One of the biggest teams in Counter-Strike has been in flux ever since the game’s recent cheating scandal. Now, they hope to have righted the ship.
French esports organization Titan announced today the long-awaited addition to their Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team, and it was nothing short of a surprise.
Cedric “RpK” Guipouy will be returning to competitive Counter-Strike.
Guipouy has a long history in the French Counter-Strike scene, but not with Global Offensive. His background is solely in Counter-Strike: Source.
His peak in Source came while playing as a member of Very Games. Guipouy was considered one of the world’s best players in the game as recently as two years ago. But Source and Global Offensive are two very different games.
Other players have transitioned successfully from one game to the other, including some of Guipouy’s former teammates. But for Titan—a team that aims for nothing short of championship trophies at every event it attends—to bring Guipoy without any prior competitive experience in Global Offensive is certainly a risk.
Titan manager Jerome “Niak” Sudries admitted to feeling apprehensive about the arrangement before Guipouy was able to convince him that it could work.
“Cedric managed to convince us that he could bring what we are looking for, with the added bonus of him having a fresh take on the game as well as the advantage of past experiences with everyone in the team,” Sudries said.
In his own statement, Guipouy admitted to only following Global Offensive from afar. He even spoke of needing to play a round of the game to familiarize himself with it, and commented on the newness of established interface features and weapon skins.
Clearly, Guipouy has a long way to go. And as one of Counter-Strike’s premier names, Titan will be expected to produce results quickly.
“I’m sure that my comeback may surprise some, but after two years away from the game I return fully determined to pick up where I left off,” Guipouy said.
Guipouy will replace Jeremy “Iorek” Vuillermet, Titan’s coach and a former player himself who had stood in for the team at the ESEA global final following the banning of Hovik “Kqly” Tovmassian.
Titan finished a respectable fourth-place at the event after losing to iBUYPOWER, but clearly have greater aspirations.
Given that results such as the fourth-place finish at the ESEA final don’t satisfy the team, it may be difficult for it to exercise appropriate patience should Guipouy require more time than expected to adjust to Global Offensive.
Should the former Source player fail to carry over his past successes to this new venture, some fans may wonder why Titan overlooked Adil “Scream” Benrlitom. The French star and former Titan player had publicly admitted his willingness to discuss a return to Titan, but nothing ever came of it.
Rather than bringing in an established professional, Titan have chosen to take a chance on a former star. Guipouy will feel no shortage of pressure to make their choice seem a wise one.
Image via Titan/Facebook
