NiP paying $1m for device seems even more stupid now

If paying $1m for a player six months before he became a free agent wasn’t insane enough in the first place, NiP only went and dropped out in the quarter-finals of the one event they needed to win to make it a success.

Your home country, the first LAN with a crowd in ages, the first Major in years, and you bow out in the quarters while NiKo’s cousin takes the p*ss out of you on stage.

When my friend is talking quietly and I am trying to hear what they are saying pic.twitter.com/MnTUfPqhDw

— Adam (@piethrouer) November 4, 2021

An expensive failure

That is already quite a lot of money, even for a successful move. $1m is serious cash in CS, and device was the most expensive player of all time at the time of his signing (and still is, for now) – so for that to be even remotely successful, NiP had to win their home Major.

No ifs, no buts, no quarter-final exits. Win or bust.

It was a huge risk, and one that made little to no sense at the time. device is an excellent player, but he’s a player that relies on set-up and precise play from his teammates. He’s not a playmaker, he’s a constrictor. He wins by making the other team useless, rather than dominating them.

A valid playstyle – but not one that transforms NiP into a great team all of a sudden.

Paying $1m for a better AWPer when your best player was already your AWPer is an interesting decision, and it has backfired pretty spectacularly.

Poor guy has gone completely off the radar now.

NiP could have just sacked this Major off and come back next year, having signed device for free and maybe picked up another Astralis player – but by buying device now you put pressure on yourselves to perform in front of your home crowd; and they did not.

It looked a silly move at the time; now it looks completely idiotic. You’ve wasted a chunk of money to finish 5-8th at the one event you had to win, and now are looking into making more changes after it to try and get to the place you think you should be.

Which begs the question as to why you made that move so quickly, and didn’t consider the fact that you were massively overpaying, if more changes were obviously going to be needed. You could have just… waited.

But no. You had to chase the glory, and look where that got you. It’s all a bit Barcelona.