The fallen body of the C9 Colossus lies stagnant on the ground of the North American CS landscape. Already, the crows representing other organizations and even other games circle its remains, looking to pick apart the carcass for their own means. All the while, the inspiration for the Colossus’ namesake, the Complexity Juggernaut, finally begins moving at its envisioned pace.
Is this the dominance that was promised during the Juggernaut's construction? Image via Complexity.
Complexity’s triumphs are few since the current roster’s inception and rarely fall outside of a specific range of tournaments. But the team looks extra confident as of late, and building momentum now ahead of a summer crammed with big events can be pivotal. What’s changed?
Complexity spring into top form
Since the beginning of February, Complexity has been putting together an excellent catalog of success. The team has won 11 out of their last 14 series and 24 of their last 34 maps. They’re 5-0 on Inferno, 4-2 on Dust 2, and 9-4 on Mirage. Missing from their map catalog has been Vertigo, but more on that later.
The biggest upside for Complexity is that its wins and achievements are coming outside of a single series of events. In 2020, the team’s biggest triumphs came almost exclusively at BLAST events. At the Spring Groups for that year, they defeated Astralis and Vitality to finish second in their group. The Spring EU Finals was their crowning achievement for the year: an undefeated run with wins over OG, Na’Vi, FaZe, and Vitality again to raise the trophy.
Complexity crushed the competition at BLAST 2020 but found minimal success outside the tournament. Image via BLAST Premier.
Complexity also made the semi-finals of some big events like DreamHack Open Summer and IEM Beijing EU. But outside of those events and the success at BLAST, it didn’t have much else to be tremendously proud of. Since the beginning of February this year, it earned these wins at numerous events. The team finished top of their group at BLAST Spring 2021 (of course). They also qualified for DreamHack Masters and are in the midst of an impressive playoff run in ESL Pro League. While they fell short at IEM Katowice, it’s worth pointing out that they started their run there in a best-of-one against Ninjas in Pyjamas on their worst map, Nuke.
Their most recent wins against both Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro in the ESL Pro League playoffs really show off how good this team has been recently.
The Juggernaut consumes pro teams for protein at Pro League
Against both opponents, Complexity showcased two valuable things to any CS: GO team’s success. Those are being able to maintain momentum and being able to reverse your opponent’s. In its first series against Na’Vi, it showed a little both, but it was primarily a demonstration of keeping your foot down on the gas pedal. Complexity won all four pistol rounds and only surrendered two rounds in each of its second halves of Dust 2 and Mirage.
On Dust 2, the team thrived off RUSH’s playmaking on both halves and were especially dangerous on their T-side, taking any site they wanted. Complexity then capitalized on a poor T-side for Na’Vi on Mirage, locking down sites and not biting on any fakes. Na’Vi looked shaky coming into the series and during it, but good teams must capitalize on situations like that.
Virtus.pro was a much tougher task, as they were a red hot team not lacking in confidence. VP was much more crisp and confident than Na’Vi on Mirage and took a 1-0 series lead via stealing Complexity’s pick. But on Inferno, blameF led by example with an impressive 23 kill performance from the IGL to even the series. Then Complexity pulled out its trap card, Vertigo. This is a map Complexity rarely played this year and was considered a favorite for VP. But k0nfig turned Vertigo into his own AWP playground, and he revealed post-game that the team has been practicing the map a lot. They suckered VP into thinking they had the decider map in their pocket, and VP took the bait.
How high is the Complexity ceiling?
Coming out of its Pro League playoff victories and its wins over the past couple of months, Complexity is showing a lot of positive signs. The team has shown they can maintain and regain momentum during a singular map and over a series. Complexity strengthened a previous weak point in its map pool. It showed that anyone can lead the team in frags on any day (in all four of their map wins versus Na’Vi and VP, a different player topped the scoreboard).
The confidence has spread amongst the entire team. BlameF is putting up numbers you’d expect from a star rifler, not the in-game leader. Both k0nfig and poizon are happy to share the AWP duties depending on the map. RUSH is as reliable as he’s always been. So far, the only hiccup is jks, still a step behind his former self since joining Complexity, but his impressive performance against Na’Vi on Mirage is ideally a confidence booster.
The addition of Vertigo to their go-to rotation will have its strongest effect in the short term and could help propel the team deeper into Pro League playoffs. Teams now know that Complexity is good on the map but don’t have a ton of film to review to prepare for it. Either they bite the bullet and play them on Vertigo, or they will be forced to ban it in the pick process.
Complexity will either face Heroic or NiP in the next round, and there’s a chance for revenge no matter who it is. NiP’s best-of-one victory derailed Complexity’s hopes at IEM Katowice, and Heroic beat them earlier in Pro League. The more momentum it generates now, the more unstoppable the Juggernaut will become at Stockholm.
