TALKESPORT

After 5 years of being close but no cigar, Natus Vincere finally won their first ever Major in CSGO. Although their pedigree in Counter Strike is unmatched, a Major trophy had always been a step away from the CIS organization. The org had lost the DreamHack Cluj-Napoca Major final to ENVY, the MLG Columbus Major to SK Gaming, and the Faceit London Major to Astralis, but at PGL Stockholm, they were done playing second fiddle to better teams, and cemented their might as the best team of 2021 and winning their first-ever Major.

The biggest impact of this win undoubtedly would be on ‘s1mple’. A player correctly called ‘The Best player to ever touch the game’, had everything to his name except a Major. He had been the #1 Player of 2018, won multiple trophies, innumerable MVP Medals but the title of the most coveted achievement in CSGO had been eluding him for some time. 

Till now, Aleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev had played 9 Majors, always showing up on the Biggest Stage when needed. But maybe it wasn’t meant to be all those times, due to fate or their opponents being the better team in every way, or sheer dumb luck that Sasha hadn’t won a Major yet.

Placing 3-4th at MLG Columbus in 2016, followed by a devastating loss in the Grand Final of ESL ONE: Cologne 2017 saw s1mple come back to his roots in Ukraine and join Natus Vincere.
But even at NaVi, it seemed that whatever ‘The Undertaker’ did wouldn’t be enough as they lost the Faceit London Major in the Grand Finals again. At IEM Katowice 2019, they lost to underdogs ENCE in the semis, a most unlikely result robbing s1mple of yet another Grand Final. They lost to NRG in the Quarters of StarLadder Berlin, and it was the end of the road for Veteran Zeus.

Vitality might soon venture into international Counter-Strike with the signings from Denmark.

According to a report from 1pv.fr, the trio of Peter “⁠dupreeh⁠” Rasmussen, Emil “⁠Magisk⁠” Reif, and Danny “⁠zonic⁠” Sørensen will join the ranks of Vitality for the forthcoming 2022 pro circuit and are expected to replace Richard “⁠shox⁠” Papillon, Jayson “⁠Kyojin⁠” Nguyen Van, and head coach Rémy “⁠XTQZZZ⁠” Quoniam on the french side’s active CS:GO, division.

The post-major shenanigans seem to have already begun in the faces of Vitality and Astralis who have reportedly entered negotiations to re-shuffle their rosters post their exit from the ongoing PGL Major Stockholm.

With Astralis having signed Kristian “⁠k0nfig⁠” Wienecke, Benjamin “⁠blameF⁠” Bremer, the duo formerly of Complexity and with the contracts of Dupreeh, Magisk and zonic to run out by the end of the year, any top tier team in the scene would love to bolster their firepower with the signings of the former trio. With the latter being said, Team Vitality are the heavy favourites to have shortlisted the mentioned trio ahead of their future professional games following their dreadful run at the Major, initially to have recovered from a shaky Legends Stage and an early exit from the playoffs at the hands of Aleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev’s Natus Vincere.

It is believed that the contracts of Shox, Kyojin and coach XTQZZZ are on the verge of being terminated only to be replaced by the Danish core in a bid to induce a feeling, that of a fresh car within the active roster. Although Shox has been around Vitality for almost two years, it must be heartbreaking for Kyojin as the 22-year-old Frenchman who earlier replaced Cédric “⁠RpK⁠” Guipouy will be shown the door after a period of just six months.

Will this report see the light one day, Team Vitality will have:

• Dan “⁠apEX⁠” Madesclaire
• Mathieu “⁠ZywOo⁠” Herbaut
• Kévin “⁠misutaaa⁠” Rabier
• Peter “⁠dupreeh⁠” Rasmussen
• Emil “⁠Magisk⁠” Reif

• Danny “⁠zonic⁠” Sørensen (Head coach)

Evil Geniuses announced via Twitter that In-game leader Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz, Owen ‘oBo’ Schlatter and Michal ‘MICHU’ Muller will leave their roster, active immediately. MICHU was the latest addition to the roster after the benching of Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik, while ‘oBo’ came on to replace Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold who joined 100Ts Valorant team. Stanislaw had been part of EG ever since their return to CS:GO, and was also a part of the NRG roster that came 3-4th at the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019.

The move comes after an all-time low ranking for the org when they dropped down to #40 in the world. Evil geniuses only have 9 map wins in the last 3 months and 26 losses, which is less than respectable in every way for a team that used to be #1 in the world in 2019.

EG had changing rosters, and players taking breaks for mental health, which is understandable but it did affect their performance in the long run. The return of Damian ‘daps’ Steele as coach couldn’t soften the blows either as EG just couldn’t compete with their NA counterparts.

EG made it to the Legends stage after defeating EXTREMUM in the NA RMR – IEM Fall, and already had some RMR points from before. Their performance at the Major was exactly as people expected as they went out 0-3 without a series win under their belt. This was the expected trend as EG didn’t win a single series at EPL S14 either, and also went out of BLAST Fall Showdown in 9-16th place. 

The two remaining members of EG are Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte and AWPer Tsevetelin ‘CeRq’ Dimitrov. The two are the only remaining members of the NRG core of old, which consisted of Ethan as well and was led by ‘daps’ as IGL. 

Evil Geniuses also said they remain committed to North American CS:GO and plan to rebuild around the two remaining members for 2022. And with a lot of teams undergoing roster changes at the moment, this could be EG’s chance to get back to the top with a new lineup. 

As things stands, EG’s roster is:

• Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte
• Tsevetelin ‘CeRq’ Dimitrov
• Damian ‘daps’ Steele (coach)