I sometimes feel like I end up living life just slightly off key from a lot of the rest of the world. I’m not complaining about that really, but it does sometimes make me question things I see other people engage in. I’ve never understood the concept of being a football fan as an example. I mean logically I know what fans are, but for me the connection between a team playing well and a fan’s happiness is something I can’t easily understand. Similarly in Counter-Strike, I usually don’t care much which team or other is winning, but I do care a lot about individuals. I find it much easier to be excited for the story of a single player and particularly ones that are looking to build a comeback. That I think is the position of Magisk, and I think people have lost faith in him way too soon.
One of the more interesting aspects of Counter-Strike is how many different types of players it truly has space for. For a second I considered making a comprehensive list of all the player types, but that might be a whole article on its own. Instead what I will say is that the kind of player I judge Magisk to be, is one that in my estimation is hard to come by.
When Magisk joined Astralis early on, as Magiskb0Y btw, replacing Kjaerby, it wasn’t an immediately obvious move for most people in the space. Astralis had just won the E-league Atlanta major in 2017, so the idea of the roster changing at all was upsetting to a fair few people. Magisk might have been one of the people the community would fast agree actually stood a chance at improving the team mechanically. The thing is, the team wasn’t really lacking in that department. The duoship of Dupreeh and Device was already so hard to bring down, but I suppose in this department more is better. I think the real thing the Astralis lineup gained was a flexible player with a very high stress tolerance.
If you think about what it meant to join the recent major champions replacing Kjaerby to begin with, imagine how much you yourself might be under some kind of pressure to not let the fans down and prove that you can improve the team even further. But he took on that role with almost no hesitation and would go on to win 3 majors with the team. The choice to then ultimately depart, along with Dupreeh and Zonic, to Vitality likewise is the type of event that would put a lot of pressure on even the best of players. You’re departing a legendary team to build a new international project with a new organization. If it fails you might be branded a sort of traitor who made a terrible choice. But instead Magisk went on to play perhaps some of the best CS he has ever played and continue to see incredible results, including winning the Paris Major in 2023. And then along came Falcons.
The Falcons project would be the first time since joining Astralis that Magisk really ended up in a team that didn’t hit the ground running. The Falcon’s project for the longest time really was an unmitigated disaster. The community hatred was out of control and the feeling was that if these players were going to be paid what everyone assumed was an enormous salary, they would have results to match. I don’t even think that is a crazy expectation, but it’s one that Falcon’s failed to deliver for years. In spite of this, Magisk continued to play at a very high level throughout each successive roster change. Right up until he didn’t. At some point toward the end before leaving, there clearly was a serious drop in Magisk’s output. In my estimation he suffered a true confidence collapse. I don’t know if he doubted himself or if the rest of the team doubted him, but one way or another, the player that could withstand almost any level of stress, finally broke. In my opinion it was impressive that it took as long as it did for the resilience to fail, but in a roundabout way, this is also why I think people have given up on Magisk way too early.
Rebuilding confidence after the Falcon’s fiasco probably won’t be easy, but there is another side to Magisk which is outside of the server, where I would say I can best describe him as a happy-go-lucky kind of person. Emil is just someone who brings the good vibes with him. This in itself I think is an under-rated quality in CS players and it’s another reason why I think he is such a rare player type. I never fully know how to describe this quality without making it sound like I am giving a player a sort of back-handed compliment. Like if you tell someone they’re a sporty person where what you might really mean is that they’re illiterate. Similarly, saying someone is a funny and positive guy, sounds like you’re secretly saying “he might not be good, but at least he’s nice”. A vibrant player isn’t nearly as needed when you’re already winning, but in CS you won’t always be winning. Sometimes you’ll have a bad tournament or a terrible map, and having someone like Magisk in your team will do a lot to lift people up move them forward.
The big “if” for me is whether or not the rest of BCgame are ready to throw their trust into Magisk and to help him rebuild the confidence. In my opinion this lineup has a lot of potential to do significantly better than any of the previous lineups for the organization. But if they can get Magisk back to his game and perhaps electronic too, then I think this lineup can shock most fans. Now obviously we don’t know the extent to which Magisk can work as an IGL, but he’s worked with both Gla1ve, Apex, Snappi and MSL. He’s won 4 Majors. I can’t imagine a world in which he hasn’t learned enough to at least put the team into top 10 contention. Will this new role impact his individual performance? Maybe. But as long as he can regain his confidence, I reckon he’ll have enough firepower in the team to keep the pressure off him long enough.
Ultimately the Falcon’s project I think carried over some of the bitterness that the community had for the team, onto several of the individual players including Magisk. On top of that a lot of people end up with very short memories, meaning people tend to remember only the latest results or performances. There is a popular sports saying that seems apt in this context, ‘form is temporary but class is permanent’. And I guess if I had to sum up my opinion of Magisk, if I take everything into account, is that he is a high class player who is about to remind people of what he is all about.