Team Envy captain Patrick ‘ACHES‘ Price has discussed the team’s latest roster moves ahead of the final events of the Black Ops 4 season, which saw Luminosity star Peirce ‘Gunless‘ Hillman join on a loan deal, and Cuyler ‘Huke‘ Garland loaned out to Splyce.
The moves came as a surprise to fans, particularly Huke moving to Splyce, as he was generally considered a franchise player for Envy, although the loan deal presumably means he will return to the organization in the future.
Gunless comes in to take up a third Maddox role alongside ACHES and Justin ‘SiLLY‘ Fargo, after sitting out CWL Anaheim on LG’s bench, following a turbulent period with his now-former team.
In the June 24 episode of the Queue Up podcast from Envy, ACHES and Gunless revealed some of the behind the scenes decision making which led to such a drastic roster shake-up, which also saw the return of main AR player Adam ‘Assault’ Garcia.
Discussing the previous roster, ACHES explains “the vibe was completely off”, as their confidence was knocked with a 1-6 record together in the league, leading to their disastrous Anaheim showing, where they failed to win a single map.
The two-time World Champion later explains that the previous lineup had a lot of “role issues”, and that there was ‘commotion’ within the team following a “honeymoon period.”
Roster discussion at 22:30 minute mark.
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New roster and Huke leaving
The new team will need a ‘transition’ period, ACHES explains, to become comfortable with their roles. “Peirce is an absolute beast, and I think we have a team now where we’re thinking more complex on what our actions mean.”
As for Huke’s surprise move to Splyce, ACHES explains that fans often believe that players have more power in the decisions than they do in reality: “I think a lot of fans also don’t realize how much power player’s don’t have, that they used to.”
ACHES makes clear that it wasn’t necessarily his own, or any other individual players’ decision to loan out Huke, but rather just the way the deals broke down in the end.
Next up for Envy is cross-division play at the CWL Pro League, where they will aim to secure a top four spot to make the finals – but currently in 6th, two wins behind fourth placed Splyce, it will be no easy task.
