ENCE ESports – A Very Successful Finnish CSGO Lineup

Bio

ENCE is the biggest surprise out of the top 10 so far this year, coming out of nowhere and taking best of threes over Liquid and Na’Vi at IEM Katowice before falling to Astralis 0-2. This is the most successful Finnish lineup in the history of CS:GO, heralded by veteran all star Allu and rising star sergej. ENCE has continued on a hot streak, pushing top 5 teams in best of ones and best of threes regularly. Let’s take a look at some csgo betting factors below.

Map Pool

ENCE have a reasonably well distributed map pool, with three maps over 70% win rate. Their permaban is Cache, and their best map either Train or Mirage.

Interestingly, ENCE’s most played map, Dust 2, has just a 47.6% win rate over 21 plays, which is not a great statistic. Numbers two and three are Train and Mirage, with a 85% win rate over 20 plays for the former, and 88.9% win rate over 18 plays for the latter. Their next most played is Inferno, at a paltry 40% win rate, then Nuke at 71.4%, with Overpass at 58.3% bringing up the rear.

This is a pretty confusing map pool, all things considered. They don’t play much Overpass, which seems silly as it has one of their best win rates in the pool, and seems to play to their strengths as a team, e.g. Allu AWPing in bathrooms.

With the removal of Cache and the addition of Vertigo, ENCE has a chance to reengineer their map pool in such a way that they’ll have pretty major advantages over most other teams in the scene. Reducing their play time on Dust 2 and Inferno while adding Vertigo to their map pool would give them an edge over pretty much every other team in the top 10, while also making it even harder for them to get upset on “pug” maps.

Team Leaders

K/D: Allu 1.24

Over the last six months Allu has the same deaths per round and kills per round as device. Allu tends to get underrated when evaluating ENCE, likely because he was “washed” since leaving FaZe. In the last six months Allu has been clawing his way back to his performance as “prime” Allu, and it’s made a huge difference for this team.

The second best performer is, believe it or not, sergej. Putting a 1.20 K/D is not an easy task, especially with sergej’s usage rate. He bears one of the biggest burdens in CS:GO right now, as he’s far and away the best rifler on this team. Having your second best player be your AWPer is not always a recipe for success, but ENCE manages to make it work. Their success is largely predicated on sergej performing like an all-star, which is something he manages to do on a steady basis.

Aerial sits at a respectable enough 1.08, which makes me nervous about his place on the team. He is supposed to alleviate the burden that sergej has to deal with, and be the team’s second/third option. Instead, he tends to disappear in big series and put the team’s fate squarely on the shoulders of the talented but still inexperienced sergej.

Aerial is the piece of this machine that is most likely to get replaced in the next couple months. Sunny has been sitting on Mousesports’ bench since Mousesports completed their roster shuffle, which is a shame in and of itself. Sunny has had a solid argument for best Finnish player in the world, and it would make sense for him to join up with the best Finnish team of all time in the coming months. Adding his considerable firepower to the team would be a huge upgrade for ENCE, and could push them even further into the CS:GO elite.

Flashes: Aleksib

This leaderboard looks pretty standard. Alekisb throws the second most flashes on the team, throwing about .8 per round with an average enemy flashed time of 2.25 seconds. Xseven throws the most flashes per round at .83, flashing opponents for an average 1.79 seconds.

The biggest surprise here is how low everyone’s flash assist numbers are. No one on the team averages over .05 except for Aleksib, who clocks in at .08. Allu actually has the second highest, at .05. This matches up with the slower tempo that ENCE likes to play at. While they use an average amount of utility in the early rounds, they play a pretty slow and methodical game that relies on Allu and sergej getting picks and utilizing their games to the fullest to win ENCE rounds.

Clutches: Allu

Allu is pretty clearly the clutch king of ENCE, having gone 31 of 47 in the last six months, putting him at a 66% win rate. This lines up well with the conventional wisdom about clutches, and how they generally benefit veteran players. Allu is the only player on this team who has top tier experience beyond the last six months, having played on NiP and FaZe. His veterancy has been an integral asset in ENCE developing the way they have since forming the roster.

Allu also has 14 1v2s under his belt since November of last year, which is an impressive number. He sits comfortably above average in most clutch related statistics, which is made even more impressive considering he’s an AWPer. That means he’s either switching out weapons before these clutches, or he’s regularly winning these situations with a gun that is generally pretty awful in the clutch.

Next runner up is Aleksib, which also shouldn’t come as a shock. IGLs tend to be deceptively good clutch players, as clutch plays pretty consistently necessitate an out think or an out play of the opponent. Aleksib is 15 of 22, putting him at a .68 win percentage, which is higher than Allu, with less attempts. That’s likely due to his early round aggression, which is something else common to see from IGLs.

Opening duels: Allu/Aerial

This one is a split decision. I wanted to give it to Allu, whos success rate and DPR are absurdly low, which is matched only by his usage rate. On the other hand, Aerial manages to keep pace with Allu’s KPR, on a much higher usage rate, albeit with more deaths.

Allu is taking about 18.7% of ENCE’s opening duels, which is a low number. On those attempts he’s netting .12 KPR with just .07 DPR, one of the best figures I’ve seen while doing this. That all puts him at a 62.7% success rate, which is almost unheard of on any of the top tier teams.

Aerial takes 23.1% of their opening duels, which is a lot. Again, one of the highest numbers I’ve seen on any team in the top 10. He matches Allu with a .12 KPR, although he matches that number with a .11 DPR. So, still positive, but nowhere near as lights out as Allu. Aerial has a 50.5% success rate, which isn’t bad for someone taking as many duels as he does. Allu’s numbers would likely come down a fair bit if he was entering more regularly, which means I couldn’t dock Aerial too much for a higher DPR. Therefore, split decision.

The fact that this leaderboard is so stratified is interesting. Aerials opening duels rate goes a long way in explaining his statline, and makes him look a lot better than he would otherwise. Taking 23.1% of your team’s opening duels is pretty crazy, that’s almost ¼ of their total duels, which is supposed to be spread amongst all five of their players. It’s unclear if this is the case because this is where Aerial is most effective, or because they want to make sure they save sergej and allu for the late round, or because no one else on the team is comfortable taking opening duels. Either way, it seems to be working well enough. This is a stat to keep your eye on however, as changes to this stat would indicate a major change in ENCE’s playstyle.