Vitality were the big story last time we had a big roster shuffle because, well, they signed dupreeh and Magisk. Like, actually. They did that. That wasn’t a fever dream.

It went as well as a lot of people expected.

‘Communication issues’ is the usual excuse that Vitality copium huffers go with, rather than a lack of firepower or role confusion that seems quite evident to us enlightened souls.

But they’ve decided to cut misutaaa. He’s been confirmed as a new member of Falcons, after Vitality decided he was the scapegoat who needed sacrificing. Spinx is the rumoured replacement, who is a huge firepower upgrade.

It would likely mean some other roles being shifted around, but Vitality’s roles were messy enough that that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Speaking of which… G2 Esports was quick to move on Aleksib, who remains teamless for now, and JACKZ, who ended up on HEET.

Their replacements? Well, HooXi became the replacement for Aleksib and will likely become the dedicated bottom fragger for the team. We’re so sure of this, because they swapped JACKZ for jks, reportedly. m0NESY, jks, NiKo, huNter. Talk about firepower.

There were murmurs that they were after tabseN and gob b to replace the IGL and coach, but BIG extended their contracts in response. They also released gade (we forgot he was there too, don’t worry) and swapped out tiziaN for k1to.

G2 were also rumoured to pick up another IGL; Snappi. If Spinx is going as expected, then it would make sense, but it seems ENCE are going to be able to hold on to the pieces they want to keep.

If ENCE are selling Spinx, it would explain how they were able to prize SunPayus away from Movistar Riders, supposedly. hades was moved to the bench, and SunPayus is supposed to be his replacement.

The Spaniard AWPer is a CT side machine, similar to Spinx, and replaces some of that outgoing firepower, albeit with a different flavour of gun.

The final big team to make changes - and we use that term lightly - to finish off a roster was fnatic. Their new-look team was rounded out by FASHR, an absolute demon. In tier two and three Counter-Strike, at least.

Rumoured finished rosters:

• Vitality: Spinx, apEX, ZywOo, Magisk, dupreeh
• G2 Esports: jks, m0NESY, NiKo, huNter-, HooXi
• ENCE: SunPayus, Snappi, Maden, Dycha, ??? (Spinx)
• fnatic: nicoodoz, KRiMZ, mezii, FASHR, roej
• BIG: tabseN, k1to, Krimbo, syrsoN, faveN

Now onto Tier 2: the North Americans — who are trying to get rid of as many north Americans as possible

EG have benched their inspirational leader Stewie2K (who deserves it) and RUSH (who didn’t really do anything — right or wrong).

In their place, they looked to Europe. The ever-unreliable Blix.gg linked them with Hooxi, which seemed like a good move, and nealaN, which seemed like a.. weird move. But was actually true.

The 22-year-old Kazakhstani IGL moves from K23, where he played with flukey Major winners like AdreN, and mou.

We can only presume, then, that he’s rubbing his hands together in anticipation for leading the even flukier Major-winner autimatic.

For the other spot, the Geniuses (ha) targeted flailing support player misuutaa, who apEX and Vitality are done playing with.

That was, until someone reminded them that they signed 10 players a month ago. North American players, who would let EG’s new sponsor fulfillment centre superteam skip the difficult EU RMR.

So, they got out their ‘BluEpRiNt’, shut their eyes, and picked out a random name.

The player they landed on was HexT. Not heard of him? Us neither.

We’ll help: here’s a photo of him with Ryan. Nothing else needs to be said **to ruin his rep.

Finally, EG needed a new coach, deciding on Copenhagen Flames’ old manager Vorborg.

Surprisingly, this seems like a fairly competent decision — old Vorborg is single-handedly responsible for the assembly of that falmes squad with all those major runs.

But let’s not get carried away. EG returned to their usual nonsense by signing stanislaw for their C-team, pairing him with RUSH after promoting HexT and removing star player CLASIA for good-old fashioned “out-of-server” issues.

17th time lucky, eh stan?

