoint.”
So how are Endpoint able to constantly find great young players?
“It’s probably a relatively unique way of how we acquire players or how we pick players to join the team or what decisions we make. It is purely just all numbers and data because my background is in finance. I could talk for about two weeks about data in Counter-Strike, essentially what the crux of it, is whenever we lose a player we look at how we can recreate the player that we lose in the aggregate of the team and if we can’t, then we look at where we can shift the dynamic of the team to include a new player that will benefit everyone. We decided on getting BOROS without ever watching a single demo from him. We did the eye test afterward, but the decision was already made…What the problem is, is that we are like the perfect stepping stone, or that’s how probably other orgs see us. We’re the proving ground for top players. As in they’ve come into a team with a somewhat Western culture, English speaking, and they’ve thrived. Well, they’re perfect for these organizations and then they come to us looking for them. So it’s less so to do with me, it’s probably more to do with just the culture within the team and the culture within the organization. The guys at Endpoint have been striving for success in the UK scene for what feels like forever. And now there’s an infrastructure behind the team in place and it’s improving all the time, which means we can retain players for longer and longer. We don’t always want to be the Southampton of Counter-Strike, we want to eventually be at the big boys’ table. And that takes time, you know, it could take a number of years, but that’s the goal at the end of the day.”
The biggest question on my mind was how Endpoint was consistently signing young players and making them into stars? I was curious to see whether it was the coaching team, the owners, or maybe a scouting team that Endpoint utilised. Instead, a much simpler and humble answer was given by RossR.
“I would say not much other than just embracing that they’re great players, we have a very accommodating group of legacy players at Endpoint where they have no egos. You know, whether it’s statistics or how they’re perceived publicly, with that they’ll happily forego roles for new young players. If they think that’s going to be the best route to success as a team. Therefore we put them in the best roles possible. I think a lot of the time when a young player joins a team of established players, what happens is that they get kind of pigeonholed into roles that they might not like, or they might not be accustomed to or that might not be best for showcasing them. Usually, you don’t get too many bites of the cherry when it comes to playing. So we try to make it as easy as possible to integrate new young players. I think if you ask any of the guys who have never left, or even probably Thomas as an example of a player who left and came back, it’s an extremely enjoyable atmosphere to work in and that’s great for young players. They call me in and they see that the guys are just really pleasant and lovely people to work with. So it is the perfect atmosphere, a breeding ground for young players.”
With the open space left by mezii, I was interested to know why RossR had chosen Mohammad “BOROS” Malhas and how long he had been on their shortlist. Was there something that he brought to the table over other guys?
“We’ve brought in BOROS who is an exceptionally different player in terms of his statistics. That’s essentially how we look at bringing in any new player, whether it’s flamez or mezii. It’s all we use. We use data and statistics to drive every decision. We had an option to potentially replace mezii with another player who had similar character traits to mezii but wouldn’t have replicated his ceiling. So we opted for a gear shift and went with someone who’s in the, I don’t know what he is probably, top 2 or 3% of players in terms of aggression. Which should, in theory, create more space for the other players. So BOROS was the most exciting prospect we could get, as in he’s an exciting player to play with. That’s a big part of it for the guys, not for myself, if we got an established player that their skill set is relatively well-known it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as the prospect of bringing in someone that has been trending like BOROS has over the last few months.”
Finally, I wanted to know how hard it is to replace these players? How long can Endpoint continue like this? And what is the end goal for Endpoint?
“I think this is probably what a lot of teams do, but I maintain a shortlist of players constantly and watch where they’re trending because you never know, this scenario is what has happened to us for the third time. I’m sure it won’t be the last time. You just have to always be looking at who the next player is. We’re in a position now where things are moving, as tier one organizations are trying to escape having to buy players by introducing this academy league. We’ll have to continue to work smarter than the other teams, in terms of finding these players before they do as BOROS has been on the top of our shortlist well and truly before he had been in FPL-C and qualified for FPL. So it’s just a case of maintaining this roster and hoping that we’ll be together (for a while). Hopefully, we can survive one player break.”
