In a social media post, the esports organization revealed that they had signed Martin “?nut nut?”Holm Vestergaard, Benjamin “?brzer?” Jensen, and Asger “?AcilioN?” Larsen to the squad. They also brought Philip “?aizy?” Aistrup back into active play to complete the team.

Following their massive revamp during the off-season, Sashi were left with only Mikkel “?n1xen?” Borlund and Nicolai “?HUNDEN?” Petersen, who was announced as the new head coach in late July.

“Being able to create a team consisting of three young, promising talents, as well as two experienced players in the game, is something we are very proud of, and we are excited to be able to take part in supporting and developing the talent of these five, bright individuals”, Sashi’s Sports director Allan “Rejin” Petersen said in a statement.

The entire team are currently in the organization’s boot camping facilities, where they will remain for the week. According to the post, they would use the time to practice and get familiar with each other.

HUNDEN added, “The team chemistry is already showing, and the mixture between the knowledge from the more experienced players and the innovative approach from the young talents are already proving to be a huge asset.”

AcilioN previously played on teams like Apeks and Heroic before his recent move to Sashi. His last stint was with Christian “?NaToSaphiX?” Sillassen’s undefined lineup, where he competed from January to April 2023.

Sashi’s second addition, brzer joins the organization for a second time following his two-month stint at the start of 2023. During this period, the team recorded multiple disappointing performances, which led to an roster overhaul.

nut nut, the last new player on the lineup, is a new face in the competitive Counter-Strike scene. The player will surely develop his career and experience with his new team.

aizy, on his end, started playing with Sashi in April but was benched two months after. Despite his move to the inactive lineup, aizy was one of the best players on the squad, reaching a 1.19 average rating over 18 maps previously.

Sashi’s complete Counter-Strike team includes the following:

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In a post, the esports organization confirmed the signing, stating that while refrezh was the “final piece of the puzzle”, they were not done yet.

Prior to joining Preasy, ?refrezh? was a part of Heroic’s roster. The player then moved to Sprout in August 2022 and remained a part of the organization until Rasmus “?Zyphon?” Nordfoss replaced him this April.

The veteran spent barely any time away from active play and joined Evil Geniuses that same month, after the organization parted ways with Jadan “?HexT?” Postma. Refrezh was placed on EG’s inactive roster in July.

During his four-month stint with the organization, he posted a 0.94 rating over 17 maps. Evil Geniuses won around 35% of the maps they played within this period.

Having joined the Counter-Strike esports scene in June, Preasy have now officially completed their roster. The team includes refrezh, nicoodoz, Alexander “?tOPZ?” Miklagard, Thomas “?TMB?” Bundsb?k, and Alexander “?Altekz?” Givskov.

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In a statement, the esports organization revealed that Taiga could explore other options ahead of the upcoming TI12 qualifiers. The Norwegian player will likely be loaned to other Dota 2 teams during this period.

“Back-to-back ESL One champion, Major winner, teammate, big brother & friend. @Taigadota has been moved to our inactive roster & will be able to explore his options ahead of TI12 qualifiers,” OG wrote.

After falling out of TI11 in seventh place, OG were unable to record any notable achievements. They qualified for only one Major this season, finishing fifth in Berlin. OG were unable to score enough Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points to earn direct qualification for TI12.

Taiga’s move is just one of OG many roster shifts this year. In May, the player took a break from the Dota 2 lineup mere hours before the team’s first DPC Summer Tour series. Mikhail “Misha” Agatov, the team’s captain, also recently swapped places on the active roster with OG’s former coach Evgenii “Chu” Makarov ahead of the DPC Spring Tour.

OG have also fielded multiple stand-ins over the past months in different events due to visa issues and myriad other factors. This contributed to the team’s problems and growing instability.

S��bastien “Ceb” Debs’ return to OG and active play will likely provide much-needed stability to the team. With his addition, OG now have four players on the lineup, all of whom have experience playing with Ceb.

The team currently includes Artem “Yuragi” Golubiev, Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov, and Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin. Misha, OG’s coach, is expected to step back into active play and complete the lineup. Ceb’s former Old G teammate Kartik “Kitrak” Rathi will also likely join the squad.

Dota 2 teams have until August 10 to complete their lineup and lock their rosters for TI12. The event will begin on August 17 and carry on till August 21.

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In a statement, HAVU revealed that xseveN’s decision was due to a lack of motivation to continue playing in the competitive scene. The player clarified that neither the team nor his teammates had any influence on his decision to stop playing.

xseveN will remain on HAVU for the upcoming two events and officially end his relationship with the team after the conclusion of the Elisa Esports eSM 2023 in August. The team are part of the four squads to participate in the event’s opening round next month.

