GotFrag eSports

United 5 and TSG put to rest the rumors floating around the Counter-Strike community today after officially announcing a merger of the teams.

Earlier this summer, Hare moved to Chicago after finishing his freshman year at Purdue University to move into an apartment with TSG's cbz, sunman, and Josh. Not too long afterwards, United 5's tr1p moved into this apartment as well, and the ideas of a possible merger came into play.

After the ESWC USA Finals, Moses made the announcement that he was going to be inactive in the near future. When the ideas of who to pick up as a new fifth arose, it was time for both teams to be informed about what had been planned for post-CPL.

Imagine going into upcoming events such as ESWC, EverLAN, and the CPL as a play for either of these teams, knowing that this would be one of your last tournaments with your team, no matter the outcome. This is the reason for the sudden departure of fRoD just weeks before EverLAN and CPL. Because bad blood floated between Hare and fRoD, it was in both fRoD's and the team's best interest for him to leave and to pick up a replacement for the upcoming summer events.

While United 5 was hard at practice with new players t0ol and da_bears, TSG was in France at the ESWC World Finals astonishing the world. After a surprising 4th place finish at the finals, many people started to wonder whether or not the rumored merger would still take place, especially after United 5's 3rd place finish at EverLAN (defeating 3D and taking a map against NoA).

Although both of these teams made great showings at the two events leading up to CPL, neither team did nearly as well as they had expected at CPL as it must have been incredibly difficult to give it 100% effort. Now that the smoke from CPL has settled, the final lineup has finally been announced. The members of the final roster live either in the same apartment or within driving distance, allowing for regular LAN practice. The lineup is as follows:

Michael "Hare" O'Toole
Eric "da_bears" Stromberg
Charlie "cbz" Pyo
Justin "sunman" Summy
Josh "dominator" Sievers

I had the chance to sit down with Charlie Pyo to ask a few questions in order to further clarify the situation, hopefully giving the community a better understanding of the merger.

As most of the public knows, you give have been living together or near each other prior to the ESWC USA Finals. How long has this plan been in effect?

United [5] * cbz: Well, this was not the original plan, nor was it the reason for hare and tr1p both moving into the apartment. The reason was for them to come work for me and my father. Then as time went by, it was sort of first brought up as a joke. Then the more we thought about it, it became a pretty good idea. We've been playing with the idea since about two weeks before the USA ESWC qualifiers.

What are your team goals, seeing as how the roster consists of players from two top North American teams?

United [5] * cbz: The goal of this is to hopefully become a stronger as a team, considering we'd all be pretty local as opposed to spread across the country. For TSG at least, we didn't really have one in-game leader, which sometimes seemed to hurt us on the Terrorist side. Yet as a team that was very good at improvising, it really showed on our CT sides on virtually every map. We hope that with this merge we will become a more solid and consistent team.

Josh was originally part of this merger, then he supposedly backed out due to school; Now, he is back again. What swayed Josh's final decision?

United [5] * cbz: Josh was originally part of the plan and then was pulled out when he said he wouldn't be able to live with us and would return to Iowa. We weighed our other options on who we could recruit to move and be local, but after weeks of thinking we decided to just stick with josh considering he is about 4 hours away and makes that drive semi-frequently already.

I know you can't answer for Hare about the rest of United 5, but what will happen to the remaining TSG players, such as storm and dizza. Especially because dizza was thinking about moving to Chicago for this team? What happened with that?

United [5] * cbz: Well with storm, he wasn't able to move, so we basically ruled him out as a possibility. He is quite far from us, although he is a great player. With dizza, once Josh said he couldn't move in, we looked at dizza and it seemed like he was the answer. But, we later found out he wouldn't be able to do it either, so we decided at that point to stick with Josh. It was a pleasure playing with both dizza and storm. The split with storm went pretty sour, but dizza and myself are still best buds so that's good.

Volcano has now joined 3D. Were there ever any plans of keeping Volcano in the new United 5 team?

United [5] * cbz: Yes. We had 4 members that were in it for sure: cbz, sunman, hare, josh. We did a bit of thinking. Everyone loves Sal, and it seemed like if we were gonna have a non-local player, we'd make the exception for Grofty. With his experience and considering how long we've known each other, it seemed like a good decision. We then realized he would be needing money as he is going into his first year of college, and we wouldn't be able to provide for him as much as 3D could. We wish him the best of luck with 3D and he'll always be our tsg`volcano!

Are you guys planning on sending this new team to WCG? If so, when does the practice begin, and how will it be orchestrated?

United [5] * cbz: WCG will be our first event together as a team. We will be attending the Dayton, Ohio qualifier in late August to qualify for the USA finals event in Los Angeles. Some of the members have had their hands full with some tragedies that have occurred, so when we'll begin to practice is still to be determined.

After such great finishes from TSG at ESWC US and the ESWC World Finals, as well as a great finish from United 5 at EverLAN, were there ever any second thoughts about the merger?

United [5] * cbz: Well, when I had talked to hare about it, we said before any of the events that we'd do this merger regardless if we had won both ESWC or CPL. So the answer to that question would be no.

I would like to thank Charlie for taking the time to talk to me, as well as the rest of the community, and wish the new United 5 squad the best of luck with this new lineup.

Counter-Strike: TSG and United 5 Merge

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