About three or four years ago, when the first «junior teams» began appearing under the patronage of well-known esports clubs, it seemed to many a fun attempt to mow down a traditional sport. Indeed, in the years of the existence of electronic sports, everyone has become accustomed to the fact that the path to a professional team does not pass through the system of youth schools familiar to football or hockey but through hard play in matchmaking or in semiprofessional leagues.
Few could therefore seriously believe that among tens of thousands of unknown young players, it is possible to select some of the most talented and bring them to the level of a professional scene. And while most of these projects cannot boast any tangible success in this field, several clubs have still grown stars in a brief period both for their major teams and for sale.
Below, the history of such academies, as well as their successful graduates will be presented to your attention.
Virtus.pro Prodigy
Notable expats: Nightfall, Save-, DM, Larl и Noticed
Although the Russian club was not among the first to open their academies it was he who first extended the practice to Dota 2, in which other organizations traditionally are in no rush to invest extra money because of the specific attitude of Valve to the esports component of their game.
However, in early 2020, when the main squad was failing with the young epileptick1d (Nightfall) and Save-, they were asked to remain in the club’s ranks and muster a second, nominally youth squad. «Nominally», because, besides the young epileptick1d, Save- and eine, it also included Dota veteran Rostislav ‘fn’ Lozovoy and Dmitry ‘DM’ Dorokhin, who played in a couple of serious teams.
Saying that the idea turned out to be a winner is useless: just a couple of months after the announcement of the VP.Prodigy roster, they were already fighting in the finals of major tournaments against the strongest teams in Europe. In just six months, the team, which originally came together with an eye to the future, earned $195,000, becoming the second-largest team in terms of prize pool in six months after Team Secret. Therefore, it did not surprise anyone when epileptick1d, Save- and DM entered the main roster in November of the same year, along with gpK ~ and Illias joining them.
However, the history of the VP academy in Dota 2 did not end there. In early 2021, the club’s management signed a young roster of Team Generation, which was originally intended for the Virtus.pro youth team. He did not reach the same heights as the previous team but he opened two talented players to the world: Denis ‘Larl’ Sigitov and Evgeny ‘Noticed’ Ignatenko. The latter, after six months of playing for the Prodigy, was taken over by the Winstrike organization and Larl also followed him a couple of months later. Now both players are part of Team BetBoom and have already taken 7-8th place at ESL One Stockholm 2022 major.
NAVI Junior
Notable expats: b1t, m0NESY
However, the Ukrainian club in 2019 has just become one of the pioneers of the “academic” business in esports. In addition, he presented his “junior team” in CS: GO on a large scale together with the NAVI Esports Camp project, a sort of turn in a summer camp, during which the most promising of all participants were selected.
These guys became the first NAVI Junior roster, and among them was the then unknown Valery ‘b1t’ Vakhovsky. Six months later, Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov joined the team and at the end of 2020 the project paid off: b1t was promoted to the main roster and, together with him, NAVI immediately became the BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020 champions. Subsequently, Vakhovsky established himself firmly at the base and in 2021 alone he won five major tournaments with the team, including a major one.
m0NESY’s path was more thorny because he was only 15 when he was brought into the youth academy. However, if b1t only became famous after moving to the NAVI base, they started talking actively about Osipov during his tenure at NAVI Junior. The young player actively streamed and very often his broadcasts were cut into compilations for YouTube, which, of course, worked for the media image of an unusually gifted novice esportsman.
When NAVI Junior played a noteworthy tournament, everyone discussed not so much the success of the team itself but Osipov’s game, whose highlight was the second season of the WePlay Academy League. After this championship, the big clubs took a serious interest in young talent and soon NAVI received $600,000 for transferring their talent to G2 Esports.
Team Spirit Academy
Notable expats: Patsi, s1ren, hally.
Not so much is known about the Spirit Academy as the previous two, however, everyone could see the results of his work at PGL Major Antwerp 2022. Even during the existence of a club like ESPADA, there were many rumors that this, if not the «junior team» of Team Spirit, so at least something like a farm club. This was suggested not only by the regular transfers of players from there to the main Spirit roster but also because when the organization effectively closed, most of the members of the CS roster moved to the fledgling Team Spirit Academy in the 2021. Yes, this was the club’s management’s second entry into this avenue after the unsuccessful first attempt in 2017, which few have even heard of.
In just a year, many players have passed through Team Spirit’s «youth squad» and these lists could not boast of high-profile results. Only BLAST Rising 2021 stands out, where the team took second place with Patsi and s1ren and under the guidance of coach Hally. Six months later, it was this trinity that was transferred to the reorganized main roster, which surprised everyone at the Antwerp majors by reaching the semifinals.
BIG Academy
Notable expats: Krimbo, k1to
Berlin International Gaming has been almost the only representative of German CS: GO in the international arena for many years. Yes, there is still MOUZ but this club has never relied on people from their native Germany, preferring to bring together international teams. However BIG has always been seriously focused on the development of local actors and over the years of activity it has developed a good infrastructure within the country.
Since the end of 2018, when the youth management was formed, a huge number of young German players have passed through the millstones of the academy, which has not prevented the youth team from showing the same stability as the major team. Over the past five seasons of the WePlay Academy League, rosters in various iterations have never dropped below fourth place.