Lasse Salminen, HAVU’s CEO, released a statement bidding xseveN farewell and thanking the player for his contributions to the organization over the past years.

“xseveN had an important role in HAVU by having a lot of experience and knowledge in CS. We want to wish him luck for the future and thank him for the three years. I’ll be missing him but the friendship stays, thank you Sami,” Salminen said.

The news marks the end of xseveN 11-year career, which spanned CS:S and CS:GO eras. Prior to joining HAVU, xseveN played on lineups like ENCE, RCTIC, LGR, iGame.com, and Epiphany Bolt.

The player’s time on ENCE was one of his most notable, winning the StarSeries i-League Season 6 and DreamHack Open Winter 2018 tournaments. At the time, xseveN played alongside top players like Aleksi “?Aleksib?” Virolainen and Aleksi “?allu?” Jalli.

The lineup were also integral to ENCE’s deep run in the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2019. The team beat out squads like Natus Vincere and Team Liquid during the event to reach the grand finals. They eventually lost to Astralis, who was crowned the champion of the event.

xseveN also claimed the BLAST Pro Series Madrid 2019 trophy while with ENCE. The player eventually left the Finnish organization in August 2020 in favor of HAVU. He spent three years on the lineup before the recent announcement.

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In a statement, Sashi Esports’ director of sports Allan “Rejin” Petersen, announced the new member, revealing that HUNDEN was an “obvious choice” for them.

“We are very pleased to be able to present HUNDEN to Sashi Esport. Nicolai and I have known each other for many years and have previously worked together, so when the opportunity to get him to Sashi Esport presented itself, it was an obvious choice for us to reach out to him,” Rejin said.

“In addition to the previous experience from his earlier employment at top teams such as Heroic and Astralis, HUNDEN brings a lot of experience within talent development on the Danish scene,” the statement continued.

Rejin was also recently signed to the Danish esports organisation as the team’s new sports director and will be a part of their rebuild.

HUNDEN spent the spring season as Astralis’ head analyst before leaving the team in June alongside the director of sports Kasper Hvidt. He will take on the head coaching role in Sashi, his first since departing Heroic in July 2021.

HUNDEN initially rose to fame as a player on Tricked and MAD Lions lineup. He helped win multiple major tournaments, making a name for himself in the tier-one scene in the process. The former player switched to coaching in 2020 and was added to Heroic’s roster.

HUNDEN spent most of his coaching career as a part of Heroic, helping the team record impressive feats between 2020 and 2021. During this period, Heroic won events like the Electronic Sports League

Heroic eventually suspended the coach in September 2020 following his involvement in the infamous spectator bug scandal. He returned to coaching eight months after but ended things with Heroic within three months.

At the time, HUNDEN was accused of sharing sensitive information with a major competitor attending the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne while still linked to Heroic. He was issued a two-year ban by the Esports Integrity Commission at the time; however, it was overturned, and HUNDEN returned to the competitive scene as Astralis’ head Analyst.

Rejin is not without his share of controversy, having been suspended as part of the coach spectator bug incident as well. He was permanently banned from playing and coaching at Majors by the ESIC.

HUNDEN and Rejin will take charge of Sashi’s restructuring in their new roles in time for the Counter-Strike 2 release. The duo will assemble a new roster around Mikkel “n1xen” Borlund, the only player left on the lineup following Sashi’s massive overhaul.

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The player has been a major figure in the competitive Apex scene, winning the 2022 ALG Series Championship MVP award. He started playing with FURIA in May 2022 and helped the team through events like the North American Last Chance Qualifier and the 2022 ALGS Championship.

Following his move to the captain position in place of Will “TeQ” Starck, FURIA recorded impressive numbers in the Championship event. HisWattson led the team to a second-place finish in the tournament and was awarded the MVP award due to his prowess on Seer.

FURIA had a different outcome in 2023, recording a significant performance drop and failing to qualify for events like the Split One Playoffs. The team were also eliminated from the Split Two Playoffs in 37th place following a loss to Alliance.

Shortly after their loss, HisWattson took to Twitter to announce his retirement from competitive Apex. The player revealed that he had stopped enjoying competing for a while now despite attempts to make it a fun activity for him.

“Today I’ve made the decision to step down from Competitive Apex,” HisWattson wrote.

“I tried everything possible to make myself enjoy playing comp, but even when we were winning, I still wasn’t having fun. I’ve tried looking at it from every angle, but I simply don’t think it’s something that can make me happy.”

