What started as a joke or a meme has now happened for real, and once again it’s daps out of a job. Yes, NRG have replaced their long-term in-game leader Damian "daps" Steele with Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz, echoing the move made years ago by OpTic Gaming that saw the same leader dropped in favour of stan, once again while tarik watched on from the shadows.
As the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me", and it was Thorin on Reddit who pointed out that daps must have known he was taking a risk when he agreed to work with tarik. Indeed, in the twitlonger the former IGL posted before he left the team he even intimated that his role depended on Tarik activating as a star under his leadership, something that we know did not happen.
Whether tarik put his all into becoming that star is impossible to say, but at this point it seems he's a player with a considerable ego that has a history of preferring stan to daps, and the move doesn’t reflect well on the former Major MVP and Cloud9 player. The most important response he and stan can provide is an uptick in performance, but the move doesn't look good from the outside.
NRG CSGO roster
- Brehze (Vincent Cayonte)
- CeRq (Cvetelin Dimitrov)
- Ethan (Ethan Arnold)
- tarik (Tarik Celik)
- stanislaw (Peter Jarguz)
History repeats
All happened back in late summer of 2016, when the OpTic Gaming CSGO roster decided to drop stanislaw to bring in tarik. Just over a month later, stan was back and daps was gone as the power balance in the team had shifted, and the one main difference in that line-up was the new man tarik. The same thing allegedly happened towards the end of his time with Cloud9, as FNS joined and then swiftly left the squad.
How NRG fare with their new leader only time will tell but recent history suggests this is a downgrade on paper. Daps has overseen the rise of his team, and the development of stars such as Ethan, Brehze and Cerq to the top of the NA scene, and some decent international results over the last year or so, playing an instrumental part along the way in his team’s public relations too.
In that same time period, stan has achieved far less, although his individual rating as a player is higher than daps over the last six months. That may be down to them taking differing roles in the team but, equally, it could be that NRG no longer need the level of leading daps was bringing now he’s drilled them so well, and stan can enjoy a short-term boost from the extra kill power the team will enjoy.
Image: Helena Kristiansson / ESL
