ENCE have benched Joonas “doto” Forss, according to a statement released on their website. The Finnish organization decided the change was necessary to take the “next step.” Their replacement fifth player will be announced in the coming weeks.
“Benched,” doto wrote on Twitter. “Wish the boys nothing else than good luck for 2022. I am still super motivated to pursue my dreams somewhere else.”
“We had a good year together and whoever gets you are lucky,” Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer, the team’s in-game leader, said on Twitter. “Looking forward to a beer together after the next event we both attend!”
Benched. Wish the boys nothing else than good luck for 2022. I am still super motivated to pursue my dreams somewhere else. https://t.co/7Qpp3sgaHf
— Joonas Forss (@dotoCS2) January 7, 2022
The 25-year-old Finn joined ENCE in November of 2020, when the team still fielded an all Finnish roster. In 2021, the team opted to go international, bringing in new and old talents alike to round out the roster. Even still, ENCE struggled to find consistent results in Tier 1 Counter-Strike. Their most promising matches came in the lead-up and early stages of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021. The team managed to qualify for the Legends Stage of the competition before eventually getting knocked out.
Despite peaking at No. 7 in the world via HLTV’s team rankings, this iteration of ENCE has since dropped to No. 14. This was after a series of dismal results following the PGL Major. ENCE failed to have an impact at DreamHack Open November or Intel Extreme Masters Winter at the end of 2021.
With a new season of play quickly approaching, the team, alongside general manager Niklas “Willkey” Ojalainen, chose to bench doto.
“If something in esports is certain, it’s change,” Willkey said in the statement. “We felt we needed to make some changes to keep us in the fight against the best teams. After carefully assessing the market and what we had in our roster, we felt this change needed to be made.”
ENCE have shown willingness to pick up young international talent as well as more tested, older competitors like Snappi. It remains to be seen which direction they will go with their new fifth. As it stands, the ENCE roster is as follows:
- Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer
- Lotan “Spinx” Giladi
- Paweł “dycha” Dycha
- Aleksander “hades” Miskiewicz
- Eetu “sAw” Saha (coach)