According to the player, the way he viewed the activity had negatively affected his skills “to the point where I’m no longer content and just want to go back to what made me the best and the happiest I’d ever been: Spamming ranked like a degen and being a goofball on stream.”

HisWattson clarified that his retirement had nothing to do with FURIA’s recent performance in the Split Two Playoffs. The player also claimed he made the decision before Split 1 but was convinced to continue playing on multiple occasions.

“It’s not fair to my teammates or anyone who wants to see me do well that they’re expecting my all when I’m not able to give it to them. Everyone at FURIA is amazing and I apologize for not pulling the plug sooner,” HisWattson added.

HisWattson also disclosed that he was now announcing the decision to give his teammates Scott “Pandxrz” Maynard and Nelson “Xera” Medina enough time to replace him for the 2023 LCQ. The player will stay on as a content creator on FURIA.

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The news confirms earlier reports by Dust2.us, which claimed that the North American organization were in negotiations to sign a Counter-Strike team. The new lineup features an ex-ATK core which includes Ethan “reck” Serrano, Michael “Swisher” Schmid, and Adam “WolfY” Andersson. The trio was a part of ATK before the player break.

The remaining M80 players include Marcus “?maNkz?” Kjeldsen from Ecstatic and TeamOne’s Mario “?malbsMd?” Samayoa. Former Complexity CS:GO player dephh was signed as the team’s coach signaling his return to the esports scene after three years.

dephh moved to Valorant in July 2020, where he took his first coaching role. He previously played for Complexity between 2016 – 2019. Dephh recorded multiple achievements within this period, including a quarter-final finish in the FACEIT Major London in 2018.

M80’s move to sign a Counter-Strike lineup marks WolfY and maNkz’s reunion since playing for Ecstatic in 2022. The duo was part of the same Ecstatic lineup before WolfY moved to Lilmix in August 2022, then Fnatic Rising a month later. The AWPer eventually signed to ATK where he remained till the recent transfer to M80.

?malbsMd? , on the other hand, joins M80 after almost a year with TeamOne. He was a part of the lineup from August 2022 to July 2023 and reached a 1.15 average rating over 158 maps during his time there.

M80 entered the Valorant scene in December 2022 and do not intend to slow down their expansion. The organization already fields teams in esports like Rocket League and Rainbow Six Siege, making Counter-Strike their fourth venture.

When former Sentinels coach Donald “SyykoNT” Muir was appointed as vice president last month, M80 announced that they intended to “build a world class roster” ahead of the Counter-Strike 2 release. It is currently unclear if this is the finished lineup or the just first step to creating the star-studded team mentioned earlier.

M80 will showcase their new lineup during the Thunderpick World Championship 2023 North America Series 1. The team are set to face off against ex-Snakes Den to secure one of the two available spots for the $500,000 event. M80 will also join the Electronic Sports League Pro League Season 18 towards the end of the summer.

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The Overwatch League grand finals has always been a major event, attracting thousands of fans to different locations in the US. This year, however, the competition will be held outside the country for the first time in the league’s history.

The OWL playoffs and grand finals will be hosted by the Toronto Defiant in downtown Toronto Canada and see the top eight teams compete to secure the 2023 trophy. The playoffs will kick off on September 28 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, which hosted the Summer Showdown LAN tournament last year, and continue until the grand finals on October 1.

The OWL finals have always been held in the US since the first event in 2018. The competition was hosted by the New York Excelsior in Brooklyn, and the year after, the competition took place in Philadelphia.

The 2020 and 2021 events were held online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. By 2022, the event returned live, and the grand final was held in Anaheim, California.

Now, despite their early elimination in the Spring Stage Knockouts, the Toronto Defiant is set to host this year’s grand finals. The team will need to show significant improvement in the Summer Stage to qualify for the playoffs or make their way through the play-in bracket to compete in front of their home audience.

The venue is not the only change to this year’s OWL grand finals. The league is expected to change the format by splitting teams into two groups of four to face off against each other in a double-elimination bracket.

The selected squads will include the top five teams from the West and the top three from the East. The two teams that finish on top in each group will qualify for the knockout stages. The rest of the competition will be held in a single elimination bracket with a $1 million cash prize for the winners.

While this is the first OWL championship outside the US, it is not Toronto’s first time hosting a major OWL event. The 2022 iteration of the Summer Showdown was notably held in the city.

