Tarik, like chaos, is infuriating. He is a master of chaos, and for this reason, he vexes players and fans alike. It’s as if Tarik only decides to play well when it is Opposite Day. Previously, it appeared as though there was no rhyme or reason to why he played well, but with a large enough sample size, it has become clear to this lover of logic what makes Tarik tick.

At the most basic level, Tarik is a player that defies logic. All the time are Tarik highlight clips getting posted to Reddit. Due to the lack of repeatability in such highlight clips when it comes to official matches, like shroud, we tend to disregard Tarik as being one of the greats in Counter-Strike. When given the support of a team structure, you would expect a player like Tarik to provide more highlights than he would in Rank S. However, what must also be considered is that the opposing star is likely to receive the same treatment. Additionally, the players grouped around the star in his support will be playing more cohesively and in-tune. Tarik’s team and the teams he is competing against typically have structure. When looking at Tarik’s performances, it is important to consider that his game impact does not come from him being a star, but an authority in anarchy.

In the early days of CLG, Tarik was very successful. JDM was on the team for some of the time, yet Tarik was definitely the “star.” This disparity in performance between JDM and Tarik shows the difference in how these two stars find their success. For JDM, he requires a strong system. He needs the AWP in order to have impact and is lost without one or two people supporting him. When Tarik was successful on CLG, it was when there were no strong leaders on the team. FNS’ success as an in-game leader is only a recent phenomenon, Cutler has been a supportive player at best, and ptr is in the same boat as Cutler. CLG was pretty much a PUG team that managed to be the second best NA team in the absence of iBuyPower, but that is as a team. As an individual, Tarik was capturing the attention of experts everywhere.

When CLG solidified their roster, which admirers of Tarik were crying out for, you would think that would enable Tarik to go further and do more, but it had the opposite effect. Early on, Tarik was revealed to be a player who contained more than what met the eye. He wasn’t your typical star. When CLG had increased structure, Tarik fell by the wayside and players like Cutler and JDM became increasingly highlighted over Tarik. Eventually, it got to a point where Tarik became frustrated and uncooperative. They went down the prescribed path of treating this issue of Tarik’s success only to receive the opposite effect. It is difficult to discern how well the system worked for the rest of CLG because Tarik gave up. He wanted to be bought out by the many teams beckoning his services. After much unruliness, CLG relented and sold to OpTic.

Although RUSH and NAF were key players during their success at the end of 2016, mixwell and Tarik have primarily been the stars of OpTic. Again, when examining the circumstances of Tarik’s success on OpTic, we will find that it was that of disarray. As Tarik was joining the team, there was a large amount of confusion with regard to the team’s line-up. It was uncertain who would be leaving to make room for Tarik, but when the game of musical chairs ended, daps would be the man left standing—daps, the in-game leader. stanislaw, who had no past experience in the leadership role, took on the role. OpTic was yet another case of favoring skill over smarts. stan has worked out in the long-run and has been proven to be a player with a mind for the game, but one can figure that he was not always in the position that he currently occupies and that it took time for him to learn how to lead. Therefore, during the time of Tarik’s success on OpTic, which was during the early days more so than during the team’s peak, Tarik was without direction and was yet again a master of chaos.

For a while, star status, on the competitive side of the game, was possessed by RUSH and NAF, but when stanislaw left, the system that enabled these players fell beneath them and they fell with it. Tarik, being the master of chaos that he is, managed to stay afloat despite the lack of a strategical system and set roster.

Because of his repeated inability to be enhanced by his team’s system, I must doubt the possibility of Tarik improving anytime soon. Tarik is like the unfortunate patient who has undergone multiple antibiotic regimens without getting cured. There is little more that the doctors of esports can suggest. Recovery is not out of the question, but the prescribed methods have not worked and there is no cure in sight.

Tarik is a master of chaos and is limited by that, but that distinction does not necessarily preclude him from greatness. Winston Churchill, a man many admire and idolize, was not a man of many seasons. He was an extraordinary wartime leader who managed to keep Great Britain fighting and free of German control, unlike practically the rest of Europe. While I am not saying that Tarik is as accomplished as Winston Churchill, there have been enormously successful people in the one-dimensional way that Tarik is and that maybe the cure that the Counter-Strike doctors have missed is to further facilitate the chaos rather than the structure.

Image credit: Valve

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