Complexity, meanwhile, have removed their bad American AWPer for a mediocre Norwegian one

Oh, and Liquid’s simping for YEKINDAR seems to have paid off; the Latvian has signed on for BLAST groups, with Jokasteve promising “long-term” news soon.

At least one fcker over the pond is making good moves.*

• In one of the weirdest moves of the window, shox moved to Apeks. One can only assume he misheard his agent and thought he said ‘apEX wants you’. He’ll be under the tutelage of STYKO, who is their new IGL.
• NBK has completed a move to Falcons, joining misutaaa. Just don’t ask where they got the money from, you’d rather not know :).
• MSL’s organisation went live with a name and a logo, as TITANS. Quite why they were so secretive is unknown, but it’s likely to do with the fact they used ClipArt for the logo, or something.
• Copenhagen Flames are going again with another new roster; this time with TMB, birdfromsky, raalz and regali and b0RUP on it. Can they repeat the heroics, or was dvorborg too integral?
• HEN1 has moved to MIBR. You might be asking yourself ‘why?’. We don’t have an answer for that, we’re just aware that that is probably what you’re thinking.
• He replaced the outbound chelo, who is taking fnx’s spot on Imperial. Surely that defeats the point of a last dance?
• Fluxo have entered the game with a felps-headlined Brazilian team. Us neither.
• sdy is staying on NaVi for a little bit, but we pretty much knew that anyway.
• AMANEK has found a home on LDLC.
• HAVU have announced a new roster, which doesn’t include Finnish legend allu - who has his own project called ‘JANO’.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Apparently just saying that isn’t enough for a story.

We’ve coming up to ten years of the greatest game of all time, and that has gone incredibly quickly. Largely as some of us only got involved half way through, so that ten years feels like… five years.

If you’re looking for a shot of nostalgia - or indeed, a whole friggin’ litre of the stuff - then it’s all over the place right now.

• HLTV’s long form articles on what happened in each year; starting with 2012.
• ESL are producing some videos on things that have happened throughout the years as well as some uber-sexy montage style videos.
• We’ve got some dope pictures coming out as well.

What better way to celebrate the ten year anniversary than to keep speculating on Source 2 - as has been tradition for every single year. There’s a whole bunch of people who have deluded themselves into thinking Valve are going to announce it for CSGO’s anniversary.

Instead, we’d prefer to just remember. Remember fnatic’s greatness, remember Astralis’ dominance, remember FaZe Cl- ah, never mind. We want to remember the Happy Deagle ace, the dupreeh Deagle ace, the NiKo deagle ace. Or the other NiKo deagle moment.

Here’s to another ten years of greatness. Happy birthday to the best game of all time.

🎭  Drama

• Apparently CLASIA was a bit of a buzzkill for EG.CD…
• Astralis were a tiny bit naughty and convened with HUNDEN to talk strats. It may not be forbidden, but it’s at least morally questionable.
• We love it when Carlos roasts himself. We love it even more when he roasts others by roasting himself.

🚀  Taking the game to another level

• Dosia and AdreN aren’t scared of defusing a bomb, even in real life.
• Imagine having to ask your teammate if they’re playing from a grocery store…
• The hardest level for any gamer: social interactions. Our tips are: be cool, be nice, and don’t - under any circumstances - tell her about your skin collection. Unless she asks about it. In that case, put a ring on it.
• If anything, don’t worry: even the biggest gamer out there - karrigan - got married eventually.
• And now boombl4 isn’t the only NAVI player with a mixtape. We’re pumping s1mple into our ears for all future DM sessions, it’s official.

🛠️⚠️  Updates and repairs

• You can’t have missed the rank recalibration update. Is this the Great Reset everyone’s been talking about?
• If you can’t figure out why Valve updated the ranks, here’s some rank distributions to help you along.
• ESIC tried fixing some of the slightly unfair coaching bans, but Valve won’t budge.
• Speaking of fixes: Valve could use Statman NER0’s work to figure out which positions on which maps might need a rework. Or it could just be an interesting read.