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The news comes a day after Robert “RobbaN” Dahlstr?m’s move to step down from coaching. The former FaZe CS:GO coach announced on Thursday that he was retiring from his role just weeks away from one of the most prestigious events in the esports scene; the Intel Extreme Masters Cologne.

The move ended RobbaN’s seven-year stint with FaZe and left the team without a coach for the CS:GO event. His time with FaZe consisted of eight Major appearances, 11 LAN trophies as well as an Intel Grand Slam.

The esports organization seemingly rectified this issue on Friday by registering NEO as a sitting coach for the event. In the meantime, FaZe will play without a coach for the rest of the BLAST Premier Fall Groups in Copenhagen, Denmark.

NEO is known for his earlier stint with Virtus.pro. The player was a part of the “golden five,” which won multiple tier-one tournaments for the team, including the ELEAGUE Season 1 and the EMS One Katowice 2014. He recorded 13 Major appearances with the Virtus.pro lineup and played over 1,300 maps with the team before moving to FaZe for a short stint.

The organization fielded him in 2019 as the in-game leader following the departure of Finn “?karrigan?” Andersen. The team recorded a deep run during the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles 2019 under the NEO’s leadership, but they were ultimately unable to win the tournament.

The Polish player ended his stint with FaZe five months later and was temporarily replaced with Marcelo “?coldzera?” David. karrigan eventually returned to the lineup in early 2021 and took over his IGL duties.

NEO last played with HONORIS, which he co-founded alongside Wiktor “?TaZ?” Wojtas. He spent most of the last three years with the team until shutting down operations in March this year due to financial issues.

There is currently no information concerning whether the role in FaZe will be full-time or on a permanent basis. Sources, however, claim that FaZe will likely extend their relationship with NEO after the end of the tournament.

The IEM Cologne will kick off from July 26 to August 6, boasting a $1 million prize pool. FaZe were assigned to the Group B of the tournament and will face off against top teams like G2, Natus Vincere, and Vitality. Four other teams from the Play-in are expected to join them in the group stage.

FaZe’s current lineup includes H?vard “?rain?” Nygaard, Russel “?Twistzz?” Van Dulken, Helvijs “?broky?” Saukants, Robin “?ropz?” Kool, and Finn “?karrigan?” Andersen.
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The players will replace Vladislav “?nafany?” Gorshkov and Timur “?buster?” Tulepov, who were taken off the lineup earlier this month. The move ended Nafany’s lengthy stint with Cloud9 and time playing with Dmitriy “sh1ro” Sokolov and Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov. The trio has been together since the Gambit Youngster’s project in 2019.

buster started playing with Cloud9 in January 2023 as a replacement for Timofey “?interz?” Yakushin. Within his six months on the lineup, buster helped the team win the tier-two Brazy Party in May. Cloud9 also reached a second-place finish at the Electronic Sports League Pro League season 17 earlier this year.

electroNic and ?Perfecto? joined Cloud9 following stints in Natus Vincere, where they were a part of the team’s numerous achievements, especially in 2021.

NAVI won several tier-one tournaments that year, including the BLAST Premier Global Final in January 2021, Electronic Sports League Pro League season 14, Intel Extreme Masters Cologne in July 2021, and the Intel Grand Slam in September 2021. The lineup were also behind NAVI’s victory in the Professional Gamers League Stockholm Major in November that year.

The Ukrainian roster saw fewer achievements in 2022 and 2023. They faced some difficulties due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as well as Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov’s departure from the lineup a few months later.

?electroNic? was made the team captain in June 2022 and successfully helped NAVI win the BLAST Premier Spring Final within the first few weeks of the move. His individual statistics dropped slightly after assuming his new role; however, he was able to reach an impressive 1.11 rating in 2023.

The IGL and perfecto were taken off the lineup during the offseason when NAVI announced their intention to field an international roster. Following their exit, the team signed Aleksi “?Aleksib?” Virolainen, Mihai “?iM?” Ivan, and Justinas “?jL?” Lekavicius.

electroNic will take over the leadership role from nafany. Cloud9 fans can expect more from the team’s new lineup as the player will lead top gamers like Sergey “?Ax1Le?” Rykhtorov and Dmitry “?sh1ro?” Sokolov. Both CS:GO players were ranked the third and fourth best in the world in 2022.

perfecto, on his end, joins Cloud9 in a support role as a replacement for buster. The player took on different positions during his time with NAVI to accommodate the team dynamics. He leaves the organization with an impressive 1.02 rating throughout 2023 despite the many issues that plagued NAVI in the past months.

The updated team will make their debut at the IEM Cologne, slated for July 25 to August 6.

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