Every two weeks we show the most important esports player transfers in our series: the latest roster changes, player contracts, or dismissals.
Will the six-man roster in CS:GO be the new standard? Doublelift goes back to TSM and a Dota 2 legend retires.
CS:GO
HellRaisers
After the HellRaisers parted ways with two players just earlier this month, they now announced a new CS:GO roster:
We announce our new CS:GO lineup. https://t.co/SPdt3PYAEz pic.twitter.com/gsiPv8ZbKD
— HellRaisers Esports (@HELLRAISERSgg) April 26, 2020
Earlier this month the departure of Igor "crush" Shevchenko and in-game leader Kirill "Ange1" Karasiov was announced. Shortly afterwards Žygimantas "nukkye" Chmieliauskas also left the team. Vadim "Flarich" Karetin and Ivan "AiyvaN" Semenets remained, around whom a new roster was to be built.
As HR now announced, AiyvaN will stay on the reserve bench for the time being. The new roster consists of Vadim "Flarich" Karetin, Dmytro "jR" Chervak, Nikolai "kAliNkA" Rysakov, Dmitrii "ProbLeM" Martynov and Nikita "JIaYm" Paniushkin. The new coach will be Rustam "TsaGa" Tsagolov.
It remains to be seen how the new roster will do without their captain Ange1, but we wish them good luck.
Heroic
Heroic already announced major changes after their deal with FunPlus Phoenix failed and coach LOMME also left the team. Es3tag and Snappi were already put on the bench at the beginning of the month. After René "TeSeS" Madsen now Nikolaj "niko" Kristensen completes the new roster.
The time has come to announce the final Hero! Niko will now be joining Heroic in its quest towards the top.Welcome @OfficialnikoCS !Read more: https://t.co/ZKS5m32a6Q pic.twitter.com/O4tBwfZXOL
— HEROIC (@heroicgg) April 20, 2020
Niko is an old acquaintance, he was already part of the Heroic roster from 2016-18, before he played for North, Rogue and OpTic. His biggest successes are 3rd - 4th place at the IEM Katowice 2017 and a victory at the DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018.
The complete team now consists of Casper "cadiaN" Møller, Johannes "b0RUP" Borup, Martin "stavn" Lund, René "TeSeS" Madsen and Nikolaj "niko" Kristensen.
TYLOO
The Corona crisis continues to affect some teams in the Esports scene. TYLOO recently announced that WingHei "Freeman" Cheung and Seon-Ho "xeta" Son will be sent to the bench for the time being and replaced by Zhenghao "Danking" Lv and Kelun "SLOWLY" Sun.
Due to the global coronavirus situation and travel restrictions, we are making adjustments to our current active lineup. SLOWLY and Danking is stepping in for Freeman and Xeta, and will practice with the team to prepare for ESL One Road to Rio.
— TYLOO (@tyloogaming) April 21, 2020
After the team returned from their gaming house in the Ukraine, Xeta and Freeman are currently in quarantine in Hong Kong and South Korea respectively. The rest of the team is in quarantine in mainland China in a hotel. The trio in the hotel received computers to continue training for ESL One: Road to Rio - Asia. If and when Xeta and Freeman will return in TYLOO's CS:GO roster is not clear yet.
Bad News Bears
The roster, which made its debut in Flashpoint Season 1 under the FunPlus Phoenix banner, recently had to look for a replacement for Austin "crashies" Roberts, who left the roster to focus on Valorant.
Will "dazzLe" Loafman is now to replace crashies. He will be reunited with his former team mates Michael "dapr" Gulino and Jonathan "Jonji" Carey, from his time at Singularity and New Identity respectively.
ENCE Esports
After Astralis now also ENCE follows with a six-man roster. The organization announced to sign Elias "Jamppi" Oikkonen as sixth man.
Welcome to ENCE - Elias @Jamppicsgo Olkkonen We are taking a new step by moving to a six-man roster in CS:GO moving forward Full press release here: https://t.co/iQJogYpAj8#EZ4ENCE pic.twitter.com/jiGjurgw9N
— ENCE (@ENCE) April 21, 2020
Jamppi will strengthen the roster as a Free Agent and no current player has to leave the team. However, Sami "xseveN" Laasanen will be put on the bench for all upcoming matches not organized by Valve to give Jamppi a chance to prove himself. Jamppi is still banned from all tournaments organized by Valve due to a VAC ban on an account he is connected to. The fact that ENCE is signing him up anyway shows that they trust that Jamppi will be available for all tournaments again in the future.
Like Astralis, ENCE wants to take physical as well as psychological pressure off the players with a six-man roster and thus improve their performance.
Apeks
A week ago, the organization had already put Haakon "Radifaction" Tholo on the bench, as he had not been performing as well as he should have for a long time. Originally the coach Pal "Polly" Kammen was supposed to stand in for him, but now Dennis "dennis" Edman was announced as a stand-in for the upcoming Elisa Invitational.
