News Flash #3 - Summer Break Comes To An End

The summer break has come and gone, as we arrive at the dawn of the upcoming fall season, with the first event, BLAST Fall Groups, kicking off in less than a week.

With the Tier 1 circuit being underway very shortly, most of the remaining transfers have been concluded and announced by the respective teams. Here’s a round up of all the official changes, which occurred last week:

NAVI: -npl -Perfecto -electroNic +iM +jL +Aleksib

NAVI undeniably wins the title of the craziest change of the break, with their surprise transition to an international roster. Only s1mple and b1t have remained on the team, joining them are two surprise stars of the Paris Major, iM and jL, along with Aleksib, as their new IGL. The Ukrainian organization took a big gamble, by acquiring two skilled, but relatively inexperienced riflers in iM and jL, as well as Aleksib, who does have a lot of experience playing on international line-ups, but admittedly, without much success. Thankfully for NAVI, they’ll get the chance to hone in their skills and work on their team chemistry prior to IEM Cologne during BLAST Fall Groups.

FURIA: -saffee -drop +FalleN +chelo

Brazil’s best team has secured the signature of Brazil’s most popular player, in the legendary AWPer IGL, FalleN. Joining him is chelo, who he’s shared the server with for the past couple of months, playing on Imperial. This swap entails a change of leadership within the squad, with arT likely to relinquish the leader mantle in favour of the team’s new marksman. FURIA’s extremely aggressive play style has been a talking point among the community for months, and with FalleN’s arrival, the team is signalling an attempt at sorting out their calling dilemmas.

fnatic: -nicoodoz -FASHR +afro +dexter

Despite rumours circulating that fnatic would keep only one player from their previous line-up, they’ve decided to ‘only’ swap out their AWPer and get a new IGL. The addition of dexter means that mezii will now be freed from leading duties, after taking up the role of a caller when first joining fnatic in August 2021. They’ve also opted not to break the bank with their new sniper acquisition, as afro was a free agent after LDLC terminated their CS:GO division earlier this year.

OG: -niko -NEOFRAG -degster -flameZ +nexa +k1to +regali +FASHR

The international squad has been completely overhauled, with only F1KU avoiding being replaced. The change sees nexa return to action after going on leave in February of this year. Rounding out the squad is a new trio, consisting of regali, k1to and FASHR. regali has big shoes to fill, as the departing degster was the main force, powering OG forward in tough games. The additions of k1to and FASHR seem a little bit underwhelming, when taking into account the pool of young talent currently available in Counter-Strike’s Tier 2/Tier3 space.

Spirit: -w0nderful -Patsi - s1ren +ArtFr0st +donk +zont1x

Spirit decided to bet on the young talent from their academy roster, promoting three players in ArtFr0st, donk and zont1x. The changes come in the wake of Spirit’s disappointing showings earlier this year, which include failing to qualify for the Paris Major and not making it to the play-offs in any significant tournaments.

MIBR: -HEN1 -Tuurtle +saffee +drop

The Brazilians got busy in the transfer season and secured the signatures of two former FURIA players, saffee and drop. The duo failed to make an impression in the upper echelons of professional Counter-Strike, but their ability to perform on home soil can not be questioned. MIBR will be hoping to unlock the saffee of his time in paiN (1.28 rating) and the drop of the Rio Major (1.06 rating).

Virtus.pro: +mir

This move sees mir’s return to action after being on the sidelines since October 2022. The talented rifler joins Virtus.pro on a long-term contract and will play in place of n0rb3r7 at their upcoming show match against 9z. It is undisclosed, however, whether mir will be n0rb3r7’s permanent replacement or if another player will have to make way for the 27-year-old.

Apeks: -jL +CacaNito

Apeks were forced to seek out a new rifler to join their ranks, after jL was snapped up by NAVI. The international roster secured the signature of CacaNito, their IGL’s countryman. The Macedonian impressed on his previous rosters of ATK and BLUEJAYS, hence why he had been on Apeks’ radar for some time, as revealed by the team’s coach, kuben.

MOUZ: -dexter +siuhy

Rumours of siuhy returning to MOUZ have been speculating for the past couple of weeks, and they finally became official. siuhy replaces dexter and joins up with his former MOUZ NXT teammates of torzsi and xertioN, in hopes of replicating the successes they shared together in a new environment. As for dexter, due to international team IGL’s being in demand, he had no trouble finding a new home, landing himself a spot on fnatic’s new roster.

Sprout: -XELLOW

The Romanian AWPer failed to impress during his six-month stint on the international roster, averaging a mere 1.00 rating over the course of the year. The change comes in the wake of a massive rebuild in the German organization, which has already seen the departure of lauNX to Falcons and Staehr to Astralis. Despite the team’s results going downhill in recent history, Sprout is rumoured to be aiming high with their transfer ambitions, eyeing up w0nderful as the new marksman for their revitalised roster.

News related to upcoming events have been rolling in this past week, check them out:

ESL Impact League Season 4

The fourth edition of ESL’s women’s Counter-Strike league will take place in Valencia for the second time. The online portion of the event will be played between September 13 - October 29, before the eight best teams battle it out on LAN, starting December 8. Nigma Galaxy will be looking to prolong their five-title winning streak, as the field desperately tries to keep up with the circuit’s most dominant team.

BLAST Premier World Final

The last tournament of the year and the climax of the BLAST circuit will once again take place in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The $1,000,000 event is set to start on December 13 with the champions lifting the trophy on December 17. FaZe, Vitality and Heroic have already secured qualification, with the five remaining spots still up for grabs.

Other news:

CS2 Update: -Mirage +Nuke +Office

Nuke and Office have replaced Mirage in the CS2 Beta test, courtesy of the latest update. Among other features, the Casual game mode has been added to the game, as well as the ability to inspect grenades. One of the largest talking points in the community right now is the movement in CS2 not being up to par with the standards set by CS:GO. It seems like, tho, Valve are trying to address this issue, and it is getting better by the update, according to several members of the community.

HLTV Fantasy

HLTV Fantasy is back for the fall season, along with a couple of changes to roles, boosters, and other aspects of the game.

If you want to learn more about it, check out this overview of the changes: https://www.hltv.org/news/36599/hltv-fantasy-updated-for-fall-season-notifications-roles-boosters-and-more

And if you want to make a team yourself, the game for Blast Fall Groups is already open:

https://www.hltv.org/fantasy/367/overview