Roster Changes around the World in CSGO

After the end of Blast Spring Finals 2023, many teams and orgs in the CSGO Sphere have made some roster changes, or plan to do so for the upcoming tournaments.

We’ll be going through some of those confirmed roster moves in this article.

Confirmed Moves:

Aleksib benched in favor of Hampus at NIP

Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) recently announced the return of Hampus "hampus" Poser, the Swedish captain, to their starting roster after a five-month break from competitive Counter-Strike. Hampus took a step back from the game in January due to health reasons, but his agent confirmed that he was ready to make a comeback. As a result of hampus' return, Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen was moved to the bench.

NiP's COO, Jonas "calc" Gundersen, stated that the organization would take the off-season to assess their roster and long-term vision, aiming to make an impact in CS2. This decision marked the end of Aleksib's nine-month tenure with the Swedish organization. While hampus was on break, Aleksib had joined NiP to bring structure to the team and oversaw their transition to English communication.

The return of hampus to NiP will be put to the test at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2023 in Copenhagen, where they will face tough opponents like Vitality, Heroic, and FaZe. The tournament will serve as a warm-up before the start of IEM Cologne.

Drop benched by Furia

In another roster change, FURIA, the Brazilian team, has reportedly benched André "drop" Abreu as part of their off-season overhaul. The team is searching for a player outside of their academy team, with potential interest in Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo. FURIA has had a meeting with FalleN regarding a potential signing, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

Drop had been with FURIA for nearly two years but struggled to perform consistently. FURIA as a whole has had a disappointing year. Their only positive tournament result being a first-place finish at the BLAST.tv Paris Major Americas RMR. They finished in the 15-16th place at the French Major, crashed out of IEM Katowice in the Play-In stage, and exited ESL Pro League Season 17 in 9-12th place.

FURIA is expected to compete in the upcoming IEM Cologne Play-In. Led by their captain, Andrei "arT" Piovezan, starting on July 25-26.

Nouns parts ways with Cynic

Nouns, the North American organization, has announced the departure of their in-game leader and AWPer, David "cynic" Polster. This decision comes just three days after the team's victory at the ESEA Cash Cup Circuit Finals. This secured them a spot in the IEM Fall closed qualifier and a boot camp during IEM Cologne in July.

Cynic was an original member of the Squirtle Squad roster, which was acquired by Nouns in September 2022. The team quickly established themselves as one of the top teams in the North American second tier. With 23-year-old cynic leading them to triumph at CCT North America Series 3 and qualification for major events such as IEM Rio, BLAST.tv Paris, BLAST Premier Spring Showdown, and IEM Dallas.

However, Nouns struggled to achieve notable results on LAN. They failed to secure placements in the last two CS:GO Majors and exiting IEM Dallas in 13-16th place. During the Texas event, the entire team faced difficulties. But cynic's performance stood out with a rating of 0.59, placing him among the bottom three players at the tournament.

With cynic's departure, Nouns will now enter the tournament break with the task of finding replacements for both the in-game leader and AWPer positions. They aim to finalize their roster adjustments before their European boot camp scheduled for next month.