What happened to SK? 

Around the beginning of the RLC pro league, there was a noticeable drop in the power ranking position of the SK gaming squad. I'm going to throw out some ideas as to why I think this happened.

The history bit:

Team Complain was formed during mid-late 2015 and consisted of Yemen, X3MW, JHZER and Dadooh. They were taken on by SK gaming late the same year after rising into the top 5 of the EU power rankings. By November they were a powerhouse of the region, and were on a distinct level of play. They, along with Flipsid3 Tactics, seemed untouchable compared with the rest of the region: The two would consistently make the Gfinity finals together for almost a month, or else one would be knocked out by the other earlier in the tournament. SK were a force almost unstoppable, but it was all to unravel in January.

One Gfinity tournament, SK gaming faced Firewall in the early-mid rounds. Their lineup, that day consisting of JHZER, Dadooh and Yemen, was weaker than usual considering they didn't have the monstrous offensive presence of X3MW, but the trio was still a formidable force by any standards. Firewall and SK traded the first two games of the best of 5, before Firewall clinched the third after a missed clear by Yemen in the last few seconds. At this stage, Yemen anrgily shouted obscenities into his microphone and left the match, leaving Dadooh and JHZER alone for game 4, which they lost, and were subsequently knocked out of the tournament. After subsequent dramas on that same day, Yemen revealed he wouldn't play with the SK side any more.

This left JHZER, Dadooh and X3MW to play in the RPL, and they didn't have a very successful season, falling well short of qualifying in top 4 despite coming into the league as 2nd in the region. 

After the RPL, X3MW announced he would leave SK, and despite no word from JHZER or Dadooh at time of writing, the team has been losing to teams they were consistently beating before, and it's fair to say that the glory of the SK Gaming team is thoroughly lost.

What I think happened after Yemen left:

The first time I watched SK with a permanent X3MW/JHZER/Dadooh roster was in the RPL week 1, against myXMG. A team they were once comfortable beating, they won the series 3-2 in very uncomfortable fashion. 

What I noticed most about the new lineup was overcommitment on offence. X3 is a wild, constantly pressuring type of player who worked very well under old SK, with a solid back line in Yemen, but with the new trio, Dadooh and JHZER both went for boost slightly too often and rotated back too little. The result was a defence that was left open regularly as the myXMG (now Ka-Pow) team came bearing down on net, and this simply happened too often to put down to bad luck.

What more likely happened is that the three were used to having Yemen as a solid defensive wall when the others overcommitted. Going back through Gfinity tournaments from Novemeber it's clear that the most consistent defensive player for the team was, in fact, Yemen, despite how little credit he received for his role. What happened after he left was an anomaly of top players failing to read when they needed to move back and thus the whole structure started to tear at the seams.

JHZER, also around the beginning of the pro league, started to fashion his own playstyle into something more resembling X3MW's and Kuxir's, where he had increased his mechanical skill remarkably but it seemed as though he became too willing to go for shots that weren't as productive, and would get himself out of position too often. Coupled with X3's similar playstyle, it meant the team was overextending themselves even more than they were earlier.

Dadooh is the most ground of these three players, and that's saying something considering that he, much like the others, flourishes on offence. A strong, consistent and mechanically impressive member, but still had a handful of positioning errors in the series I watched, with instances of going boosting at bad times and taking too long to recover from a challenge. Though he transitioned slightly more to defence after Yemen left, he definitely struggled to perform as outstandingly as he did in the midfield/front line, and couldn't replace what Yemen brought to the team

Despite what I've been saying about the members, I firmly believe they're all incredibly talented players. X3MW and JHZER have incredible mechanics and Dadooh is a supporting Stocki-type player who has slightly more field presence and is a joy to watch, it's just that I don't think the three have a future together, particularly the first two I mentioned. This is due to the playstyle JHZER has fallen in recent weeks being very close to X3MW's, and having two wild (albeit very mechanically able) offensive players together can land the team in strife when they both overcommit together, frequently leaving Dadooh alone as both recover and fill up on boost. X3MW probably made the right choice to leave the team (assuming it was based partially on their weaker performances, which I'm just speculating on) as JHZER and Dadooh can hopefully pick up a more defensive, grounded 3rd and X3 can find some players that are more complimentary to his style. 

Lastly, I wanted to say that Yemen was an overlooked but very intelligent and mechanically consistent player, and despite the controversy he attracts, I hope to see him back in the pro scene (and maybe a bit calmer).