SmithZz: Bye Les Noobs

Over a year since his benching from the active roster of G2 Esports, Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux has announced his retirement from professional CS:GO.

A career that spanned across Counter-Strike: Source and Global Offensive saw SmithZz on France's most iconic teams including VeryGames, Team EnVyUs and Team LDLC, winning the DreamHack Winter 2014 Major under the latter.

Throughout his career, the most notable praise he received from those who played with him was his personality and positive attributes as a teammate within a CS region known for big personalities and its fair share of ego and emotions.

In 2016, SmithZz won ECS Season 1 with G2. By Season 3, he was moved to G2's coach. Season 5 saw him back on the active roster and he was on the bench by the time Season 7 returned to London for the final time.

With ECS now ending in favour of a new FACEIT project codenamed B Site League, the end of another era also follows.  

While other veteran players such as Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko and Fatih "gob b" Dayik have retired in the last year, it is a bittersweet moment of what-ifs.

The spiral that occurred in 2016 for SmithZz was brutal, with the community and members of the talent vocally critical of his in-server capabilities.

"Yo Les Noobs" was born from this and it was only a matter of months before SmithZz was benched to make way for France's AWP king Kenny "kennyS" Schrub.

His friendship with Richard "shox" Papillon saw him take the role of coach for the 2017 G2 Esports lineup dubbed the "superteam" until a desire to play again saw him join the roster once again in 2018.

With France still struggling to raise up new and young talent (beyond the notable exception), experienced players able to raise up the scene from the bottom could have seen great value in a player such as SmithZz, but the sentiment in a Twitlonger after his benching in 2018 made it unlikely even then that he would play again competitively. 

"It turned out to be too big of a task for me to catch up skill wise ... Much to my disappointment it never really clicked for me and I can’t say I enjoyed the time I spent playing again.‬" - Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux

It was hard for many to imagine the influence SmithZz had on Source, the French scene and kennyS himself. Before kennyS emerged as a talent, SmithZz was the best French AWPer in Source. He paved the way as part of the first paid Counter-Strike team in the country.

Since 2018, SmithZz has streamed on Twitch and gained a respectable audience as an individual and looks set to continue with this into 2020. While Tweeted two years ago after his final event as a professional player, the Tweet below feels like the appropriate send-off.