Immediately after the third season of the League of Academies, the management decided to give the talented Karim ‘Krimbo’ Musa a chance to prove himself in the main squad, and the unsuccessful Niels ‘k1to’ Grune was sent to freshen up in the youth squad in his place. Musa did not harness for a long time and already at the first tournament for himself, which was the major in Antwerp, he became one of the most important players on the roster. Many particularly remember his clutches, which more experienced players are usually famous for. Permanent BIG captain Johannes ‘tabseN’ Wodarz noted Krimbo’s early playing intelligence and his ability to offer the right solution for the round in the right situation in an interview.
Speaking of the club’s infrastructure, it is worth noting that the aforementioned k1to did not disappear into oblivion after being transferred to the youth academies and after some time started playing in the first team again. Initially, replacing the ailing Krimbo at the Pinnacle Cup Championship, and then for faveN at the Roobet Cup, where the team finished first. Apparently, looking at the results of Grune after the relegation, the management decided to give the diligent player another chance. As a result, k1to replaced Tiziano ‘tiziaN’ Feldbash, who, like his partner previously, has become noticeably weaker lately.
MOUZ NXT
Notable expats: torzsi, JDC
The MOUZ youth team is one of those CS: GO formations that were hastily formed on the eve of the first season of the WePlay Academy League, when many famous clubs urgently wanted to show off their young talents, even a month before the start of the tournament on such intentions have not declared. Therefore, it is quite interesting that of all the teams that took part in the aforementioned tournament series; it was the youth team of the MOUZ that became one of the most successful: the club won the first four seasons of the league. However already on the fifth lap something went wrong, and the team took only 9-10th place.
The explanation for this decline is quite simple: during the first three seasons of the youth league, all the experts identified first of all two players of the team: John ‘JDC’ de Castro and Adam ‘torzsi’ Torzhash. The latter was promoted to the base in early January 2022 to replace Robin ‘ropz’ Kohl who left FaZe Clan, and JDC joined him in late March when management realized that the experiment NBK had failed. Without the two major stars, MOUZ NXT still claimed a fourth championship, perhaps aided because many competitors in the same period also lost their most talented members. However the fifth season showed that the new MOUZ NXT can no longer cope with the fully equipped academies of other clubs.
Not to mention that with the advent of young blood, the MOUZ game immediately shone with new colors. The results for 2022 turned out to be rather mediocre but that is certainly not the fault of the young people: they are performing at the right level, especially torzsi – his performance is absolutely impressive. After the duet from the academy, the team became, perhaps, too young. Even captain Dexter performed at the highest level quite recently. Obviously you have to give the team an advantage or look for a more experienced captain, with whom everything is now very difficult.
Judging by the fact that in the last transfer window there were no changes in MOUZ, the club management chose the first option and the team gave him a reason for positive predictions. At the end of the season, the team showed an excellent result in one of the biggest tournaments of the year, the IEM Cologne, reaching the playoffs and stopping a couple of steps away from the quarter-finals. This has been the club’s best result in the past year and a half since karrigan left for the FaZe Clan, so maybe next season the young team will finally open up in earnest.
Young Ninjas
Notable expats: phzy, ztr, LNZ
The academy of one of the oldest esports clubs in the world may not yet boast a history of growing young stars for sale or for the main CS: GO roster, but is known to be very passionate about «plugging holes» in the core with its students. The first of those given the opportunity to feel «grown-up» was Erik ‘ztr’ Gustafsson, who took over from Simon ‘twist’ Eliasson in early 2021.
Until that point, NIP had been mixing the same players with Fnatic and GODSENT for several years, and apparently, by then they were tired of this endless vicious circle, and therefore gave someone new a chance. And not to say that ztr has failed completely: of course, he did not become the protagonist of the composition, but he was not even a real anchor.
For this reason, it seemed strange to many when, six months later, ztr was returned to the youth academy and another promising boy, Linus LNZ Holteng, was withdrawn from there. Holteng’s performance was not much different from the successes of his predecessor, in some places it was even a little worse. That’s why six months later he was also returned to the youth academies.
The last and perhaps the most successful of the trio was Love ‘phzy’ Smidbrant. He blocked the passage of a sinking ship when the latter shot down a cannon shot in the face of the unknown disturbance of Nikolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz, due to whom he has not played anywhere for almost a year. And it should be noted that he coped quite well with the role of replacing the legendary esportsman for an 18-year-old player with no experience of performing on the level 1 stage. The roster took third place at IEM Winter 2021 and 3rd–4th place in ESL Pro League season 15: the results are no worse than those with dev1ce.
However, when the opportunity to buy star Ludwig ‘Brollan’ Brolin from Fnatic loomed in March 2022, management couldn’t resist and phzy went in the same direction as his predecessors. The management of the NIP was not even embarrassed that phzy was a replacement for dev1ce in the sniper position, and Brollan always played with automatic weapons, due to which the roster had to resort to a «crutch» solution as Patrick’s transplant ‘es3tag’ Hansen at the AWP. However, Smidebrant’s efforts were not in vain and, after several months of youth squad meetings with LNZ and ztr, the player was hired by Turkish club Sangal Esports. So, perhaps, the young sniper will still declare himself.
But what about the academy itself? When one or another talented player is constantly withdrawn from your squad, it is difficult to count on outstanding results, even at the youth level. However, the performances of the «young ninjas» cannot be called completely failed: in the infamous Academy League itself, the team never dropped below 5-6 places, and in the first season even reached the final.
The past few years have clearly clarified that the future lies not in scouting ready-made players in matchmaking but in nurturing our staff. And if in CS: GO this trend has already established itself, in Dota 2 everything comes a little slower. However, not long ago, NAVI decided to follow in Virtus.pro’s footsteps and announced its youth roster in Valve’s MOBA. It is entirely possible that other prominent clubs will follow suit in the near future.