We are happy to announce our team for the @ElisaEsports Qualifier:@GrusCSGO @akEzCS @truthcsgo_ @Marceliouscsgo @denniscsgod and @Pollycsgo!@denniscsgod will be a part of the team as of today and through the qualifier.Welcome! #WeAreApeksPhoto: @HLTVorg pic.twitter.com/yvtAqjfinV
— Apeks (@apeksgg) April 22, 2020
The already 29-year-old CS:GO player has been working as a Free Agent since the GamerLegion Roster was dissolved. We will see how Apeks will beat ENCE, GODSENT or North.
Hunter "SicK" Mims
SicK announced his intention to withdraw from CS:GO and concentrate fully on Valorant.
After 5 years and almost 800 official maps played, I'm taking a step back from competitive CS:GO. The game has become incredibly stale and tedious for me. Valorant comes at a perfect time but it was inevitable anyway. I've spent my entire adult life in this game, it's been fun.
— Hunter Mims (@SicK_cs) April 21, 2020
The 21-year-old has been active in the CS:GO professional scene for five years and played for teams such as TSM, Misfits, Rogue, and Complexity. After he was dismissed by Complexity, Sick had several appearances as a stand-in for different teams. His last gig was at Chaos as a stand-in for smooya at Flashpoint Season 1.
SicK says that CS:GO has become extremely boring for him and that Valorant makes a lot better. However, it might also play a role that SicK's form in CS:GO is not very promising at the moment.
Nevertheless, we wish him all the best for his career in Valorant.
Dota 2
Ninjas in pyjamas
Dota 2 legends Peter "ppd" Dager and Saahil "Universe" Arora both announced the end their Dota 2 careers.
Moving on - Retiring from competitive Dota 2Read: https://t.co/7mZ0mpALwk
— Peter Dager (@Peterpandam) April 20, 2020
RetirementRead: https://t.co/arwWHlRZqc
— Saahil Arora (@UniverseDota) April 23, 2020
Peter has achieved just about everything you can dream of in Dota 2 over the years, including first place at the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2015 and also The International 2015, and he was CEO of Evil Geniuses before joining Ninjas in Pyjamas in 2018. Universe was also part of the TI-winning line up of EG back in 2015 and he found further success in different teams after that.
Despite a legend like ppd as team captain, the NiP roster had a hard time, so it was disbanded after he left. Now NiP announced an entirely new Dota 2 roster.
Dota 2 Roster Update - A New Chapterhttps://t.co/MZkg93DwlM#GONINJAS #DOTA2 @betwaydota2 pic.twitter.com/QITW7FeDGP
— Ninjas in Pyjamas (@NIPGaming) April 22, 2020
The former Chicken Fighters Charlie "CharlieDota" Arat, Ondřej "Supream^" Štarha, Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek, Adrian "Era" Kryeziu and Akbar "SoNNeikO" Butaev will play for ninjas in pyjamas from now on. With Era, a player returns to NiP who was already part of the 2015 roster. We are curious how the new team will perform.
League of Legends
Team SoloMid
There were already rumors, which have now been confirmed: Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng will return to TSM
wait, what year is it? welcome back @TLDoublelift: https://t.co/g4IxQAPEae: https://t.co/JsGAhBMC5A pic.twitter.com/djqpB95TOr
— TSM (@TSM) April 26, 2020
Doublelift played four splits from 2018-2019 and two worlds in a row for Team Liquid. At the beginning of 2020 he talked about motivation problems and was a bit ailing, so he was put on the bench and replaced by Edward "Tactical" Ra. After several organizations had expressed interest in Doublelift, he decided to return to his old Team TSM. Here he is reunited with his former teammates Søren "Bjergsen" Berg and Vincent "Biofrost" Wang.
Liquid say goodbye with a video showing his greatest successes with the team:
"When you're good, you'll tell everyone. When you're great, they'll tell you."Thank you, Doublelift. pic.twitter.com/U0fx9gRjXn
— Team Liquid LoL (@TeamLiquidLoL) April 26, 2020
Doublelift still holds the LCS record for the most won championships with seven wins and is the first player to win LCS Championships with three different teams (CLG, TSM, Team Liquid).
It will be exciting to see if the League of Legends legend can collect more trophies from his old team.
Valorant
T1
As mentioned above, Austin "crashies" Roberts left the CS:GO roster of the Bad News Bears to concentrate on Riot Games new tactical shooter Valorant and it didn't take long until he found a new team.
We're adding our third member to the squad.Please welcome @Crashies to the T1 Valorant roster! #T1WIN pic.twitter.com/XKohyNVZBh
— T1 (@T1) April 24, 2020
T1 did not hesitate for long and signed crashies for their Valorant-Roster.Crashies is currently the third man in T1's team. Braxton "brax" Pierce was one of the first professionals signed for Valorant and also his former iBUYPOWER colleague Keven "AZK" Larivière is already signed for T1.
Who do you think will complete the team?
Those were the transfers of the last two weeks, time will show if the six-man rosters will prevail in CS:GO and who else will switch to Valorant. Those who haven't done so yet should definitely read the last part of the player transfers as the esports world is always changing.
