Sent on
July 26, 2021

gla1ve's new team won't have es3tag, though, or peacemaker. Obviously. MSL and aizy might suddenly be available for Astralis to sign though, cause fnatic don't want 'em. Reportedly.

Complexity become Danish

Illustration by NovaH. Source: cloud9

With their latest addition - Astralis' former benchwarmer es3tag - the squad becomes 3/5ths Danish, meaning poizon and jks will have to brush up on their Danish. Good luck learning that god forsaken language.

Frankly, we're just glad to see es3tag back in play. Having played only 21 series under Astralis - according to our calculations, so we might be ever so slightly but maybe even very much off - he really went to waste under the Danish powerhouse.

Cloud9 didn't give him a good look either, with the results never quite being there. No big event wins since the beginning of the pandemic? Come on...

What we're trying to say is es3tag deserved better. He was an instrumental part in Heroic's early successes, and can play a top class support role in the right circumstances. And being on the Juggernaut might just be "the right circumstances".

So strap in and get ready, 'cause it's about to get heavy. We're banking on some big wins soon, getting coL out of their slump.


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fnatic's coming home

Did you guys know fnatic is a British org?

Weird that they left out the 'a' in fanatic, and not the 't', really.

Rumours, and by rumours we mean an article from neL, suggest they might be going back to their roots and picking up mezii and ALEX to replace JW and Golden. Now, all they need is woxic, es3tag and floppy, and maybe they can be a coloss... a waste of time and money.

Oops, did we say that out loud?

Oh, yeah, JW has been benched. Shed a tear, remember the good times, and quietly pump your fists. We might get to see a fnatic team that isn't totally horrible again. It's not popular to say it, but JW HAD to go, for his own career and for fnatic.

The old man can always find refuge on Dignitas, or replace olofmeister on FaZe. Much like olof, he used to be an absolute monster, and now at the ripe old age of...


JW is only 26??

The Wonderchild can reinvigorate Dignitas with his fresh new ideas, boyish charm and youthful energy.

Anyway, aizyesque is confused how to feel. On one hand, he has a new 'home' team. On the other, the previous rumours suggested MSL and maybe one more North player might have made their way there, and he still misses North.

MSL, it seems, is still yet to find a good home.


Ninjas in Government

Look, you're probably sick of hearing about Sweden playing hard-to-get and PGL still hanging on to the hope they have of getting with Stockholm. We're a little bit sick of it too.

But - we might have a break-through.

NiP and the Stockholm government have put forward a proposal to allow "participants in international elite competitions" increased opportunities to travel to Sweden.

Basically, good gamers are let in to play some games. Sorry, Americans.

It's yet to be accepted, and it might even be a touch too late for PGL - but it's a step in the right direction. Assuming you want it in Sweden - we actually quite like the idea of Bucharest.

Whatever happens, we might get a goddamn Major on LAN again. PLEASE.


gla1ve stays... but at what cost?

Illustration by NovaH Source: Astralis

When the announcement that you're staying with your team includes talking about your wife's pregnancy, it's easy to assume that you're staying for reasons that aren't exactly to do with competition.

So assume that, is exactly what we're going to do.

gla1ve has re-signed (that's signed again, not left) with Astralis for another three years, mentioning that the team are looking to improve further and that 'Astralis will leave marks on the Counter-Strike scene for years to come'.

Strange way of putting it. Leaving marks on something is like what you do when you hit them but not hard enough to really hurt them, which... actually, is a fitting metaphor.

And much nicer than the toilet bowl metaphor we otherwise considered.

He then talks about time and flexibility he will be afforded due to his significant other's pregnancy, which is a really important thing for him, a lovely thing for the org to do, and absolutely not what you want to hear as an Astralis fan. If he's staying so that he can take breaks...

The good thing if you're an Astralis fan, aside from the obvious, is that this might either convince the current players to stay, or at worse, convince a good standard of players to join if they do need to go out replacing.

es3tag is off the market now, so we'll at least see a new variation of Astralis and not that weird slightly-worse-than-the-original-and-not-particularly-interesting es3tag version.


The sky(box) is the limit

  • Another day another demo, as launders would say - and the grind just became easier than ever.
  • NaToSaPhiX is clearly not a lucky guy when it comes to teams.
  • We know we've plugged them before, but these takes are just too good. Makes you want to double scope in so you don't miss anything.
  • Speaking of good takes, u/vizionsnaps had one so good he had to split it into a part one and two.
  • Sometimes sprouts go bad. Only Spiidi would be left from the SEED days...
  • Not going to lie, this would have us watching National Geographic again.
  • Get to work you mappers, we want this! Pretty please?
  • m0NESY next s1mple?